Across the Great Divide

The Other Man Behind Gumby.

Gumby's creator, Art Clokey, passed away this week. The story of his abandonment as a child and subsequent adoption has a wonderful outcome.

There's a local angle to the Gumby story, connected to another interesting character behind its success.

It appears that Gumby was one of the pioneers in marketing kids' toys through TV shows, though in this case, the show came before the toy.

TV stations broadcasting the Gumby films that introduced the claytoon character to the nation typically didn't pay for the program. For Clokey to make any money, he had to use the free air time as promotion for a product he could sell — a Gumby toy.

But Clokey was a film maker, not a toymaker, so eventually he licensed Gumby to a Minneapolis-based company, Lakeside Industries, and worked with an inventor named Jim Becker. (The story of the arrangement can be read in this Court of Appeals case dealing with a tax issue.)

In addition to manufacturing and selling Gumby, Lakeside marketed all kinds of cheesy toys and games. Some, like Barrel of Monkeys, Tub Town and the Big Wheel predecessor The Cheetah, still have their fans. Others, like American Heroes and the examples collected here, are largely lost, moldering in cabins or languishing on ebay.

I ran into Lakeside years ago when the company called looking for someone to write instructions for a new family card game called Sequence, a variation on Concentration that has rightly passed into oblivion.

After showing up at the company headquarters in a nondescript New Hope light industrial building, I was ushered into the office of owner Zom Levine.

Zom was a minute 80-something who dressed impeccably in tailored suits and custom, collarless shirts with studs instead of buttons. I suppose in New York City there are still buildings full of these old gentlemen, who make very good money from running  obscure businesses — ladies shoulder pad manufacturers, button stampers and safety pin distributors — but here in Minnesota, Zom was pretty exotic.

I have been in many offices of men who ran giant enterprises, but Zom's was the most impressive — and most secure. It was locked, with him inside, and I had to be buzzed in.

Unlike the concrete block and fluorescent ambiance of the rest of the building, his large office was dark paneled and mood-lit with a six-foot-long NASCAR racer Budweiser beer light hung over a pool table.

It turned out Zom was not just in the toy business (and the flex-film electronic control pad business). He was also a promotional beer sign mogul.

You have seen his company's work, dating back to the Hamm's Beer signs, lamps and prized Scenorama motorized displays, neon baseball signs for Miller or palm trees for Corona, and this Clydesdale under glass.  

The beer sign business, I learned, had a handful of regional companies like Lakeside that came up with new sign ideas for the dominant buyers, Miller and Budweiser. The brewers would accept certain designs, then take the drawings and bid out the manufacturing. The originators hoped their familiarity with the design would give them an advantage pricing  the job, but if they didn't match the low bid, they got nothing for their effort.

The brewers exploited this system for years. The neon sign shops grumbled but played the game because beer was the main industry still using neon for new promotions.

I worked with Zom as he tried to come up with new ways to break the hammerlock Lakeside and the other small companies were in. But the companies were nervous about losing all their business if the big boys decided they weren't being sufficiently subservient.

A couple years later, for his efforts organizing the suppliers against the abusive bidding system, Zom was indicted and convicted of price-fixing.

 I find it hard to believe these neon benders had any power to hurt the giant companies, but maybe it just shows Zom's competitors were right. They could not control their own destinies in the beer sign business. If they fought the system, they'd be ruined one way or the other.

Art Clokey found a way around the TV system to make his films and make a nice living. But he couldn't have done it without Zom Levine.

 

Weekend'S nooze.

Two NWA pilots ignored radio transmissions for more than an hour, overshot their airport by 150 miles, and the first officer on the flight says, "I can assure you none of us was asleep,"

"Honey, it's not what you think," says the husband pulling on his pants while the sister-in-law pulls the covers over her head.

*****

Okay, maybe it's true Albert Einstein, Mozart and Shakespeare didn't watch "educational videos" when they were kids. But now they're saying "Baby Einstein" videos didn't turn kids into geniuses? How can that be, when rap CDs have turned so many white boys into gangstas?

Next thing you know, they'll be telling us fizzy sugar water is unhealthy and Wonder bread doesn't build strong bodies 13 ways.

Oh, they have?

*****

Gov. Pawlenty has again seized the reins of state government, ordering the sex offender program his administration runs to transfer new flat screen TVs to veteran's homes. (They can still enjoy suggestive televised imagery in the privacy of their rooms.)

The costs of a few TVs pales in comparison to the cost growth from Pawlenty's campaign to lock up more sex offenders, and to keep them locked up after they have served their sentences. For example, more than a third of the emergency funding in the governor's 2006 supplemental budget recommendations went "to fund sex offender commitment growth." And it continues, as we continue to hold people because of their potential to commit crimes.

*****

Meanwhile, Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat wants to know why homeless and chronic drinkers are getting free $60 Vikings tickets. To a Twins fan, $60 tickets sound steep, but a quick look at the Mall of America (!) Stadium map shows that they'll put you in the end zone upper deck.

Putting chronic drinkers in seats next to binge drinkers may work as aversion therapy, as long as the tickets are for early season games. I'd advise against playoff tickets, however. The chances of relapse on the field might trigger similar behavior in the seats.

*****

For wonks only: Are national polls indicating voter preferences stacked against Republicans? Or is GOP party identification in decline? You could just ask Sarah Palin.

*****

Adrian Monck (with h/t to Hal Davis) extracts this gem from a Harvard Business School working paper:

"Another possibility for decreasing such behavior [justifying and rationalizing questionable preferences] is to make people accountable for their decisions, requiring them to explain the reasons underlying their choices (Lerner & Tetlock, 1999). Given people’s demonstrated desire to seek out acceptable justifications for questionable preferences, however, accountability pressures may simply motivate people to look even harder for justifications, rather than stop them from behaving poorly. In fact, in some situations accountability can enhance bias, as with its amplifying effect on commitment to decisions (Simonson & Staw, 1992). Indeed, when Norton et al. (2004) made participants accountable for their decisions in choosing between a Black and White high school student for admission to college, not only did requiring participants to explain themselves fail to decrease preferences based on racial bias, it made them look even more carefully through the resumes to find additional evidence in favor of their questionable decisions. "

DeLay Dances.

Tom DeLay, former House majority leader, will be part of the next cast for "Dancing with the Stars."

I had high hopes that he would be chosen for the new reality series, "I'm a GOP Icon, Get Me Outa Here!"

The Hannity and Bachmann Show: Double-Barreled Patriotism.

COLMES:  I'm proud of what we did here that enables you to go forward and do what you're going to be doing.

HANNITY: No, and I — and I'm looking forward to all the stuff which I know about, but I'm not allowed to tell. So... it's coming.

— End of an Era, Alan Colmes and Sean Hannity saying good-bye during their last broadcast

Fox News host Sean Hannity announced today that Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann will join his special Tax Day Tea Party broadcast live from Atlanta on April 15.

But the big news is that Bachmann, who has become ubiquitous on the airwaves over the last six months, will join Hannity as his new co-host, replacing his departed foil, Alan Colmes. Bachmann plans to retain her seat.

"Alan remains a personal friend," said Hannity, "but to be honest, the liberal/conservative thing had gotten stale. Having a socialist in the White House calls for a double-barreled approach, and I don't know any conservative — male or female —who shoots straighter and more deadly than Michele Bachmann."

Including, apparently, fading star Gov. Sarah Palin, who reportedly also was under consideration as Hannity's better conservative half.

"Sean understands that it will take extraordinary measures to save this country," said Bachmann. "It's a unique opportunity for me to join a real patriot and serve as his loyal American counterpart behind enemy lines in Washington."

Bachmann dismissed any concerns that her night job would conflict with her elected responsibilities.

In fact, Bachmann sees taking a second job as befitting a representative from the "workingest state in the country," reminding her critics that "there's nothing in the Constitution preventing this. Besides, the House was in session for only 118 days last year. Most Americans work 250 days a year and still have time to watch me on television," she said.

"I'll guarantee you more of my constituents see me on Fox than at a little town meeting in Mahtomedi," she said. "Yet that takes me more time than an appearance on Hannity, USA."

Seen in that light, her new gig might be an efficiency move, relieving her from a taxing  self-promotional schedule that saw her regularly running from Hannity to Larry King, Glen Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Mike Gallagher and Laura Ingraham.

In 2008, the 110th Congress included six members [PDF] who reported prior broadcast media occupations — two radio talk show hosts, a radio broadcaster, a radio newscaster, a television talk show host and a television commentator. However, Bachmann is believed to be the first current member to be given a regular national platform.

Would such prominence present an unfair advantage if she runs for office again?

Political media analyst David Schmutz of the University of Colorado-Denver says, not exactly:

Bachmann comes from a state where the govenors have radio shows. They just play coy about running again for as long as possible. Then, once they have to declare, they can take a break, because they have all that free media in the bank.

Throughout her political career, Bachmann has demonstrated that if she's willing to say anything, she can do nothing and be re-elected. It looks to me like she's ready to try that formula on a national stage.

Fox has not announced whether the name of the show will reflect the addition of the Congresswoman.

Brit Ads Show: Formula and Brilliance.

Last night I made my annual trip to Walker Art Center for the 2008 British Television Advertising Awards Show, which runs through December.

Not quite up to previous years, but still entertaining. After watching more than 90 minutes of ads, I couldn't help noticing how many relied on telling stories for which the product was the punch line — or as frequently, a coda.

I don't follow the business any more and don't watch enough television to know whether this is a general ad trend, a British style or the preference of the judges. It may well reflect the influence of viral marketing and YouTube, where straight product pitches aren't likely to have a second life.

Here are a few of my favorites, drawn from winners at various levels.

This one, which won top honours, is typical of the style: Evocative, even mysterious, extended opening, followed by a surprise reveal, then the product tie-in, leading to YouTube play and a variety of parodies and remixes. Best of all, it actually helped restore a company's deteriorating brand.

For a very different approach, this ad shows how an average-looking character simply speaking to the camera can be memorable if the concept is smart and the writing is spot on.

This ad concept works well as a series, not so much because of what it says about the car, but what it says about relationships. Men can laugh at it. Women can laugh at it. And am I being too optimistic to think they might even talk about it?

Finally, no BTAA show would be complete without a provocative public service announcement. 

Spending Some of My Surplus.

The Strib is running a commentary by me about flying the flag. Here's another part of the back story...

Last month, I read Jim's post about how he responded to coming across a homeless person's camp.

This morning I went downtown and signed up for a volunteer gig at a homeless shelter.

It struck a chord. He runs a business and has two small kids, not to mention an esoteric set of other interests. What's my excuse?

I shot him an email and asked for the name of the place and if it needed other volunteers. It turns out, People Serving People has an online form, and within the week, I'd sent it in, completed a tour and signed up for one morning a week in the children's center.

Since I run into Jim occasionally at his shop, it's very remotely possible I might've eventually heard a story about his volunteering. And then I might've gotten around to doing more than congratulating him for being a good guy. But the internet and the communication it enables — both intimate and transactional — deserves a lot of credit for getting me into my own volunteer gig.

Clay Shirky talks about the "cognitive surplus" created by our current accidental prosperity and the web putting us on the cusp of "the greatest expansion of expressive capability the world has ever known."

Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened--rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before--free time.

And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.

We did that for decades. We watched I Love Lucy. We watched Gilligan's Island. We watch Malcolm in the Middle. We watch Desperate Housewives. Desperate Housewives essentially functioned as a kind of cognitive heat sink, dissipating thinking that might otherwise have built up and caused society to overheat.

And it's only now, as we're waking up from that collective bender, that we're starting to see the cognitive surplus as an asset rather than as a crisis. We're seeing things being designed to take advantage of that surplus, to deploy it in ways more engaging than just having a TV in everybody's basement.

Some of us may spend that surplus time gaming or creating YouTube parodies, while others will innovate in unpredictable ways.

We also have the option of saying, why am I sitting here pecking and clicking about change?

Gross National Happiness.

Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers — but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.

That’s what unhappy people do.

— New York Times

For several decades, we owned a cabin in northern Minnesota. The man who built it was one of the happiest people I ever met.

He had gotten out of the construction trade in the city, moved to a lake, bought a country store he ran with his wife and on the side, built whatever needed building. 

After he and his wife sold the store, for many years the new owners were bedeviled by middle of the night knocks on their door. See, Don was the kind of guy who would throw on his coveralls at two in the morning, fire up the truck and haul a stranger out of the ditch, laughing all the way.

If researchers had followed him around and tried to account for his high happiness score, I'm not sure they would've gotten to the bottom of it by his documenting his activities. He did most of the things the study associated with happy people, plus the aforementioned ditch-clearing, taking pot shots at barn cats and talking louder than 98% of the population (which may have had something to do with using chainsaws and nail guns most of his life). 

It turns out there's a great deal of such happiness research. There's even a World Database of Happiness where you can drill down into all the correlations in various studies. Lots of work digs out correlations between political behavior and happiness; plain old love is not so well-represented.

These researchers looked at activities instead of demographics. Thanks to their work, we can now be more confident that the obvious is indeed obvious.

Watching television, I would suggest, is more an inactivity. It is not something you do. It represents the absence of something to do, of someone to talk to, of an interior life to indulge. In fact, according to the story, a "major predictor of how much time is spent watching television is whether someone works or not."

Besides getting a job and canceling cable, what else should Americans try to improve our pursuit of happiness?

For example, at least one country in the world has decided that cultural homogeneity is a vital part of its citizens’ happiness. The Kingdom of Bhutan, for example, is cited approvingly by leading
happiness advocates for being the first country in the world to use the concept of gross national happiness as the basis for policy. In this fortunate nation, national dress is compulsory and, until
recently, television was banned.

— Happiness, Economics and Public Policy [Download pdf]

[Leading happiness advocates? Why has Katherine Kersten not yet written about this?] The authors go on to note that genocide is an ever-popular strategy for ensuring national happiness, at least for the nationals who are not being eradicated.

For these and other economists, neither love nor television is a "socioeconomic variable of interest." But even for items of acute interest, like, say, the performance of the mortgage market, professional economists have a rotten record of connecting the dots.

Coleman Ad in the Eye of the Beholder.

In his first TV ad of 2008, Sen. Norm Coleman said sometimes getting things done means "bridging a partisan divide" and that "it's not good enough tuh, tuh tear somethin' down."

I agree with the sentiment.

His campaign says his second ad "highlights Norm Coleman's 30-year commitment to bringing people together to get things done in Minnesota."

But here I beg to differ. This one is about something else entirely.

I'm not going to jump in where others have already questioned the recent spot — suggesting the Colemans were edited together in the 30-second kitchen skit. Instead, I'll focus on what the ad  says — visually and subtextually. It amounts to the same thing.

Campaigns can deny they've implanted suggestive images in their political ads, but that doesn't mean they're not present.

Given that "Got It" has the production values, scripting and staging of a broadcast ad, and what I know of the ad industry, I have to believe every prop, movement, shadow, stutter, reflection, camera angle and edit has been carefully considered.

The explicit theme is Coleman's independence as a Senator and his readiness to "get things done." It's one of those soft, introducing-the-candidate ads that appear early in campaigns, like Al Franken's "Mrs. Molin" and Mark Kennedy's "About Mark."

The spot begins with a jaunty intro of 50's era domestic comedy music which continues to run underneath. It cues a viewer response of "this is light-hearted, not serious" and evokes pre-sex-revolution television in which hapless husbands were subservient to their stay-at-home wives.

Coleman's wife, Laurie, has a commanding, well-lit position in the foreground. She jumps right to the ostensible message: there are "some people" who'll "say he's a rubber stamp for the president, but he's been ranked as one of the most independent senators." This is the factual hook leading to a supporting point about Norm opposing some legislation that aided oil interests and sets up a joke about his supposed lack of domestic independence.

But the subtext is really about something else — I have to agree with the green-screeners on this — the Coleman's relationship. Yes, there are unusual dimensions, but don't believe the rumors, it says. Underneath, this Ozzie and Harriet, the Cleavers, Samantha and Darren.

Laurie, dressed more primly than viewers may be accustomed to seeing her, is bathed in golden light, while the darkly dressed Norm moves from shadow to sunlight far in the background. This violates the cliche of the candidate being face-to-face and within hugging distance of others with whom he seeks to demonstrate a close relationship. (Compare the distance between Colemans at home, this industrial kitchen shot from Blogs [sic] for Norm!, and the archetypal image of the concerned candidate holding forth to wrapt constituents. )

Though separated by a dark, oddly reflective expanse, the couple has matching, pure white coffee mugs the size of soup bowls, with  heart-shaped tapering sides. Laurie cradles hers with a two-handed grip designed to highlight her wedding ring, twisted slightly to show off the rock in a close up.

Norm sips. Laurie never does.

In a bit of stage business to keep Norm from disappearing until his cue, he pretends to drink his coffee, pours himself a partial refill and then goes back to the newspaper at the far end of the island. Midway between them is an overflowing bowl of fruit, a symbol of fecundity and sign that the entire family must be around to consume so much bounty before it rots.

Norm's reflection, a dark, inverted Narcissus, extends around the bowl, facing his wife across the chasm, his heart a red apple bursting in silent supplication.

Although the kitchen has all the stripped down sterility of a TV lifestyle program or cooking show set, it maintains a few tiny swatches of color to warm the scene of faux domesticity in the black and white world.

An unclaimed juice glass on the island subtly proclaims the Coleman's life together is more than half full.

As the punch line nears, Laurie tosses a command over her shoulder. Norm immediately looks in her direction and offers a conciliatory open palm. She never faces her husband.

Compare this to the knee-to-knee interaction between Mark Kennedy and his wife in the 2006 ad, where she is affectionate rather than dismissive of her husband's foolish choices.

Coleman then makes an odd move for a man preparing to take out the garbage. Instead of heading forward  into the kitchen and closer to his wife, he turns away toward the living area.

We next see him outside at his dumpster, leather jacket zipped up against late spring chill, and I want to ask: What kind of Minnesotan puts on a coat before taking out the garbage?

Coleman actually looks better and more natural in this ad than in so many of his appearances where he alternates talking out of the corner of his mouth and insincerely flashing his milli vanilla choppers. The bags under his eyes are missing in the soft lighting. He seems less horse-faced, and his  swaggering chuckle after dunking the baggie gives a better sense of the man's charm.

You can disagree with this semiotic reading. It's offered partly in fun. But I guarantee you, none of what I've described escaped someone's professional eye before this commercial was cut.

Man Cold.

Dual colds are dampening this household, so in a stroke of serendipity, what should show up in the email today? Warning, do not watch this short bit from the BBC comedy sketch show manstrokewoman unless you have extra time on your hands. YouTube has quite a collection...

It's Gone!!

The man on the broadcast was talking about his pain. But for followers of televangelist Peter Popoff, it's their money that's disappeared for good.

It's unfair to TV ministers like Mac Hammond and Kenneth Copeland to call Popoff a televangelist. They give the impression of having real faith. They truly preach.

Popoff does infomercials for worthless products aimed at the desperate and gullible end of the prosperity gospel market. Like a celebrity look-alike, he  makes money by resembling people who at least worked to become caricatures of insincerity.

Popoff was a "successful" faith healer before he was exposed for receiving divine revelations about audience members over a wire. After declaring bankruptcy and disappearing for a while, he's back. 

My son called me after seeing a late night pitch for Miracle Manna Cakes, cooked in an oven in the Holy Land using the Old Testament recipe. "You'll love this," he said.

That's  just one offer in a steady stream of "free" trash peddled to keep the revenue flowing — deli salt packets (Dead Sea Salt), tap water (Miracle Spring Water) and Golden Miracle Bands made of paper. Perform some ritual with the item, then send Popoff a payment so you receive further instructions on how to effect a "divine transfer" into your bank account.

Popoff's careful to say that the water or cracker won't cause the promised wealth to appear. Your submission to the will of God, signified by sending Popoff money, triggers your prosperity. Otherwise, his instructions might be mistaken for mail fraud.

If this hasn't exceeded your daily does of snake oil, there's more on Popoff here.

Cure trinkets are also popular fund-raising devices, but healing is more useful in televised theatrics that inspire the larger market.  Not everybody has the cancer or the lumbago, but everybody wants the manna.