Cooking With Olive Oyl

Prime Buffet fortune cookie
Church Street - Hazleton, PA
Who knew that Confucius went through a Saturday morning cartoons phase?

Every Award All At Once

I don't usually care too much about awards shows, but I couldn't be happier with how this year's Oscars turned out.  In 1992, Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan worked together on Encino Man.  Thirty-one years later, the two were honored at the Academy Awards, with Mr. Fraser winning Best Actor for his performance in The Whale and Mr. Quan winning Best Supporting Actor for Everything Everywhere All At Once.

The hits continued for Everything Everywhere All At Once with two of my favorite actresses of all time winning their first Oscar - Jamie Lee Curtis for Best Supporting Actress, and Michelle Yeoh for Best Actress.

Everything Everywhere All At Once won a total of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.  I loved The Banshees Of Inisherin, but Everything Everywhere All At Once was absolutely deserving of all of the awards associated with it, and there was no one more deserving of Best Actor this year than Brendan Fraser.

You Can't Push Willy 'Round... Willy Won't Go

Willie P. Bananas
West Palm Beach Expos (1989-1997)
The video that I wrote about a couple of days ago reminded me of one of the best parts of going to see the West Palm Beach Expos when I was a kid, which was the team mascot.  He was a bright orange dancing gorilla named Willie P. Bananas.

West Palm Beach Expos promotional booklet  (1989)

In the winter before the start of the 1989 season, the West Palm Beach Expos hired a new general manager named Rob Rabenecker.  One of his first decisions with the new franchise was the introduction of a team mascot.  

top left: Palm Beach Daily News  (May 12, 1989)
top right:  Miami Herald  (May 29, 1989)
bottom:  West Palm Beach Expos program  (Summer 1991, pg 38)

Willie P. Bananas got his name from a young Palm Beach Gardens girl named Elizabeth McDonald, with a little help from her dad.  The mascot's initials, WPB, are the same as the initials of the city where the Single A affiliate of the Montreal Expos played their home games.  Willie's bright orange fur matches the hair of the parent club's mascot, Youppi.

top:  Sun Sentinel  (August 30, 1989)
bottom:  The Palm Beach Post  (June 16, 1994)

The person who brought Willie to life at the ballpark was a local 21 year old college sophomore named Marianne Carlisle.  She performed as the orange gorilla from 1989 through the end of the 1992 season before going on to graduate from the Burt Reynolds Institute For Theater Training in 1994.  Below are a few clippings from her work from the first year of Willie P. Bananas at the ballpark.  Click on them to enlarge them to a readable size.

Palm Beach Daily News  (May 12, 1989)

Tampa Bay Times  (June 28, 1989)

The Palm Beach Post  (July 16, 1989)

The Palm Beach Post  (August 1, 1989)

Sun Sentinel  (August 30, 1989)

The original Willie P. Bananas worked in theater for a number of years after moving on from the West Palm Beach Expos.  She is now a speech language pathologist in South Florida.

The Palm Beach Post  (August 14, 1994)

It seems like the team had a hard time filling the mascot's role after the departure of Ms. Carlisle.  The only other person that I found who was connected to Willie P. Bananas was a local 14 year old high school student named Brad Sclater.  In this interview from August 1994 he mentioned that he got the job because a friend of his didn't show up for work, and the article suggests that there were more than one performers who donned the orange gorilla costume over the 1993 and 1994 seasons.

Willie spent the game wandering around the ballpark meeting fans, playing games, and taunting the other team and the umpire, which once led to an ejection.  However, the thing that I'll always remember Willie for is dancing.  The character's trademark dance at every game (or at least every game that I went to) was to the song Little Willy by the 70's British glam rock band The Sweet.  I haven't seen Willie P. Bananas dance around to Little Willy since I was 13 years old until just a couple of days ago when I found a video that Bill Craib and Sue Easler shot on May 25th, 1991 as a part of their tour of every minor league ballpark in the country.  The part of the video with this song is just a few seconds long, but it brought back a flood of memories.

 

The only other video I found of Willie P. Bananas was shared by the woman behind the mask herself, and I'm pretty sure that it was from a game that I was in attendance for.  My dad and I went to see the West Palm Beach Expos play the Ft. Myers Miracle on August 20th, 1992 when I was 12 years old.  The special attraction during that game was a visit from a traveling mascot who is best known as the San Diego Chicken, but he was performing as The Famous Chicken at the time.

I recorded the news that night and have since uploaded the video to YouTube but the news crew didn't capture the epic dance battle between Willie P. Bananas and The Famous Chicken, so a huge thank you to Ms. Carlisle Salem for allowing me to experience this happy childhood memory again.

1989 Star - WPB Expos Team Set - Card #26

1990 Star - WPB Expos Team Set

1993 Fleer ProCards

1993 Classic Best - WPB Expos Team Set - Card #30

There were a few baseball cards that featured the big orange gorilla from West Palm Beach.  These are the four that I have in my collection, but mascot cards don't tend to get a lot of attention among collectors, so it's possible that there are others out there.

1991 West Palm Beach Expos game program (click here to enlarge the article)

1992 West Palm Beach Expos game program (click image to enlarge)

1993 West Palm Beach Expos game program (click image to enlarge)

Willie was front and center of most of the West Palm Beach Expos marketing, including the game programs.  The mascot also made quite a few appearances at festivals, fundraisers, and other community events.

 

Unfortunately, the reign of Willie P. Bananas was short lived.  He was the team's mascot for just nine seasons before the West Palm Beach Expos moved 15 miles north to the city of Jupiter after the 1997 season.  The franchise was renamed the Jupiter Hammerheads, and the Expos beloved orange gorilla was retired to make room for a new mascot named Hamilton R. Head (Ham R. Head... get it?).  The Hammerheads continued to be the Single A affiliate of the Montreal Expos until the end of the 2001 season.  They became the affiliate of the Florida Marlins in 2002, and they continue to be the Marlins representative in the Florida State League to this day.

Even though the mascot's time was short, it's a character that I'll always think of when I remember the years that I spent in South Florida.  I lived there in the early 90's and haven't been back since 1995, so I've never known a Florida without the cozy little ballpark on Hank Aaron Drive.  It was home to a team of kids who were just getting their baseball careers started, a big fuzzy dancing orange gorilla, and a lot of very happy memories of a time when I had my whole life ahead of me.

Mac Money

Mac Tonight Coins
McDonald's (1988)
If you can find a time machine that will take you back 35 years, or maybe a fast food cashier with a love for 80's nostalgia, you can cash these in for a breakfast sandwich at the Golden Arches.

The Ballpark On Hank Aaron Drive

Municipal Stadium

755 Hank Aaron Drive - West Palm Beach, FL
Earlier this week, I found a video on YouTube from a series called the Low Mileage Tour which chronicles an adventure that was taken in 1991 by Bill Craib and Sue Easler, who were the first people to ever attend a baseball game at every active minor league ballpark in a single season.

By the time the '91 season was over, Bill and Sue had been to 199 games at 178 different ballparks over a span of 209 days.  The 50th ballpark that they visited was the place where I attended my first game - Municipal Stadium in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The couple brought a video camera with them to document each of the ballparks that they stopped at.  Their visit to Municipal Stadium took place on May 25th, 1991 to see a game between the affiliates of both Canadian MLB teams that existed at the time: the West Palm Beach Expos and the Dunedin Blue Jays.

This video was shot just a month before I saw my first game at this ballpark, so it looks exactly as I remember it.  Seeing this brought back a flood of happy memories of times that my dad and I spent here.

Tickets to a West Palm Beach Expos game in 1991 cost $4 for reserved box seats and $3 for general admission.  It was a cozy little ballpark without a bad seat in the house, so we always got the three dollar tickets, and we always sat in the same exact seats - the top row in the corner of the first base side.

 

The thing that looks like a tent roof that the arrow is pointing to in this screenshot is the fastball game.  Here's how it worked:  You would pay a dollar and you'd get three baseballs to pitch to a backstop area.  There was a radar gun set up that would tell you how fast each of your pitches are.  You'd throw the first two and see how fast they were.  After that, you had to guess the speed of your third pitch and then throw the third ball.  If you guessed correctly, you won a plastic souvenir helmet.  It was a pretty nice prize to win for a buck.  They were large enough to fit on my head, but they're made from thin plastic so they wouldn't provide any actual protection like a proper batting helmet would, but they looked nice sitting on the dresser in my bedroom.  I didn't win every time, but I know that I won at least three times because I had a Phillies, Expos and Marlins helmet.  In fact, I still have the Marlins one.  It's still sealed in the bag with the gold MLB 125th Anniversary logo on it, which means that I must have won that one in 1994.

One more happy memory I wanted to mention was the West Palm Beach Expos mascot.  He was an orange dancing gorilla that shared the same initials with the city that he represented: Willie P. Bananas.  Seeing him on the video led me down a rabbit hole of research that warrants a post of its own, so I'll write more about him another time.

Let's Get Some Ink And Hallucinate For A Few Hours

Sonic The Hedgehog temporary tattoo
Cracker Jack (1993)

It seemed like there were dozens of snack foods that came packaged with a free temporary tattoo when I was growing up in the 80's and 90's.  I remember coming home with one on my arm when I was in elementary school and my mother throwing a fit because she was convinced that they they were spiked with LSD.  Hey mom... they were fun, but they weren't THAT fun.

It's Been Lion Around The Kitchen For A While

Domino Sugar 'N Cinnamon
The Amstar Corporation (1970's)
My dad found this Sugar and Cinnamon shaker in his kitchen cupboard last time I was at his house.  My grandmother bought it when my father was still a kid and she gave it to him at some point before she passed away.  Three ounces must go a long way in my family because this thing is going on fifty years old and it still had some cinnamon sugar inside.

In Defense Of Diamond Dame

Creed III
Regal Cinema - Hazleton, PA

Normally, I try to avoid spoilers when I write about a movie, but it's unavoidable if I want to get my thoughts out while they're still fresh in my mind.  Consider this your spoiler warning.  If you don't want to know what happens, stop reading now and come back to this post after you've seen the movie.

I don't blame Damian Anderson for anything that he did in this movie... not a single thing.

That's not the same thing as calling him the hero of the story, and I'm also not saying that Adonis Creed is the villain.  However, I will say that I understand every single action taken by Diamond Dame in this movie, and I'd go so far as to say that he was justified in everything that he did.  I can understand most of the reasons why Creed did what he did as well... all except one.

Let's start the recap from when the two men were teenagers

• Adonis attacked Leon, who was the man that abused him when he was a little boy.  I get that.  It may not have been a smart idea, but it's absolutely justifiable.

• Damian pulled a gun to protect Adonis when he was getting beaten down.  Adonis was like a brother to him, so I get that too.  Totally justifiable.

• Adonis got scared and ran away when the cops came.  Ok, I can accept that.  He was very young and it's a pretty damn scary situation.

Damian got arrested and spent the next 18 years in jail, and while none of this would have happened if Adonis didn't start that fight, I'm not going to say that either man was to blame.  It was a crazy situation that neither man planned for.  It just happened, and both of them had good reason for what they did.

Here's where I start to lay blame:  After the heat of the moment died down, Adonis could have gone to the police station to defend Damian.  He could have come clean and admitted that he started a fight, it got out of hand, and Damian only pulled out his gun (without ever firing it) to save him.  Yeah, he might have gone to juvy on an assault charge, and Damian would have still gone to jail, but I'm thinking there's a pretty good chance that he wouldn't have served almost 20 years on a weapons charge if Damian was able to present a full defense of what happened.

However, let's set that aside.  Let's say that no matter what Adonis did, Damian was destined to spend the next 18 years behind bars as a result of what happened that night.  He still should have checked on him.  He could have gone to visit, or written him a letter, or even just stopped in to say thank you for saving his ass.  Adonis just left him to rot in jail.  I can maybe understand why he didn't go visit him right away... he was just a kid after all... but for the next 18 years, he didn't think to check in on a man that was like a brother to him?  After he made millions of dollars in boxing, he couldn't maybe hire an attorney to see what they could do to help Dame out?

So...Dame finally gets out of jail and trying to get his life together, which is one of the most difficult things that anybody can do.  He was a Golden Gloves boxer who has a second chance at his dream, so he works to achieve it.  He reconnects with Adonis and starts training at his gym to prepare for his career.

Dame asks Adonis for a championship fight against his protege and the current heavyweight champion, Felix Chavez.  This is an unrealistic request, and I think Dame knows this but he still decides to give it a shot before he takes any other actions to reach his goal.  After all, Rocky was fighting a bunch of no-name boxers in front of a crowd of about 50 people in small Philadelphia gyms, AND he had 20 losses on his record when Apollo gave him a shot at the title.  The prescient has been set that this can happen in this film universe.  If Creed's father could give a shot to a guy he didn't even know, surely Adonis could pull some strings to do the same for a man that was like a big brother to him.  But Adonis says no, which leaves Dame to put Plan B into action.

• Dame's friends start a fight with Viktor Drago, which injures the Russian boxer and leaves him unable to compete.  Is this a good thing to do?  Of course not, but they didn't permanently injure him, and it was the only way to guarantee that Felix would have no one to face for his upcoming title defense.

• This puts Dame in position to take the fight on short notice, and while he absolutely fights dirty, that is a part of the sport.  Dame is older, untested, and has had far less training and less money behind him to prepare him for this fight, and he knew that this was his one and only shot at a title.  If he wins this fight, he will etch his name into professional boxing history and transition from a life behind bars to a life of money and success.  He is fighting for his life.  He didn't do enough in the ring to get disqualified.  He did what he had to do to win.

• After winning the fight, he has a confrontation with Creed that results in a punch to the face, Dame starts talking smack about him to the media.  Frankly, who could blame the guy?  First of all, fighters talking smack about each other in the media is part of the sport, and it led to a massive payday in The Battle Of Los Angeles.  Besides, he saved Creed's ass which cost him 18 years of his life, only to be abandoned and forgotten.  All things considered, Adonis is getting off light with a punch in the mouth and a little smack talking.

Does all of these things make "Diamond" Damian Anderson the hero of Creed III?  Of course not... but it would be unfair to call him the villain.  He did what he had to do to take care of himself... no more, no less.  If Adonis has stayed his friend all those years, Dame's act of betrayal wouldn't be easy to justify, but Adonis forgot about him completely.  By the start of this movie, Dame doesn't owe Adonis anything.

I'm not calling Adonis the villain of the story either,  I understand the reasoning behind most of his actions too, but if we're meant to fairly judge the actions of both men in this story, Dame's actions are more understandable to me than Creed's... and that's what makes this a damn good movie.  You can see both sides of the story here and make up your own mind.

My only problems with the movie were the CGI in the final fight (you'll know what I mean when you see it), and the relatively good shape that both men are in after the final fight is over.  The beginning of Rocky II is what two fighters look like after going to war with each other, but at the end of Creed III, Adonis looked like he was ready to take his wife out dancing.  Neither of these things ruined the movie or anything, but they were eye rollers.

This is a solid chapter in the Rocky / Creed saga.  If you're a fan of the other movies in the series like I am, there's a lot to love about Creed III.

Look Forward To A Future In The Past

The Hurting
Tears For Fears (1983)
One of my favorite albums ever recorded is turning 40 years old today.  The debut album from Tears For Fears was released on March 7th, 1983.  It's a record that I have a deeper appreciation for every time that I listen to it.

The video above is a playlist of the entire album.  If you've never listened to it before, there's no time like the present.  I can't think of a record that captures what it felt like for me growing up as closely as The Hurting.  However, if you only have time to listen to one song, click below to listen to Suffer The Children.

Suffer The Children

Tears For Fears (1983)

It's a sad affair

When there's no one there

He calls out in the night

And it's so unfair

At least it seems that way

When you gave him his life

And all this time it's been getting you down

You ought to pick him up when there's no one around

And convince him

Just talk to him

Cause he knows in his heart you won't be home soon

He's an only child in an only room

And he's dependent on you

And it seems so strange

That at the end of the day

Making love can be so good

But the pain of birth

What is it worth

When it don't turn out the way it should

And all this time it's been getting you down

You ought to pick him up when there's no one around

And convince him

Just talk to him

Cause he knows in his heart you won't be home soon

He's an only child in an only room

And he's dependent on you

Suffer... suffer the children

Abide

The Abide Guide
Oliver Benjamin and Dwayne Eutsey (2011)
On this, the 25th annual celebration of The Day Of The Dude, I wish you a day of peace and tranquility.  Take it easy, maybe listen to some Creedence, and curl up with a good book.

The Strangest Trade In Baseball History

Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich
New York Yankees (1973)

There have been some pretty weird trades in the history of baseball.  Some have been lop-sided.  Some have changed the course of a franchise or have been cited as the reason for a curse.  Some players have even been traded for themselves.  But there has been no stranger trade ever been made in baseball, or in any other sport, than the arrangement made between these two left handed pitchers for the New York Yankees.

Fifty years ago today, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich announced to the media that over the previous summer, the two men traded lives with each other.

New York Daily News  (March 6, 1973)

Fritz Peterson, Marilyn Peterson, Mike Kekich and Susanne Kekich decided as a group that the two men would literally replace one another in each other's lives.  Fritz and Marilyn divorced, as did Mike and Suzanne, after which point Fritz got together with Suzanne and Mike started a relationship with Marilyn.  However, this arrangement wasn't limited to a simple wife swap; Fritz and Mike traded wives, children, homes, cars, and even their pets.

The relationship between Mike and Marilyn didn't last.  In fact, it was over before the announcement of this arrangement was ever made public, but Fritz and Suzanne got married and are still together to this day, over fifty years later.

New York Daily News  (March 6, 1973)

Uncle Rico's Days Of Arcade Royalty

Joysticks
Jensen Farley Pictures (1983)

One of the most ridiculously cheesy movies that I've ever seen premiered in theaters 40 years ago today.

Joysticks is the kind of slapstick comedy that makes me glad that I grew up in the 80's.  Society has gotten far too uptight to allow something like this to be made today, but the only people who would complain about Joysticks back in 1983 was the church crowd, and they were far too busy crying on daytime talk shows over the dangers of "devil music" to raise too much of a fuss.

The movie opens with a montage of scenes at a California video arcade with the cheesiest theme song to a motion picture that you are ever going to hear in your life.  These first two minutes tell you everything you need to know to make your decision on whether or not you want to keep watching.  If you're the type of person who tends to take everything seriously, this movie probably isn't for you.  However, if you're a more relaxed type of person who can have a good time with things that are silly for the sake of being silly, this flick is an absolute gold mine.

If you didn't know that it came out in March 1983, you might think that this is a parody of an 80's flick.  All of the cliche characters are present and accounted for:

The hero of the film is Jefferson Bailey, who is the grandson of the arcade's owner.  He's played by Scott McGinnis, who is known to Trekkies as a young Starfleet lieutenant nicknamed "Mr. Adventure" who learns to be careful about what he wishes for after mouthing off to Commander Uhura in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.

In this film, Mr. Bailey manages the arcade and is the object of all of the female customers' affection.

There's a dozen women (give or take) who hang out at the arcade and look for any excuse to take their tops off.

There's a rich valley girl (played by Lancaster's own Corinne Bohrer from Zapped and Police Academy 4) who loves the arcade...

...and the villain of the film is her father who's working to get the arcade shut down after he finds his daughter hanging out there.  He was played by Walking Tall star Joe Don Baker.

There's the hero's best friend, Dorfus, who spends a good portion of the movie eating, farting, or playing arcade games...

...and the hero's nerdy friend, who is sometimes the butt of their joke, but still one of the gang.

The villain has his own sidekicks in the form of his two dopey nephews.  The one on the left is John Voldstad, who is probably best known as one of the Darryl's from Newhart.  The one on the right with the Swamp Thing comic is John Diehl, who was Lieutenant Kawalsky in Stargate and Cooper in Jurassic Park 3.

But the characters who steal the show are a gang of video game-loving punk rockers called The Vidiots.  They're like the junior varsity version of The Scullions from Police Academy 2.

Calling these folks a gang is over-selling the danger that they bring to the plot.  They're basically cartoons characters that have come to life.  Their leader in the leather jacket is King Vidiot.  He's responsible for at least half of the quotable lines from this movie.  Just take this exchange between he and Mr. Rutter, the rich middle-aged villain who is trying to get the arcade shut down.

King Vidiot is played by the absolutely brilliant comic actor Jon Gries.  If his name isn't ringing any bells for you, perhaps you'll recognize him from one of his roles from 2004...

That's right... 21 years before he ruined Napoleon Dynamite's life and ate all of his steak, Uncle Rico was the punk rock gamer who likes to hang out in public bathrooms, King Vidiot.

King Vidiot is upset that he and his gang were not invited to a private party that was being held at the arcade after closing time, and so he challenged Jefferson to a game of Satan's Hollow to win the right of The Vidiots to stay for the party.  Jefferson doesn't play video games (for reasons that have yet to be explained at this point in the plot), so he is represented in this challenge by Dorfus.

The contest takes place in a section of the arcade called The Arena which allows two players to compete against each other using massive joysticks.  The game screen is high in the air, which allows everyone to watch the players' progress and to cheer on their side.

 

Our heroes face a constant threat of having their arcade shut down by Mr. Rutter, who throws every dirty trick in the book at them throughout the film.  When nothing else works, Rutter employs King Vidiot to represent him in a video game challenge against Jefferson Bailey.  If Bailey wins, Rutter will back off from his attempts to have the arcade shut down, but if King Vidiot wins, the arcade must close their doors for good.

The game that was chosen for the final battle was Super Pac-Man.  This was a brand new game at the time, so a lot of the gamers who went to see Joysticks in the theater were seeing it for the first time.  It went on to become the top earning game in arcades by May 1983.

Six years later, Nintendo used a similar strategy to introduce their newest game to fans.  The 1989 movie The Wizard ends with a competition between three kids who played Super Mario Bros. 3 on giant monitors in front of a cheering crowd.  Most of the gamers who saw The Wizard in theaters got to see the newest Mario adventure for the first time in much the same way as moviegoers experienced Super Pac-Man for the first time in 1983.

 

left: The Fresno Bee - Fresno, CA  (March 4, 1983)
right: Daily Press - Newport News, VA  (March 4, 1983)

Joysticks premiered in theaters on March 4th, 1983.  It made just under $4 million at the box office, but that's not bad when you consider that it was made for an estimated $300k.  While I was looking for advertisements that ran in the newspaper to promote the film, I was struck by the fact that some of them had taken a few creative liberties with the movie poster.  Compare the ad on the left from California, which shows the ladies as they appear in the poster, with the ad on the right from Virginia, in which they're wearing skirts which look suspiciously like they were drawn on at the last minute.  I guess not every prude in 1983 was spending all their free time protesting heavy metal concerts.

The movie was released on VHS where it became a mainstay at video rental stores, which is how I saw it for the first time.  In the years that followed, it was released on DVD and Bluray, the latter of which came out in 2013 to celebrate the movie's 30th anniversary.  If you'd like to watch it tonight on its 40th anniversary, you can stream Joysticks for free on Tubi and Pluto.