The Terrible Catsafterme

I remember when I first saw the 1983 documentary Amos ‘n’ Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy, I spotted a very familiar face being interviewed. That was a little bit before my time of actually wondering and considering what had become of those sitcom actors in old TV shows that I would watch. Even though I had already met a handful of Laurel and Hardy co-stars and Our Gang members, I assumed that my brushes with fame would probably end there. Who would have thought that I’d be getting autographs, sometimes actually corresponding, and even more out of the realm of possibility, meeting these television icons. Read the rest of this entry »

As we speak right now, if you were to look on Wikipedia at the “List of Surviving Silent Film Actors,” you would find only 13 confirmed names. This list is of course dynamic, so it is going to change for some readers of this posting, but at the current moment you would find right smack in the middle of this list Lassie Lou Ahern. Lassie appeared in six of the earliest Our Gang comedies in 1923 and 1924, returning for a brief appearance in their 1926 short Thundering Fleas, which also starred Oliver Hardy. Read the rest of this entry »

It had been a fun couple of days with Jimmy and David at Disney and visiting the M*A*S*H location, but the real reason I had made the trek to California this time was to attend Laurel and Hardywood, the 19th International Convention of the Sons of the Desert. It had been a series of long roads, starting with the two-year road it had been for Bob since he bid on and was given the 2014 convention on behalf of his tent 45 Minutes from Hollywood. For the most part he did 90% of the work in coordinating the convention, but I and others had had our roles too, and over the course of the past two years, I had been pretty busy with convention website updates, sizing photos, writing and editing text, and managed the autograph fundraiser. Read the rest of this entry »

In about five years, I’ll be able to say that I’ve been part of the Sons of the Desert organization for 5/6ths of my life. That is pretty crazy in itself. As a lifelong devotee and student of the club, I’ve gotten to know five names pretty darn well: John McCabe, the club’s founder, and Al Kilgore, Chuck McCann, Orson Bean, and John Municino, the club’s founding members. Of the five, only four have really had any degree of fame: McCabe as writer (most notably as biographer of Laurel & Hardy), Kilgore as artist (he even drew the escutcheon for the Sons), and Chuck McCann and Orson Bean as actors. John Municino, swell guy that he probably was, would be the least likely to be a household name. In fact, I dare say his greatest claim to fame was that his name appeared in the Sons constitution as one of the founders. And now, he is the only one of the five whom I never met – and sadly never will. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard to believe that 2014 saw me meeting more newly discovered members of the Our Gang than any year since 1980. Of course the Sons of the Desert convention in Hollywood this summer solidified that, and that record probably would have stood had I not met any more this year. After all, the chances of running into Dickie Moore or Annie Ross in New York were very slim, and since I didn’t plan any further trips to Hollywood, I had absolutely no reason to think I’d meet any more. But fate has always been generous with me when it comes to this topic… Read the rest of this entry »