Gangnam Style – the world’s most viewed video sensation

What was the magic formula that made this K-pop video so irresistible around the world – with viewers that don’t even speak a word of Korean? We can safely assume this song would never have penetrated non-Korean markets without the captivating, absurdly addictive imagery accompanying that catchy beat, and those unforgettable horsey dance moves. But there’s more to it than that; this video is so extra enjoyable because it pokes fun at some of the tropes (e.g. consumerism, materialism, and sexism) that permeate so much of contemporary popular music – humor that most viewers can recognize and appreciate – not to mention the satirical commentary on Korean society that gets lost in translation. With unprecedented room to experiment and access to so many different viewers, Psy and others show us that music videos have found a new calling on the Internet – a postmodern medium that lends itself so easily to cheeky, self-reflexive, ironic content. Enter the satirical, funny, music video.

I’m On A Boat – possibly the best song ever about being on a boat

To a casual listener, satirical songs often sound a lot like any other mainstream song; they might be catchy, danceable, radio-friendly, easy to sing along to, and occasionally auto-tuned as hell. If you don’t pay close attention to the lyrics (or if you do, but miss the joke), the songs can easily masquerade as something created by any other popular musician or rapper. They’re often designed this way because part of the fun comes in mocking the characteristics of the musical genre itself, in addition to the tongue-in-cheek social commentary and humor found in the lyrics and music video footage. For example, Lonely Island’s I’m On a Boat, which ridicules extravagant rap culture (and those who have bling versus those who don’t), had quite the impact on fans and industry alike. The song was actually nominated for a Grammy – not for a comedy award, but in a “real music” category: Rap/Sung Collaboration (they understandably lost to Jay-Z and Kanye West).

The music video is one tool that helps satirical artists and musical comedians visualize their humor, making it more accessible, more memorable, and even funnier than the song by itself. The Fox, one of the biggest viral hits of the past year, and one of the most viewed videos on YouTube with 430 million views, does just that. The team behind this hilarious and weirdly addictive musical phenomenon is Ylvis, a Norwegian comedy act and variety show (Tonight With Ylvis) performed by brothers Vegard and Bård Ylvisåker. They wrote a song that is literally about animal sounds and a mythical tribute to the [previously] unsung mysteries of the fox, which doesn’t have a classic storybook sound of its own. The professionally produced video features furries socializing at a party, a laser-light dance act in the forest, a CGI fox bouncing around and chanting, and the Ylvisåker brothers’ moodily pondering over the truth of the fox’s sound.

The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) – unlocking one of the greatest mysteries of our time

So what makes this silly video pure satirical genius? Well, the whole thing was meant as a joke to use on their talk show but it completely backfired. The Ylvisåker brothers intended the music video to be a flop in the US, but it propelled them to overnight worldwide success instead. The irony of this situation is in the unexpected popularity of a video that was designed to fail. Perhaps millions of viewers just have bad taste, or maybe Ylvis tapped into an important question regarding nostalgic childhood fantasies and re-creating those enchanting questions we cynically give up on with age, that resonated with fans. (What does the fox say, anyway?)

In addition to often being funny, satire music has a unique ability to probe those deeper questions about life, bringing an extra layer of self-reflexive pleasure to the listening experience. The artists behind these videos, such as Jon Lajoie, The Lonely Island, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Bart Baker, and others, who are usually comedians first and musicians second, have a knack for exploiting the framework of music consumption by poking holes in our everyday lived experience and question the power structures we often take for granted. Lajoie is a master of tackling topics that cause viewers to question their role in a consumerist society. He struck a chord with internet audiences in Everyday Normal Guy, one of his earliest and most successful videos to this day, where he adapts rap formula to hit an unconventional topic for rap music: mundanity. It’s refreshing to hear a song about real, boring life, when most pop music is often so glamorous and escapist.

Everyday Normal Guy – because being boring is not a crime

Videos go viral because they hook their viewers with something special that makes them worth sharing. Satire music videos surprise us and entertain us, while at the same time creating a space for self-reflective dialogue, and artists are eager to capitalize on the power of satire. Thus, the line between comedic music (jokes told through song) and mainstream music trying to be funny is increasingly blurred. It’s no coincidence then that at least a few of the most viewed videos on YouTube incorporate satire to some extent, such as Gangnam Style, The Fox, and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s Thrift Shop, which satirizes typical rap and different cultural subgroups (namely vintage-wearing white hipsters who ball like club-hopping gangstas) and raises questions about consumerism (why do we brag about spending so much or so little). The rise of satirical music videos both as a comedian-driven genre and as a cheeky addition to “mainstream” music are a sign of the times and viewer demand for extra layers of pleasure and reflection in the media they consume: the clever, alongside the ridiculous.

Photo Credit
Screen Cap from Gangnam Style
Screen Cap from The Fox

Guest Author Bio

Jessica Lindal and Hingman Leung
We are a comedy music-loving duo currently studying public culture for our Master of Arts program at Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC, Canada. By day, Hingman Leung is professional paper pusher in Ottawa and Jessica Lindal is an exchange student wrangler in Calgary.

For more satirical musical fun, check out our piece on 5 Hilarious Hit Songs That Stick It To The Man

Follow us: Jessica on Twitter | Hingman on Twitter

If you’re a child of the 80s or 90s, chances are you spent a significant amount of your after-school hours gobbling up the latest chart-topping music videos on MTV. With help from music videos like Michael Jackson’s Thriller (which was recently acknowledged for its pivotal role in American film history), the network played a significant role in changing music video culture – from straight footage of bands singing to the more complex visual dramas we enjoy today. MTV’s legacy was bringing together a perfect storm of visual style, popular music, and youth culture.

And as long as there have been music videos to feed the music industry, there have been satirists eager to make fun of the formulas that have emerged from pop culture, subtly criticizing the social rules that music videos reinforce for consumers. “Weird Al” Yankovic – the undisputed king of parody music – released “Eat It” as a single with accompanying video in 1984, parodying Jackson’s “Beat It” which was released the year before. For the song, Yankovic earned a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording. “Weird Al” had managed to stay on top of the genre and make a career out of it, going on to win again in 2004, and nominated an additional seven times, with the most recent nomination being in 2012 for Apocalypse.

“Weird Al” channeling all of our tuna casserole
and boiled chicken childhood fears in Eat It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI

Why has comedy-satire music video gained such popularity through the MTV generation and onwards to the YouTube generation? By exaggerating pop culture phenomenon and referencing musical and visual formulas that we have grown used to, “Weird Al” has provided us with a new way of looking at ourselves and the strange perceptions that we blindly accept. For example, in White and Nerdy two apparently opposing cultures (nerd culture and rap culture) are cast together to poke fun at our adherence to codes of behaviour.

“Weird Al” in White and Nerdy

These days, the perfect storm of music video culture and its satirists have moved on to the digital age. While we weren’t paying attention, internet killed the video star. YouTube has ridden on the coattails of early internet pioneers like Myspace, and not only changed the way we consume music videos, but has also given another avenue for artists to distribute their craft.

A tongue-in-cheek look at the internet in the context of musicians,
as performed by Evelyn Evelyn, a conjoined twin act by Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley.

While “Weird Al” first popularized the genre of comedy-satire music video, The Lonely Island, a sketch-comedy satire-music group – made up of Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg, and Jorma Taccone – has taken over the digital waves. Gaining mainstream popularity thanks to the trio’s multi-year writing gig (and Samberg’s performing stint) on Saturday Night Live, The Lonely Island had formidably expanded the reach of the genre to the mainstream hip hop audience. We have this troupe to thank for their viral hit (before viral was even a thing), Lazy Sunday, an overnight success that had changed the landscape of YouTube forever.

Grantland’s Hyden praised The Lonely Island for their ability to set their social commentary and critique of hip-hop culture within “an affectionate homage that doesn’t threaten to usurp the artists they’re cribbing from.” The power of satire-comedy music videos as demonstrated by The Lonely Island lies in its ability to pleasantly disarm us towards self reflection and critique.

Bootleg video of Lonely Island’s Lazy Sunday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0J6L55d1Qo

But when it comes to staying power, “Weird Al” is still the reigning champion. Why has “Weird Al” been able to stand the test of time with a thirty year career and an inter-generational fan base? “Weird Al” had shown us that regardless of time period, the combination of comedy, satire, music, and absurd videos keep surprising us and pointing out the ridiculousness of the music industry. It has paved the way for other musical satirist comedians like The Lonely Island and Jon Lajoie in the digital age, amongst scores of amateurs and YouTubers, feeding our appetite for more entertaining mockery.

Now, YouTubers like Hanna Hart are leading the new wave of comedy-satire music videos, and we leave you with this gem.

Oh Internet, a love song by Hanna Hart of My Drunk Kitchen fame

In part two, we’ll take at a look at the mass appeal of satire music including some of the world’s most insanely popular online videos.

Photo Credit
Thumbnail is a Screen Cap from White and Nerdy

Guest Author Bio

Jessica Lindal and Hingman Leung
We are a comedy music-loving duo currently studying public culture for our Master of Arts program at Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC, Canada. By day, Hingman Leung is professional paper pusher in Ottawa and Jessica Lindal is an exchange student wrangler in Calgary.

For more satirical musical fun, check out our piece on 5 Hilarious Hit Songs That Stick It To The Man

Follow us:  Jessica on Twitter | Hingman on Twitter

When we arrived at the rental dock, my trusty two-for-one coupon in hand (perhaps that should have been a clue?), we were greeted by a very small, but very cute boy who appeared to be about 10 or 11 years old. He claimed to be in charge. Yikes.

He informed us how much he made per week as an employee, not as a family member, and I quickly did the math. He made more in a week than I had made in a year when I worked for money at his age. Okay. Progress. I’m good with that. And he did seem to know his way around the place.

Said child hooked us up with life jackets and paddles and I instantly noticed my particular PFD (personal flotation device) appeared to be on loan from the local marine museum whereas my husband’s was shiny, new and half the weight of mine. I was not worried. I can swim.

As our appointed vessels were dragged to the loading dock, I looked around, wondering where the child was that was going to be taking the baby-sized kayak out. And where was MY kayak? Was the boy/employee going with us even though I hadn’t booked a guided trip? No, he informs us – that little one is for you, lady.

I looked on with horror as he pointed to the very skinny kayak with the very tiny hole, known as a cockpit, in which I was supposed to lower my middle-aged booty. I’m not gargantuan but I’m a long way from the hip-less, skinny 20 year old I once was. As I was protesting the size of the cockpit in the kayak, I thankfully noticed a full-sized human being approaching us, asking if we needed help.

Yes, I said. This kayak is way too small for me and I don’t see a rudder? I need a rudder I think. It’s getting kind of choppy out there. But the first issue is that there is NO WAY I’m going to fit into that kayak……unless you happen to have some axle grease with you for my hips, perhaps?

I was answered with a tolerant, although pained smile as he assured me I’d be fine. I was to “hop in” (yeah, right), open the skeg and he would push me off…..into the cold, shark-infested waters, embraced by a darkening sky and increasingly wind-swept surface. I’m not exaggerating.

“What’s a skeg? I’d prefer a rudder,” I grunted as I tried to gracefully lower myself into the cockpit/boa constrictor’s hold. No way was this─in any way, shape or form─going to be graceful. I hoped the bulky, archaic life jacket I was wearing would provide me with some camouflage as my hips protested against the unforgiving confines of the minute circle they were supposed to pass through. Honestly, it was like squeezing a tube of toothpaste from the bottom. The bulk kept moving up until my legs felt like bloodless, skinny chicken appendages in the dark confines of the bottom of the kayak. Suddenly there was an audible swishing/snapping sound as the waterproof material on my pants surrounding my hips was finally forced through. My butt hit the bottom of the seat with a resounding smack and the little kayak rocked in protest.

The grown up on the dock was barely concealing his amusement. Were they doing this to me on purpose? Isn’t that considered bullying? I made a mental note to call my therapist – should I actually manage to return from this trip alive. Mr. Amused-Kayak-Rental-Guy adjusted my skeg, quickly giving me some vague idea of how it worked, and pushed me off into what I was sure would be my final resting place. If I did manage to do a tip-over out there in the drink, there was no way this kayak was going to release me from its stronghold. My surviving loved ones would need to arrange for an extra large coffin to accommodate my permanent appendage.

My husband was happily paddling his way out into the chuck (in his rudder-equipped, brand new model of course) as I tried to figure out how to get circulation back into my legs, turn the kayak with what was already proving to be a dysfunctional, un-moveable skeg and recover somewhat from my bruised dignity. I had figured out enough to come to terms that the skeg was going to be my worst enemy as it appeared to be half way down which would turn me crosswind – not a good place to be for stability as the skinny piece of fiberglass on which I was basing my survival repeatedly attempted to tip me into the water. Now I know, in my heart of hearts, the Amused-Kayak-Rental-Guy, his tiny employee and this skeg-dysfunctional death trap I was in were in cahoots. What had I ever done to them?

I was determined to make the best of it and valiantly paddled after my husband, not exactly as the crow flies mind you, but more like a drunken cowboy who can’t decide whether to stay on his horse or fall off. I fought the growing waves, throwing out all kinds of prayers to my Higher Presence, and we finally managed to find a quiet inlet to rest my aching shoulders. I examined the skeg adjustment on the side of the kayak and determined it was definitely jammed – there was no making the return trip any easier. So I put up another plea for calmer seas on the way home.

After a lovely hour of surveying nature, counting jellyfish and negotiating with a seal that looked like he knew I would be an easy target for some mid-afternoon dunking, we made our way back. My prayers were answered. As we rounded the corner, we caught a break in the wind and I put my back, shoulders and forearms into a pace akin to pirate ship ramming-speed before the storm picked up again.

As I wiggle-waggled across the sea water, a character in a small fishing boat, wearing a ludicrous hat, waved gaily at me as I paddled furiously past him. I don’t think he was smiling just to be friendly. He was obviously as amused as his dog who was sitting at the front of his boat……who was actually grinning at me in a sneaky canine kind of way – dogs can be so smug. I soldiered on.

Just as I thought my day of frustration and humiliation was behind me, we arrived back at the dock to discover I was NOT getting out of this kayak without a cherry-picker or crane of some kind. My lack of blood flow to my legs and my wet butt securely wedged in the obviously shrinking cockpit ensured I was stuck. My husband tried to stifle his amusement (and embarrassment I’m sure), when I haughtily asked for his assistance in prying me out of this sardine can. As my paralyzed bottom and extremities struggled out of the python’s….I mean the kayak’s…..grasp, my feet slipped. I unceremoniously did a sideways, triple lutz, loop jump (a term from my figure skating days), landed on my frozen, middle-aged butt and stared up at the sky. Where the sun was just coming out. Thanks.

It was one of those moments when you hope no one is looking. No such luck. After I painfully hoisted myself back onto my feet, I glanced up and saw the upper dock lined with tourists, silly grins on all…at you know whose expense. I mustered a brave grin, waved at them and hobbled slowly up the ramp. I was going home to make sure the clothes in my closet had not mysteriously shrank like the kayak. There was obviously a conspiracy afoot.

Image Credits

Duck In Kayak: Zazzle.com

Constrictor Snake: Free Clip Art

Palin was in Toronto to receive the Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s (RCGS) Gold Medal for promoting geographic literacy. One of my roles was to take jet-lagged, but ever good-natured Michael to his many scheduled television and newspaper interviews throughout Thursday and Friday. Sought after by major media outlets we could have easily doubled the number of interviews without any effort were it not for required downtime, the RCGS awards ceremony, a major RCGS reception with over 700 attendees and a RCGS donor’s luncheon, along with a private visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Michael Palin giving his RCGS Gold Medal acceptance speech
at the Royal Conservatory of Music, University of Toronto.

Over those two days I was deeply touched by how many people approached Michael to express the positive impact his comedy had had on their lives. Others were impacted by his travel and geography documentaries and books mentioning the “Palin effect” that inspired them to travel to, and learn more about, the geographical areas he had featured.

The pace of the two-day, whirlwind visit was brutal. So it came as a surprise when Michael invited Andre Prefontaine, a RCGS colleague of mine, and me for dinner that Thursday night. I was beat after the day’s activities and could only imagine how tired Michael must have been. Since we were all staying at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel we decided to have a late night dinner at its EPIC Lounge.

Preferring craft beer over wine I quickly intervened when the waiter came to our table to ask for our drinks order and convinced my two dining companions to try locally crafted beer from the micro breweries in Toronto’s downtown core. With the arrival of our main meal we ordered two bottles of Ontario and British Columbian wines and settled in for a long, enjoyable evening of relaxed conversation.

Michael signing copies of his new book Brazil after the RCGS Gold Medal award ceremony.

While attending school in England the first country that Michael learned about was Canada. “Canada is a great country for geography,” said Michael. “Winter figures very large in the Canadian mentality. Enduring long winters seems to give Canadians a sense of humour to endure it.

“In fact the first overseas sale of Monty Python was to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation),” said Michael with a smile. “They only aired it for a few weeks before pulling it off the air and Canadians came out in the streets during January and demanded that Monty Python be brought back and it was. Monty Python owes a lot to Canadians. I think that Monty Python is to Canada what Jerry Lewis is to France.”

Eventually the conversation led to 1966 and the BBC’s Frost Report, where Michael met the other members of what would become Monty Python. The Frost Report is similar to today’s Daily Show as it took current issues and would tell them through comedy.

Always interested in geography and historic settings Michael and Director Terry Gilliam had to convince John Cleese and Eric Idle to film Monty Python and the Holy Grail outside London away from stage sets. They wanted the movie filmed at a Heritage Trust castle in Scotland. A couple of weeks before filming was to start the Trust changed its position. Scrambling to find another Scottish castle they came across Doune Castle which at the time was privately owned. Today Doune Castle draws large numbers of tourists who come to visit the castle where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed.

Andre and I were fascinated by what provided the inspiration for the humour that is uniquely Monty Python, Michael reflected and said,” the guys in Monty Python were all from smaller communities outside London and came from middle class backgrounds. We all went to university and had varied academic backgrounds in law, medicine, history, English and other subjects. We weren’t part of the London’s stodgy ruling classes and our humour took on accepted norms as to what humour should be.”

“We all wrote our own sketches in separate offices and would get together weekly to bring forward our ideas. The best sketches were ranked and we would then figure out how to string them together using Terry Gilliam’s animation and filmed inserts”

As with everything else in life, timing is everything. “Up until the Beatles American culture dominated Britain,” Michael said. “But with the Beatles leading the British musical invasion of the US it opened up America to British culture, but it wasn’t until 1973 that Monty Python was accepted by the Americans”. That said, Canadians embraced Monty Python much earlier, with or without the Beatles and Americans, to us Lumber Jacks Monty Python is okay and will always be our Jerry Lewis.

For a listing of Michael Palin’s travel and geography documentaries and books,
visit Palin’s Travels.

Photo Credits

All Photos By Royal Canadian Geographical Society – All Rights Reserved

Julia the Shepherdess, after a long hard winter with her sheep in Normandy, during which she lost so many to the predations of the wily local fox, finally found the solution to her problems in this inspirational video created by some innovative and possibly bored Welshmen. Morwen, Julia’s blind Border collie, will certainly be able to deal with the sheep under these conditions.

The Popculturist tries to decide whether or not to watch reruns of the cult comedy series, “The State”. Will the show’s funny factor hold up over time?

I used to watch a lot of sketch comedy shows when I was a kid. The early 90’s were a great time for that genre — Saturday Night Live had one of its strongest casts during that time, and In Living Color debuted and launched the careers of stars like Jim Carrey and the Wayans brothers. And then there was The State, which I always thought of as the Velvet Underground of sketch comedy — relatively unknown to mainstream audiences but with a devoted cult following, and ultimately very influential on groups that came afterwards. To my young mind, The State represented the pinnacle of comedic achievement, and it became my yardstick for funny for years to come.

Somewhere along the way, though, sketch comedy shows just stopped being funny to me. At first I blamed it on falling standards and — as old people are wont to do — wistfully thought of the “good old days.” Eventually I stumbled onto some SNL reruns on Comedy Central, though, and I was cured of that notion relatively quickly. Nothing shows you the rose-colored glasses of your memory like watching “Toonces the Driving Cat” with grown-up eyes.

Still, I couldn’t completely blame it on myself, either. Take a look at Monty Python’s Flying Circus, for example. It still kills after over 40 years. Heck, look at Abbot and Costello. Some comedy is timeless.

The reason I bring all this up is that I recently found out that the entire run of The State had been released via Netflix’s instant streaming service. Now, The State was my unrivaled favorite comedy show from high school. Catchphrases like “I’m outta heeeeeere” and “$240 worth of pudding (awww yeah)” became staples of my young pop culture vocabulary, and the show became my measure of funny for years to come.

For a long time I had bemoaned the fact that the show was unavailable after it finished its three-season run on MTV, so you might think that my discovery of its presence on Netflix would have been an unadulterated joy. But after spending almost half my life idolizing the show, I worried that there was no way it could ever live up to my image if I revisited it. I spent a few weeks vacillating, and eventually jumped back in.

It wasn’t as funny as I remembered it being. It almost was, though, and considering how long I’d had to build it up in my memory, that’s something. Of course, some of the references are a little dated, particularly the ones that relied on the audience being familiar with the MTV landscape of 1993, but a surprising amount of the humor held up. In some ways, having some distance from high school (and even early adulthood) actually made it even funnier.

I suppose that in entertainment, as in life, you can’t really go home again. But sometimes it turns out that even if what you find when you revisit your past isn’t quite what you remembered, it’s still worth having made the trip.

Photo Credits

Courtesy of “The State: The Complete Series”

In 1994, I was living in Houston, Texas, and hanging out regularly with a couple of friends from a 12 step recovery program. We had also started playing on a softball team together and had begun to get together every two weeks to talk about where our world was headed — our dreams and aspirations. We’d meet at a small Chinese buffet where we could talk and graze, talk and graze. That was the advantage of the buffet — they never rushed us off. After a while they got to know us and would bring us our regular drinks when we walked in.

One of the guys, Pat, was a bearded mountain man type and a rugged outdoorsman. He came in one evening and started chuckling as he described this TV show he’d watched on PBS. Something about a bunch of guys in the woods of Canada who congregated at a place called the Possum Lodge.

We didn’t think much about it, and went on with our conversation. A couple of nights later I was at home and, just out of curiosity, turned on the show he’d mentioned – “The Red Green Show”. It sort of reminded me of a combination of the Beverly Hillbillies and the Three Stooges. It seemed kind of dumb at first, but after a few minutes, I found myself chuckling. The head guy, this Red Green character, started talking about how men are and how we have to bond together. I related — it had a ring of humorous truth to it.

Then Red was out in the middle of Possum Lodge place talking with his nephew Harold – dork defined – and they were going through an Abbott and Costello type of routine. I found myself laughing several times. This was followed by a silent routine with some white-haired guy named Bill, which was a real hoot, and I started really laughing. Then this Red guy came back on and did a segment called “Handyman Corner”, where he used mostly duct tape to create some bizarre invention. Having worked on maintenance crews and wheat harvest crews where duct tape held the operations together, I found this really funny! Finally they had a meeting of the Possum Lodge, whose motto was “Quando omni, flunkus mortati” — “When all else fails, play dead!” That really seemed like a wonderful send-up of the way guys did things! It reminded me of Ralph Kramden and the lodge.

The next time we met for dinner, I reported I had enjoyed watching the Red Green show. Our other buddy Mike said he would give it a watch. Within three months, we were all hooked! And it was not lost on us that our buddy Pat could be a twin of Red Green! Pat’s big vacation each year was to go tubing — floating down the river on an inner tube — on the Frio River out in the Hill Country of Texas.

He invited me to join their group – his family and relatives all went camping together, sleeping in tents. There were electrical hookups, and after a long day of tubing, Pat would bring out a little TV and tape VCR and we’d sit around the campfire watching taped episodes of Red Green. Ridiculous, yes, but something about watching the dufus clan in the Canadian woods as we were sitting out in the middle of the woods ourselves felt really congruent.

Then Pat showed up at dinner one time and said, “Hey, there’s even a Red Green Fan Club.” We looked at each other, smiled, nodded, and several weeks later received our membership cards in the Red Green Fan Club. What the heck, it was all a lark, and to be somehow officially accepted at Possum Lodge felt humorously right.

These were the days of the Men’s Movement — guys going off into the woods for “Hairy Man” gatherings — to find themselves as men. Part of that movement had been invaluable for me, as I recounted in Ghosts of the Wheat Harvest, because it led me on a journey to heal old wounds with my Dad.

Yet there was much of the men’s thing that felt a little over inflated to us, and somehow the Fan Club was a way to keep us balanced and not get sucked in to the whole “finding yourself” thing too much. We would even hold our fingers up by our heads like moose antlers, and say “I’m a real man, right!” in a high pitched voice (think Possum Lodge meeting).

In one way, this was truth, because we were still in the process of claiming our true power and somewhat unsure about it all. That was underlying our reasons for gathering at the table regularly. On the other hand, it was helpful to take some of this Men’s Movement with a grain of salt. We had all seen various movements come along claiming to be “the fix” and were a bit leery of anything with that claim.

Then one day Pat called me at work. “Hey, guess what? They’re having a fundraiser telethon at the local PBS station, and I just got contacted that Red Green is going to be there. They’re inviting all the local members of the Red Green Fan Club.”

I had an immediate vision of sitting in some bleachers with a group of guys, some dressed up like Red Green, and watching this character drum up pledges on local TV. Hm! Could be entertaining, and maybe we’d even get to shake hands with this guy I decided to do it.

I thought about doing the dress up thing – we had all gotten Red Green suspenders. He wore them every show – one red, one green, and they were kind of like his signature. (I still have mine today.) I decided that would be too much and I’d just go in regular clothes, sit up in the bleachers and watch.

Pat had a conflict that night and couldn’t make it, so Mike and I agreed to meet each other at the studio. We got there, went inside, and told the receptionist we were part of the Red Green fan club, there for the telethon. She got kind of a funny look on her face, and told us how to get back to the studio. We went around a corner, through a door, and there was the telethon – people sitting at phones, evidently waiting for the next commercial break.

We looked for the bleachers and the fan club, didn’t see anything. Some guy came over and asked if he could help us. We told him we were with the Red Green Fan Club. He got the same funny look, and waved us to follow him. We went back to what looked like a break room with some cokes and snacks set up, and there was Steve Smith – Mr. Red Green himself. The Guy introduced Mike and I and told Steve we were there as part of the fan club, and now Steve got the funny look.

He shook our hands and began visiting very naturally with us. On the show, he had a sort of grizzled rough voice, but off camera he spoke in a very mild quiet voice completely unlike the onstage character. He thanked us for being there with the fan club, and then explained the funny looks we’d been getting.

“I’m really glad to see you here – you two are the whole Red Green fan club for tonight!” He laughed and said not to worry about it, we’d have some fun with it.

The Guy came back in and told Steve it was almost time for the next break. Steve started walking back to the studio, and The Guy motioned us to go with him. The next thing we knew we were standing next to Steve as he began the next pledge drive break, riffing about how these loyal members of the Red Green fan club came out in droves tonight to support PBS! By the time we realized we were on TV, he had moved over to talk to the host, and we just stood there, almost in shock.

That was the trend that was to continue throughout the evening. We’d go back to the break room while they ran episodes of The Red Green Show. Listening to Steve back there was like a show itself — he told stories that I only wish I could remember, and had everyone in earshot laughing helplessly.

During the next break, we stood next to him while he told some Handyman story. We guessed we were supposed to just stand there quietly, but Steve was so funny we were cracking up, the same as the cameramen, the phone people, and everyone in the studio. Only we were on TV right next to him.

Then during another break, we saw some of the production people huddling up, and The Guy came over and asked me to come with him. They put me behind a camera, put the headset on and told me I’d actually be running this camera for the next break and pledge drive segment. Then they took another camera and focused it on me.

While Steve was on camera, he talked about how involved the Red Green Fan Club was tonight, even helping in the production of the show. They switched to the camera showing me, and through the headset someone told me to look at the other camera. I didn’t know what to do. Then it just came to me, and I waved the silly wave, smiling the silly smile, that Bill the guy who never talked did on the show! Cracked up the whole audience.

Finally the whole thing was over, and we laughed as we went out to our cars to drive home. We were sure that since it was a PBS fundraiser, probably none of our friends would have seen us — the odds were slim in a town as big as Houston.

Of course that didn’t happen.

I had two messages when I got home asking if that was me on the pledge drive with the guy in the funny suspenders. The next day several more friends let me know they had seen me. I’d had my moment in the sun, and the Red Green Fan Club had done its part. They might not have found us handsome, but at least they found us handy!

Speaking of which, this would not be complete without a little bit of Red Green himself! Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHYbbKIybvI

Photo Credits

Photos courtesy of The Red Green Show
Fan Club photo courtesy of Dan L. Hays