Extras Available Exclusively at FaceTheFactsPod.com!
Our alter-egos Holden Hollywood and Stone Granite having fun on the streets of Disney’s Hollywood Studios:
A short profile of actor Mako, focusing on his voice-over/animation work.
Mako in the original 1976 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s “Pacific Overtures:”
Moxie!
As we discovered, the term, “You’ve got moxie!” was derived from the New-England-based Moxie cola. It was recently purchased by the Coca-Cola company, according to this article at Today.com:
…not to be confused with matzos or matzo ball soup. Or mahtzee, which does not exist outside the imagination of Tim Williams.
The Members Only Jacket
Everybody who was anybody in the 1980s had this jacket, or some other similar style of another brand:
I Love New York!
This New York tourism marketing campaign, always played up Broadway shows, including “A Chorus Line,” “La Cage Aux Folles,” and “Cats…”
…and in this version, “Evita,” “Sweeney Todd,” “They’re Playing Our Song,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” and “Peter Pan.” (what is with the weird choreography that Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou are doing?)
The Stray Cats!
Here are two of their hits, and they are decidedly NOT New Wave. (New Wave = Eurhythmics, A-ha, Blondie)
Please Don’t Squeeze The Charmin!
This wildly popular campaign from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s (with a return in 1999!) is written about in-depth in this article at GroovyHistory.com. Mr. Whipple was played by character actor Dick Wilson.
Mr. Wilson frequently played a drunk guy on “Bewitched.”
Here is one of his first commercials in the 1960s. WHO IS THIS ACTRESS?! I think she looks like Estelle Parsons, but I don’t think it sounds like her. Any ideas? Please email me!
Here was Mr. Whipple’s return in 1999… clearly playing up the retirement and ‘old folks’ angle. Do you recognize Marvin Kaplan in the red shirt and yellow bowtie? He was a regular on “Alice” in the role of Henry.
And look what I found while I was researching this! A 1970s Charmin commercial featuring Charlotte Rae! (And her boss is played by Sorrell Booke, best known as Boss Hogg on “The Dukes Of Hazzard.”)
Yellow Face!
Show business has a long, rich, and inappropriate history of non-Asian actors playing Asians.
Such as, Marlon Brando (Caucasian) playing Japanese in “Teahouse Of The August Moon”…
Mickey Rooney (Caucasian) playing Japanese in “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”…
Juanita Hall (African-American) playing Polynesian in “South Pacific” (and won a Tony Award for it)…
And Ms. Hall also played Chinese in “Flower Drum Song”…
Alec Guinness (Caucasian) playing Japanese in “A Majority Of One”…
Linda Hunt (Caucasian, female) playing a Chinese-Australian male in “The Year Of Living Dangerously” (for which she won an Academy Award)…
And… well, me. *awkward pause* Yup. (discussed in the extras) This is Me (obviously Caucasian), playing Japanese (and 80 years old no less) in “Teahouse Of The August Moon” my senior year in high school. Hey, as Oprah says, “When You Know Better, You Do Better.”
