Toy Series #6

Bully! It's hard not to just automatically say, "Bully!" when talking about TR. A personal favorite of Fluffy Stuffin'. Possibly a Saint of The House of Fun as well? I'll do some more reading before I write him up!

Gershwin's in my head...

So we combine that with a clip from one of the Saints of The House of Fun, Oscar Levant!

From An American in Paris.

Bettie Page

Ah, Bettie Page has just passed away at the age of 85. I hadn't gotten around to it yet, but is she a Saint of the House of Fun? Of course. Thanks, Bettie, for being cool...

Bonus: Bettie in Teaserama!

Sadly....

Saint of the House of Fun, Don LaFontaine, has passed away at 68. Thanks for the trailers, Don!

"When you die, the voice you hear in heaven is not Don's. It's God, trying to sound like Don. I wish he'd quit his day job..." -- Ashton Smith

Here's is my older post about Don.

Happy, happy!

I'd like to think that people come to this blog for the witty writing, and odd ball videos, but my sitemeter tells me the truth: most of you dudes are out there looking for pics of Scarlett Johannson, and somehow, search engines lead you here. So here's one more!

Since she just recently announced her engagement, we at Fluffy Stuffin wish much happiness for one of our Saints of The House of Fun, so do the wedding up right!

Jascha Heifetz

The only violinist I am in awe of! Amazing talent, quite an intelligent interesting person...and that killer vibrato! Of a style we no longer do, but still...check out this bit of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto...it's 12 minutes long, but sit back and be amazed!

In another world...In another time...

He's the best in the biz. You've heard him a gazillion times, and you probably don't even know his name. And, on top of all that, he seems like a pretty cool guy!

Don LaFontaine is... A Saint of The House of Fun.



and if he ever came across this...I'd faint if you did my voice message on my answering machine... plus, when I shoot my indie, there will be no other trailer voice even considered!

Oops, a Day late, sorry man!

A belated birthday tip o' the cap to Saint of the House of Fun, Oscar Levant:

Wow, he'd be a 101! Like he'd have lived that long anyway...

Alfred Hitchcock

There are so many reasons Hitchcock is a Saint of The House of Fun, but I have a very particular one in mind. What's interesting about it is that it's not just about film, or even just about artistic creation generally.

It's really about what you do when you get to the top. Top of what? Doesn't matter. It's about how you deal with things when everyone around you acknowledges that you are the best, the peak, the go-to guy. Most people coast; some pontificate, some simply repeat what got them there, even if that won't work to move them any further.

Alfred Hitchcock in the late '50's was in such a glorious position. His work in the '50's is a string that anyone would envy: To Catch A Thief, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest. All of these, North by Northwest in particular, are in the center of what the studios would want to make over and over; great leading man, great soundtrack, story, direction. I think they would have wanted several 'North by Northwests' if Sir Alfred were willing to grind them out. And, mind, I'm not saying these films aren't great, they are. Let's check out the super cool intro to North by Northwest, thanks to the animation of Saul Bass and the music of Bernard Hermann; watch for Hitch at the end of the clip!


But as great as all these films were, for Hitchcock it simply wasn't enough! He wasn't going to be content to just make product, even really, really good product. He had follow his fetishistic, voyeuristic impulses all the way, past what he had started to show us in Rear Window and Vertigo. He had to give us... Psycho.




Here's what Entertainment Weekly has had to say about it:

There's no way around it: Psycho cut movie history in half. When that knife came sawing past the shower curtain at poor, sheeplike Marion Crane(Janet Leigh), Alfred Hitchcock announced that from now on all bets were off. No one was safe; a heroine could be butchered 45 minutes into the movie; a nice young man(Anthony Perkins) could turn out to be a psychotic killer with his mama's embalmed body upstairs...To be truthful, there's a little bit of Psycho in everything we watch nowadays. What Hitch wrought with his little TV crew marks the line of demarcation, in our culture, between the age of sentiment and the age of sensation. It's to pop culture what Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is to fine art: the arrival of a loud and jagged modernism.

[my emphasis] Yes, yes, I know that's a bit much, but it's just to give you the idea!

My point is not about whether you like this particular genre of film or not; it's to give Alfred Hitchcock props for doing what we wish all people at the peak of their profession would do. Spending their hard won cultural capital on not merely vanity or maintaining the status quo, but raising the bar even further! Doing only what someone in that position could do! Just for this alone, Alfred Hitchcock will always be a Saint of The House of Fun.

Oscar Levant

Smart ass, depressing, talented, hypochondriac; that's Oscar Levant, the "enfant terrible" of America in the 40's and 50's. It's hard not to like a guy who "made insanity America's favorite hobby." And just at the point he starts to get good at something he quits. Pianist, Movie Star, Talk Show Host, you name it, he quit it! Christ, this is a man who is clearly 50 years ahead of his time! Really, he's effectively a bhodisatva for half the people I've ever met! A defining archetype of The House of Fun.

Quips and Quotes:

• Upon meeting Greta Garbo: "Sorry, I didn't get the name."
• To George Gershwin: "Tell me, George, if you had to do it all over would you fall in love with yourself again?"
• Of Leonard Bernstein: "I admire Leonard Bernstein, but not as much as he does."
• Of Elizabeth Taylor: "Always a bride, never a bridesmaid."
• Of Perry Como: "Perry Como's voice actually comes out of his eyelids."
• Of Debbie Reynolds: "She's as wistful as an iron foundry."
• Of Minnie Guggenheimer: "She's a good friend. As long as you're on top she'll stick by you."
• Of Grace Kelly: "She just married the first prince who asked her."
• Of Doris Day: "I knew Doris Day before she became a virgin."
• Of Richard Nixon: "He swings a big mouth and carries a little stick."
• Of Zsa Zsa Gabor: "Zsa Zsa Gabor has learned the secret of perpetual middle age."
• "Someone once asked me where I lived and I said, 'On the periphery . . . '."
• "I paid thousands of dollars to psychiatrists to forget my childhood."
• "My psychiatrist once said to me, 'Maybe life isn't for everyone'."
• "I was thrown out of one mental hospital because I depressed the patients."
• "There is a fine line between genius and insanity, and I have erased that line."
• "Happiness isn't something you experience, it's something you remember."
• "A pun is the lowest form of humor – when you don't think of it first."
• "It's not what you are, it's what you don't become that hurts."
• "I've given up reading books. I find it takes my mind off myself."

Here's the cool Wikipedia link on him. Read and be edified!