Irene Dailey, star of daytime soaps and the stage, passed on September 24 at the age of 88. The cause was colon cancer.
Dailey was born on Sept. 12, 1920 in New York City. Her father managed the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan. Her brother was actor singer and dancer Dan Dailey, who had a long career in Hollywood movies. Dailey made her debut on vaudeville, dancing when she was only eight years old. By the time she was eighteen she was performing in summer stock. She would eventually find herself on Broadway, making her debut there in Nine Girls in 1943. Unfortunately, in her early years she would have little success on Broadway. Nine Girls only ran three days. Truckline Cafe, from 1946, lasted less than a month. Springtime Folly from 1951 closed after two nights. Miss Lonleyhearts from 1957 actually managed to last nine days.
Irene Dailey would not see any real success until she appeared on television. She made her debut on the small screen on the 1957 series Decoy. She went onto guest star on such shows as Naked City, The Defenders, The Twilight Zone, Ben Casey, and Hawk. She would make her movie debut in No Way to Treat a Lady in 1968 and would appear in the classic Five Easy Pieces. In 1969 she would become a regular on The Edge of Night for a year. She appeared in the movie The Grissom Gang before becoming a regular on Another World. She played Aunt Liz Matthews for a total of twenty years.
Despite her lack of success on Broadway, Dailey continued to appear there. Andorra from 1963 lasted a week. She finally found some success with The Subject Was Roses, which ran nearly two years. She would go onto appear on two more successful plays on Broadway, including You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running (which debuted in 1967) and Lost in Yonkers, which debuted in 1991.
As a stage actress, Irene Dailey saw little success on Broadway. And she never repeated the movie success of her brother Dan Dailey. But on television she was a star, although of daytime rather than prime time. For the regular viewers of Another World she was a familiar face upon whom they could depend on seeing for many, many years. She even won a Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding actress in 1979. While I am not a fan of the soaps myself (I've never even seen Another World), for those who are Irene Dailey was indubitably a star.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
The Bowling Alley
When I was in my late teens and early twenties I spent many Friday nights in the bowling alley. That having been said, I must confess that I have never bowled in my life. My brother, a friend, and I would go there to play pool. I suppose it could be argued that I then used the local bowling alley more as a pool hall than the original purpose for which it was intended. That having been said, as discussed below, pool halls and bowling alleys do have a good deal in common.
That having been said, I was obviously exposed to bowling while playing pool at the bowling alley. And I have many friends who have bowled, as has my brother. In fact, I would dare say that it was probably almost impossible for most Baby Boomers and older Gen Xers like myself not to be exposed to bowling in the United States while young. The sport was at the peak of its popularity with the nation's middle class from the Fifties to the Seventies. There were bowling alleys across the United States. And bowling was a sport that was frequently mentioned in television shows and movies of the era (several characters from which did bowl).
The origins of bowling are shrouded in mystery. Some form of the sport, or at least a very similar sport, existed in ancient Egypt. In the Thirties, archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie discovered what appeared to be bowling balls and pins in the grave of an Egyptian boy dated 5200 BCE. More recently, a room similar to a bowling alley was discovered just last year in Narmoutheos, Egypt. It was part of a larger building, that may have been used as a home. The room had a sturdy limestone floor and what looked like a bowling lane. The archaeologists also discovered two stone balls. Of course, it can be argued that the sport played in Egypt was not bowling (the archaeologists who discovered the alley in Narmoutheos think a similar game was played there, not necessarily our modern sport of bowling) and the game as we know it originated elsewhere. Of course, while a form of bowling may have existed in ancient Egypt, there is nothing to have kept it from developing independently elsewhere. After all, the idea of rolling a ball at upright pins to knock them down would seem to be a fairly obvious for a sport.
Indeed, a sport similar to lawn bowling existed in ancient Rome that would evolve into the modern Italian game of bocce. Some have argued that Roman soldiers spread the sport elsewhere, hence we have bowls or lawn bowling in the English speaking world, boules in France, and so on. Of course, an obvious criticism in tracing bowling back to ancient Rome and bocce is that in bocce there are no pins. In fact, in many ways it resembles pool as much as it does bowling. Quite simply, it involves hitting a ball with another ball (called the "jack" in English).
It is for that reason that others have looked for the origins of bowling elsewhere.The Brothers Grimm offered the theory that bowling originated among the Germanic tribes as a form of religious ritual. A contemporary, German historian William Pehle took this theory and ran with it. He claimed that bowling had originated among in 100 CE when the balls were actually used in battle. English historians would also argue for the origins of bowling among Germanic tribes. They claimed that Saint Boniface (also known as Wynfrith, his Saxon name--he was born in Wessex in what would become England) had helped develop bowling when he converted the pagan Saxons on the Continent around 700 CE. According to this theory Boniface told his converts that the pin represented the Devil, so that when a ball knocked over a pin a demon was killed.
While there is little evidence to support this theory (or the theories of the Brothers Grimm or William Pehle, for that matter), there can be no doubt that bowling has been popular in Germany for centuries. In the thirteenth century monks in Germany reportedly bowled as a tribute to Saint Boniface. In the fourteenth century when a mine shaft flooded and drowned many miners, ecclesiastical authorities claimed that God had punished the miners for wasting their time on the sport of bowling instead of more worthwhile pursuits. Bowling was banned in Frankfurt in 1443 and again in 1447 in a attempt to reduce gambling. Indeed, besides starting Protestantism, Martin Luther also made changes to bowling. He set the rules for the game, including the number of pins at nine (for those of you familiar with American bowling, I will explain why we use ten pins later...). Luther loved bowling and even had his own family bowling alley. If there is little doubt of the popularity of bowling among Germans through history, keep in mind that our word "kegling (a synonym for bowling)" comes from High German kegeln.
While we may not know the exact origins of bowling, the sport seems to have existed in England for centuries. Bowling appears to have existed there in some form since at least the 1100's. By the fourteenth century several forms of the game existed, including bowls, skittles, and ninepins. In fact, the game was so popular in England by that time that King Edward III banned bowling as a distraction to his troops. There are bowling greens in use in the United Kingdom that still exist from that time, such as the lawn at Crowne Green in Southampton, England and the skittles lane at the Sheep Head Inn in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was in 1455 that the first bowling alley was built in London. Henry VIII was one of the English kings who loved bowling. He actually had his own alley built at Whitehall Palace in 1532. Of course, he also thought of the game as a sport for the wealthy and aristocrats. He decreed that one needed to make an yearly income of £1000 in order to legally bowl. Sir Francis Drake and Francis Bacon were also avid bowlers. In 1670 King Charles I standardised the rules for bowling, reputedly because he wanted to even the odds of the sport to prevent losing even more money gambling on it.
When the British and Dutch colonised North America, they brought bowling with them. In 1611, Captain James Smith returned to Jamestown in Virginia to find the colonists were starving to death, but had enough time to still enjoy bowling. He promptly banned the game, making it punishable by three weeks in the stocks. Bowling was first played in New York City before it was New York City--the Dutch were bowling in New Amsterdam as early as 1623. In the early days of the North American colonies most bowling took place outside, but it would not be long before the game moved from outdoors to indoors. The first indoor bowling alley, Knickerbockers, was built in New York City in 1840. To a small degree in the 19th century United States bowling was somewhat respectable. Outdoor bowling greens were popular at summer resorts before the War Between the States, so that even a few Southern belles would engage in the sport (and as every good Southerner knows, a belle does nothing unladylike). Some of the first bowling alleys were to be found in the upscale gentlemen's clubs such as those in New York City and Boston. Even some of the wealthy elite had their own private bowling alleys built in their homes in the late 19th century, including George Vanderbilt and R. J. Reynolds. And while Southern belles bowled before the War Between the States, during the Gilded Age high society women would often attend bowling matches and even play in them.
The popularity of bowling grew even more with the influx of German immigrants in the 1840's and 1850's. Nearly any cultural centre or gymnasium operated by German Americans was bound to include a bowling alley. In fact, it was in New York City that German Americans founded the first bowling clubs in the United States, although they were more akin to fraternal groups like the Oddfellows than modern day bowling leagues. It was also German Americans who were responsible for organising the first regional bowling association in the United States. The United Bowling Clubs of New York was founded in 1885 in New York City. It seems the German immigrants brought their love of kegling with them.
While bowling was to some degree respectable in the 19th century, played by aristocrats and held in high regard by German Americans, at the same time it would become somewhat disreputable. In the 19th century United States, the vast majority of bowling alleys were housed in saloons. While fine Southern gentlemen might bowl at a summer resort in New Orleans, the common man might be bowling in the local tavern. In Chicago the two first bowling alleys were located in saloons. These two Chicago saloons are also prime examples of how bowling was often used as encouragement for patrons to buy liquor. For every two beers a customer bought, he could bowl one free game. As late as 1918 the majority of bowling alleys in the United States were still housed in saloons. That year a survey of bowling alleys in Toledo revealed that half were housed in taverns, while the rest were situated very near taverns.
Indeed, the strong link between bowling and saloons can be seen in the evolution of the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company (now Brunswick Corporation). Founded in 1845 in Cincinnati, Ohio with the intent of making carriages, the company soon switched to making billiards tables. Of course, like bowling, pool was generally a sport practised at saloons in 19th century North America. Because their primary customers were saloon owners, the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company soon expanded into the manufacture of bowling balls, bowling pins, and bowling alleys. They soon not only dominated the pool table trade, but the bowling equipment trade as well. Today Brunswick Corporation remains the top in the field when it comes to both bowling and billiards equipment, although they would eventually expand into boats, boat engines, and fitness equipment.
Naturally, bowling in 19th century and early 20th century North America was primarily a man's sport. Since the vast majority of bowling alleys were located in often dark and dingy saloon, most women in the middle and lower class did not engage in the sport as they would have had to venture into a tavern do so--something no honest woman of the era would do. Since bowling alleys were generally located in taverns, bowling alleys developed a reputation quite similar to that of pool halls. They were regarded as places frequented by gamblers, criminals, and other outcasts. Naturally, then, many bookies operated out of bowling alleys, not only taking bets on the bowling and billiards games there, but also taking bets on the latest boxing matches, horse races, and other sporting events. The seedy reputation that bowling alleys developed would naturally result in regulations. Most cities required bowling alley owners to have a licence to operate their business. Other cities would even go so far as to ban minors from bowling alleys and even restrict the hours during which they could be open.
It was because of the fact that bowling alleys were most often located in taverns and associated with the seedier elements of society in 19th century America that the sport here would change forever. From its earliest days in Jamestown and New Amsterdam, ninepin bowling was the most common form played here in North America. It was in 1841 that the state of Connecticut banned ninepin bowling due to its association with bowling and criminals. The ban did not stop people from bowling, however, as they simply added a tenth pin, making the game perfectly legal under the Connecticut law. This is why Americans play tenpin bowling, even though ninepin bowling continues to be dominant in Europe. The rules of bowling would be regularised in 1895 with the organisation of the American Bowling Congress at Beethoven Hall in New York City. The American Bowling Congress would eventually establish rules for the game and encouraged both tournaments and national competitions. Eventually the rules established by the American Bowling Congress would become the nationwide standard for tenpin bowling in the United States.
It would not be either the regulations laid down by municipalities and states regarding bowling alleys that would force them to clean up their act or the American Bowling Congress's standardisation of the rules, but instead the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibited the sale and manufacture of alcohol in the United States. Without liquor to draw in patrons, many bowling alleys closed during Prohibition. Those that stayed in business were forced to change the very nature of their establishments. Lighting was improved considerably, a sharp contrast to the days of the dimly tavern bound alleys. Walls were painted so that they would be more attractive. Where previously water pipes and water drains might be exposed, they were now covered. Many would even go so far as to soundproof their bowling alleys. Because liquor was no longer available to draw in patrons, many owners would expand the number of lanes in their bowling alleys. Quite simply, Prohibition facilitated the development of the modern bowling alley.
That is not to say that the cleaner, more brightly lit bowling alleys of the Prohibition Era were quite the same as the ones we know today. The automatic pinsetter had not yet been invented, so that young men called pinboys were required to set the pins back up after each strike. Bowling balls had once been made from wood, but the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company introduced balls made of vulcanised rubber in 1905 and later in 1914 the Mineralite Ball, made of a much sturdier rubber. The urethane or plastic bowling ball was a few years in the future.
Regardless, changes in bowling equipment would come very quickly in the mid-Twentieth century that would create the bowling alley as we know it. In 1936 a fellow named Gottfried Schmidt invented the automatic pinsetter in his garage. The American Machine and Foundry Company (now best known as AMF) bought the rights to Schmidt's invention. It had its first public demonstration in 1946 at the American Bowling Congress championships. It was in 1951 that the first machine for public use was installed in Michigan. In 1952 the automatic pinsetter was put into mass production. Pinboys were a thing of the past. It was around 1960 that bowling ball manufacturers introduced polyester resin bowling balls. Joseph R. Infantino of AMF would further revolutionise the bowling ball. He developed a hard plastic called Surlyn in the late Sixties to coat bowling balls and thus make them more durable. He would also develop the urethane bowling ball, which has more traction.
Between the cleaning up of bowling alleys and the many technological improvements made to the game from the Forties to the Sixties, bowling soon entered the height of its popularity, from the post-War period well into the Sixties. So popular would the sport become that the Professional Bowlers Association was founded in 1958. Bowling would also regularly be featured on network television (primarily on the American Broadcasting Company), and the Pro Bowlers Tour would be an annual television tradition for many, many years. A spate of bowling oriented shows appeared on television during the era, including Bowling for Dollars and Celebrity Bowling.
Of course, perhaps the greatest testament to the sport's popularity was that for many middle class families it became a weekly ritual. Many Americans belonged to bowling leagues and participated in the game regularly. It is for that reason that bowling figures in many of the television shows of the Fifties and Sixties. Regular viewers of The Flintstones will recall that Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble were avid bowlers. On The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry had its own bowling league of which Andy was a member. On All in the Family Archie Bunker was also an avid bowler. Bowling figured on such varied shows as The Honeymooners, Mr. Peepers, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, Pete and Gladys, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Get Smart (yes, even the intelligence agency CONTROL had a bowling team...), Batman (among a jury the Mad Hatter was kidnapping was a bowling alley owner...), That Girl, Happy Days, and Cheers
Bowling has not figured quite so much in motion pictures, although it has appeared there from time to time. Those who have seen the classic, 1932 gangster movie Scarface may recall the victim who was gunned down in a bowling alley. A bowling alley also figured in the 1939 classic Angels Wash Their Faces. The 1942 Joe E. Brown comedy The Daring Young Man featured bowling. The 1942 Tom and Jerry cartoon "The Bowling Alley Cat" was set in a bowling alley. OF course, everyone probably remembers that Ralph's dad in A Christmas Story received among his gifts a bowling ball. Bowling, bowling balls, or bowling alleys would also figure in some fashion in such movies as Road House (1948), A Streetcar Named Desire, Cape Fear (1962), Five Easy Pieces, The Deer Hunter, Mystery Men, and There Will Be Blood. Curiously, despite the sport's popularity during from the late Forties to the early Seventies, movies which centre primarily upon bowling would not appear until later. Racing With the Moon came out in 1982. Ruby's Dream, a small film about a bowling alley, was released in 1992. Kingpin was released in 1996. The cult classic The Big Lebowski was released in 1998. When it came to America's love affair with bowling during the Fifties and Sixties, it would seem the movie industry entirely missed the boat.
Starting in the Seventies, bowling began to decline in popularity. Eventually bowling would no longer be seen on Saturday and Sunday afternoons on the American television networks, exiled to the netherworld of the cable sports channels. Many bowling alleys around the country closed. I myself remember that Columbia used to boast many bowling alleys when I was growing up. I am not absolutely sure, but it now boasts only one or two (keep in mind this is a city of around 90,000 people we are talking about). That is not to say that bowling does not remain a popular sport. There are still many people in the United States who still bowl--to this day the Community Lanes remains popular in Moberly. Regardless, there can be no denying that the sport is not as popular as it once was in the Fifties and Sixties.
Even though I have never bowled in my life, I have found memories of my trips to the bowling alley to play pool. There was something reassuring about watching people roll the balls at the pins while waiting for my turn at the pool table, something reassuring about the pins being knocked down. And I must confess, I watched many a bowling match on television when I was growing up in the Sixties and Seventies. It was one of the very few sports, besides hockey, soccer (as Americans seem to insist on calling football), and American football. I must confess, it looks like it would be a very fun game to play. I suppose someday I should gather up some friends and make a trip to the local bowling alley for a night of kegling. I certainly wouldn't be the first American to do so.
That having been said, I was obviously exposed to bowling while playing pool at the bowling alley. And I have many friends who have bowled, as has my brother. In fact, I would dare say that it was probably almost impossible for most Baby Boomers and older Gen Xers like myself not to be exposed to bowling in the United States while young. The sport was at the peak of its popularity with the nation's middle class from the Fifties to the Seventies. There were bowling alleys across the United States. And bowling was a sport that was frequently mentioned in television shows and movies of the era (several characters from which did bowl).
The origins of bowling are shrouded in mystery. Some form of the sport, or at least a very similar sport, existed in ancient Egypt. In the Thirties, archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie discovered what appeared to be bowling balls and pins in the grave of an Egyptian boy dated 5200 BCE. More recently, a room similar to a bowling alley was discovered just last year in Narmoutheos, Egypt. It was part of a larger building, that may have been used as a home. The room had a sturdy limestone floor and what looked like a bowling lane. The archaeologists also discovered two stone balls. Of course, it can be argued that the sport played in Egypt was not bowling (the archaeologists who discovered the alley in Narmoutheos think a similar game was played there, not necessarily our modern sport of bowling) and the game as we know it originated elsewhere. Of course, while a form of bowling may have existed in ancient Egypt, there is nothing to have kept it from developing independently elsewhere. After all, the idea of rolling a ball at upright pins to knock them down would seem to be a fairly obvious for a sport.
Indeed, a sport similar to lawn bowling existed in ancient Rome that would evolve into the modern Italian game of bocce. Some have argued that Roman soldiers spread the sport elsewhere, hence we have bowls or lawn bowling in the English speaking world, boules in France, and so on. Of course, an obvious criticism in tracing bowling back to ancient Rome and bocce is that in bocce there are no pins. In fact, in many ways it resembles pool as much as it does bowling. Quite simply, it involves hitting a ball with another ball (called the "jack" in English).
It is for that reason that others have looked for the origins of bowling elsewhere.The Brothers Grimm offered the theory that bowling originated among the Germanic tribes as a form of religious ritual. A contemporary, German historian William Pehle took this theory and ran with it. He claimed that bowling had originated among in 100 CE when the balls were actually used in battle. English historians would also argue for the origins of bowling among Germanic tribes. They claimed that Saint Boniface (also known as Wynfrith, his Saxon name--he was born in Wessex in what would become England) had helped develop bowling when he converted the pagan Saxons on the Continent around 700 CE. According to this theory Boniface told his converts that the pin represented the Devil, so that when a ball knocked over a pin a demon was killed.
While there is little evidence to support this theory (or the theories of the Brothers Grimm or William Pehle, for that matter), there can be no doubt that bowling has been popular in Germany for centuries. In the thirteenth century monks in Germany reportedly bowled as a tribute to Saint Boniface. In the fourteenth century when a mine shaft flooded and drowned many miners, ecclesiastical authorities claimed that God had punished the miners for wasting their time on the sport of bowling instead of more worthwhile pursuits. Bowling was banned in Frankfurt in 1443 and again in 1447 in a attempt to reduce gambling. Indeed, besides starting Protestantism, Martin Luther also made changes to bowling. He set the rules for the game, including the number of pins at nine (for those of you familiar with American bowling, I will explain why we use ten pins later...). Luther loved bowling and even had his own family bowling alley. If there is little doubt of the popularity of bowling among Germans through history, keep in mind that our word "kegling (a synonym for bowling)" comes from High German kegeln.
While we may not know the exact origins of bowling, the sport seems to have existed in England for centuries. Bowling appears to have existed there in some form since at least the 1100's. By the fourteenth century several forms of the game existed, including bowls, skittles, and ninepins. In fact, the game was so popular in England by that time that King Edward III banned bowling as a distraction to his troops. There are bowling greens in use in the United Kingdom that still exist from that time, such as the lawn at Crowne Green in Southampton, England and the skittles lane at the Sheep Head Inn in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was in 1455 that the first bowling alley was built in London. Henry VIII was one of the English kings who loved bowling. He actually had his own alley built at Whitehall Palace in 1532. Of course, he also thought of the game as a sport for the wealthy and aristocrats. He decreed that one needed to make an yearly income of £1000 in order to legally bowl. Sir Francis Drake and Francis Bacon were also avid bowlers. In 1670 King Charles I standardised the rules for bowling, reputedly because he wanted to even the odds of the sport to prevent losing even more money gambling on it.
When the British and Dutch colonised North America, they brought bowling with them. In 1611, Captain James Smith returned to Jamestown in Virginia to find the colonists were starving to death, but had enough time to still enjoy bowling. He promptly banned the game, making it punishable by three weeks in the stocks. Bowling was first played in New York City before it was New York City--the Dutch were bowling in New Amsterdam as early as 1623. In the early days of the North American colonies most bowling took place outside, but it would not be long before the game moved from outdoors to indoors. The first indoor bowling alley, Knickerbockers, was built in New York City in 1840. To a small degree in the 19th century United States bowling was somewhat respectable. Outdoor bowling greens were popular at summer resorts before the War Between the States, so that even a few Southern belles would engage in the sport (and as every good Southerner knows, a belle does nothing unladylike). Some of the first bowling alleys were to be found in the upscale gentlemen's clubs such as those in New York City and Boston. Even some of the wealthy elite had their own private bowling alleys built in their homes in the late 19th century, including George Vanderbilt and R. J. Reynolds. And while Southern belles bowled before the War Between the States, during the Gilded Age high society women would often attend bowling matches and even play in them.
The popularity of bowling grew even more with the influx of German immigrants in the 1840's and 1850's. Nearly any cultural centre or gymnasium operated by German Americans was bound to include a bowling alley. In fact, it was in New York City that German Americans founded the first bowling clubs in the United States, although they were more akin to fraternal groups like the Oddfellows than modern day bowling leagues. It was also German Americans who were responsible for organising the first regional bowling association in the United States. The United Bowling Clubs of New York was founded in 1885 in New York City. It seems the German immigrants brought their love of kegling with them.
While bowling was to some degree respectable in the 19th century, played by aristocrats and held in high regard by German Americans, at the same time it would become somewhat disreputable. In the 19th century United States, the vast majority of bowling alleys were housed in saloons. While fine Southern gentlemen might bowl at a summer resort in New Orleans, the common man might be bowling in the local tavern. In Chicago the two first bowling alleys were located in saloons. These two Chicago saloons are also prime examples of how bowling was often used as encouragement for patrons to buy liquor. For every two beers a customer bought, he could bowl one free game. As late as 1918 the majority of bowling alleys in the United States were still housed in saloons. That year a survey of bowling alleys in Toledo revealed that half were housed in taverns, while the rest were situated very near taverns.
Indeed, the strong link between bowling and saloons can be seen in the evolution of the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company (now Brunswick Corporation). Founded in 1845 in Cincinnati, Ohio with the intent of making carriages, the company soon switched to making billiards tables. Of course, like bowling, pool was generally a sport practised at saloons in 19th century North America. Because their primary customers were saloon owners, the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company soon expanded into the manufacture of bowling balls, bowling pins, and bowling alleys. They soon not only dominated the pool table trade, but the bowling equipment trade as well. Today Brunswick Corporation remains the top in the field when it comes to both bowling and billiards equipment, although they would eventually expand into boats, boat engines, and fitness equipment.
Naturally, bowling in 19th century and early 20th century North America was primarily a man's sport. Since the vast majority of bowling alleys were located in often dark and dingy saloon, most women in the middle and lower class did not engage in the sport as they would have had to venture into a tavern do so--something no honest woman of the era would do. Since bowling alleys were generally located in taverns, bowling alleys developed a reputation quite similar to that of pool halls. They were regarded as places frequented by gamblers, criminals, and other outcasts. Naturally, then, many bookies operated out of bowling alleys, not only taking bets on the bowling and billiards games there, but also taking bets on the latest boxing matches, horse races, and other sporting events. The seedy reputation that bowling alleys developed would naturally result in regulations. Most cities required bowling alley owners to have a licence to operate their business. Other cities would even go so far as to ban minors from bowling alleys and even restrict the hours during which they could be open.
It was because of the fact that bowling alleys were most often located in taverns and associated with the seedier elements of society in 19th century America that the sport here would change forever. From its earliest days in Jamestown and New Amsterdam, ninepin bowling was the most common form played here in North America. It was in 1841 that the state of Connecticut banned ninepin bowling due to its association with bowling and criminals. The ban did not stop people from bowling, however, as they simply added a tenth pin, making the game perfectly legal under the Connecticut law. This is why Americans play tenpin bowling, even though ninepin bowling continues to be dominant in Europe. The rules of bowling would be regularised in 1895 with the organisation of the American Bowling Congress at Beethoven Hall in New York City. The American Bowling Congress would eventually establish rules for the game and encouraged both tournaments and national competitions. Eventually the rules established by the American Bowling Congress would become the nationwide standard for tenpin bowling in the United States.
It would not be either the regulations laid down by municipalities and states regarding bowling alleys that would force them to clean up their act or the American Bowling Congress's standardisation of the rules, but instead the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibited the sale and manufacture of alcohol in the United States. Without liquor to draw in patrons, many bowling alleys closed during Prohibition. Those that stayed in business were forced to change the very nature of their establishments. Lighting was improved considerably, a sharp contrast to the days of the dimly tavern bound alleys. Walls were painted so that they would be more attractive. Where previously water pipes and water drains might be exposed, they were now covered. Many would even go so far as to soundproof their bowling alleys. Because liquor was no longer available to draw in patrons, many owners would expand the number of lanes in their bowling alleys. Quite simply, Prohibition facilitated the development of the modern bowling alley.
That is not to say that the cleaner, more brightly lit bowling alleys of the Prohibition Era were quite the same as the ones we know today. The automatic pinsetter had not yet been invented, so that young men called pinboys were required to set the pins back up after each strike. Bowling balls had once been made from wood, but the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company introduced balls made of vulcanised rubber in 1905 and later in 1914 the Mineralite Ball, made of a much sturdier rubber. The urethane or plastic bowling ball was a few years in the future.
Regardless, changes in bowling equipment would come very quickly in the mid-Twentieth century that would create the bowling alley as we know it. In 1936 a fellow named Gottfried Schmidt invented the automatic pinsetter in his garage. The American Machine and Foundry Company (now best known as AMF) bought the rights to Schmidt's invention. It had its first public demonstration in 1946 at the American Bowling Congress championships. It was in 1951 that the first machine for public use was installed in Michigan. In 1952 the automatic pinsetter was put into mass production. Pinboys were a thing of the past. It was around 1960 that bowling ball manufacturers introduced polyester resin bowling balls. Joseph R. Infantino of AMF would further revolutionise the bowling ball. He developed a hard plastic called Surlyn in the late Sixties to coat bowling balls and thus make them more durable. He would also develop the urethane bowling ball, which has more traction.
Between the cleaning up of bowling alleys and the many technological improvements made to the game from the Forties to the Sixties, bowling soon entered the height of its popularity, from the post-War period well into the Sixties. So popular would the sport become that the Professional Bowlers Association was founded in 1958. Bowling would also regularly be featured on network television (primarily on the American Broadcasting Company), and the Pro Bowlers Tour would be an annual television tradition for many, many years. A spate of bowling oriented shows appeared on television during the era, including Bowling for Dollars and Celebrity Bowling.
Of course, perhaps the greatest testament to the sport's popularity was that for many middle class families it became a weekly ritual. Many Americans belonged to bowling leagues and participated in the game regularly. It is for that reason that bowling figures in many of the television shows of the Fifties and Sixties. Regular viewers of The Flintstones will recall that Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble were avid bowlers. On The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry had its own bowling league of which Andy was a member. On All in the Family Archie Bunker was also an avid bowler. Bowling figured on such varied shows as The Honeymooners, Mr. Peepers, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, Pete and Gladys, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Get Smart (yes, even the intelligence agency CONTROL had a bowling team...), Batman (among a jury the Mad Hatter was kidnapping was a bowling alley owner...), That Girl, Happy Days, and Cheers
Bowling has not figured quite so much in motion pictures, although it has appeared there from time to time. Those who have seen the classic, 1932 gangster movie Scarface may recall the victim who was gunned down in a bowling alley. A bowling alley also figured in the 1939 classic Angels Wash Their Faces. The 1942 Joe E. Brown comedy The Daring Young Man featured bowling. The 1942 Tom and Jerry cartoon "The Bowling Alley Cat" was set in a bowling alley. OF course, everyone probably remembers that Ralph's dad in A Christmas Story received among his gifts a bowling ball. Bowling, bowling balls, or bowling alleys would also figure in some fashion in such movies as Road House (1948), A Streetcar Named Desire, Cape Fear (1962), Five Easy Pieces, The Deer Hunter, Mystery Men, and There Will Be Blood. Curiously, despite the sport's popularity during from the late Forties to the early Seventies, movies which centre primarily upon bowling would not appear until later. Racing With the Moon came out in 1982. Ruby's Dream, a small film about a bowling alley, was released in 1992. Kingpin was released in 1996. The cult classic The Big Lebowski was released in 1998. When it came to America's love affair with bowling during the Fifties and Sixties, it would seem the movie industry entirely missed the boat.
Starting in the Seventies, bowling began to decline in popularity. Eventually bowling would no longer be seen on Saturday and Sunday afternoons on the American television networks, exiled to the netherworld of the cable sports channels. Many bowling alleys around the country closed. I myself remember that Columbia used to boast many bowling alleys when I was growing up. I am not absolutely sure, but it now boasts only one or two (keep in mind this is a city of around 90,000 people we are talking about). That is not to say that bowling does not remain a popular sport. There are still many people in the United States who still bowl--to this day the Community Lanes remains popular in Moberly. Regardless, there can be no denying that the sport is not as popular as it once was in the Fifties and Sixties.
Even though I have never bowled in my life, I have found memories of my trips to the bowling alley to play pool. There was something reassuring about watching people roll the balls at the pins while waiting for my turn at the pool table, something reassuring about the pins being knocked down. And I must confess, I watched many a bowling match on television when I was growing up in the Sixties and Seventies. It was one of the very few sports, besides hockey, soccer (as Americans seem to insist on calling football), and American football. I must confess, it looks like it would be a very fun game to play. I suppose someday I should gather up some friends and make a trip to the local bowling alley for a night of kegling. I certainly wouldn't be the first American to do so.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Organist and Vacuum Cleaner Collector Stan Kann Passes On
Stan Kann may not be a familiar name to many of you, but if you are a Missourian (especially one who attended the Fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis years ago) or you watched a lot of talk shows in the Seventies, you may well have heard of him. Kann was the organist at the Fabulous Fox Theatre for many, many years. In the Seventies he gained fame for his rather extensive collection of antique vacuum cleaners (he had over 180) and appeared on many talk shows. He passed September 29 at the age of 83 after having had open heart surgery.
Kann was born on December 9, 1924 in St. Louis. He developed his interest in vacuum cleaners when he was eight years old, fascinated by them as his parents were too poor to afford one. In high school he became a vacuum cleaner salesman for a time and eventually learned how to repair them. He learned to play piano while attending Soldan High School, where he was a member of the school orchestra. As a graduation present his parents gave him a trip to New York City. While there he attended Radio City Music Hall, where he was transfixed by the theatre's gigantic pipe organ. He went onto study the classical organ at Washington University.
His interest in the organ led him to convince Ed Arthur, who then owned the Fabulous Fox, to restore the theatre's old Wurlitzer organ. He and his fellow students did as many repairs as they could before calling in an expert on organ restoration, W.A. Brummer. Kann would play the organ at the Fabulous Fox Theatre during the silent movies shown there and before and after sound movies. He also played it at any special events held at the theatre. Kann would play the organ at the Fabulous Fox from 1953 to 1975. He also performed at various St. Louis area restaurants, including Ruggeri's Restaurant on the Hill and Stan and Biggie's. In the Fifties and Sixties he served as the music director on The Charlotte Peters Show and The Noon Show on KSD-TV. He also played the organ for sequences in the film The Fury and the TV show M*A*S*H.
It was in the Sixties that Kann met Phyllis Diller, then living in Webster Groves, Missouri. The comedian not only admired his organ playing, but thought he was also extremely funny. When Kann let Diller see his vacuum cleaner collection, she introduced him to Johnny Carson, who booked him and several of his antique vacuums on his show for June 8, 1966. Kann would appear on The Tonight Show several times throughout the Seventies. He also made appearances on The Mike Douglas Show, The Alan Hamel Show, The Merv Griffin Show, and Hee Haw. Kann appeared in the documentary short Meet Marlon Brando in 1966. In 2005 Mike Steinberg directed the documentary Stan Kann: The Happiest Man in the World, chronicling Stan's life. As a comedian, he sometimes filled in for Diller on her shows and appeared in such venues as The Playboy Club.
From 1975 to 1998 Kann lived in Los Angeles, California. He returned home to St. Louis in 1998. His last performance on the organ at the Fabulous Fox was the Saturday before he died. Fittingly, his memorial service is being held there.
While many knew Kann for his extensive vacuum cleaner collection, I have no doubt he will be remembered as an organist. Having played at the Fabulous Fox Theatre for years and at various other venues around the country, he effectively made his whole career out of the instrument. Over the years he even won awards for his talent. It made his famous in St. Louis, where he was one of the city's most valued citizens. For anyone who loves organ music, the passing of Stan Kann is saddening indeed.
Kann was born on December 9, 1924 in St. Louis. He developed his interest in vacuum cleaners when he was eight years old, fascinated by them as his parents were too poor to afford one. In high school he became a vacuum cleaner salesman for a time and eventually learned how to repair them. He learned to play piano while attending Soldan High School, where he was a member of the school orchestra. As a graduation present his parents gave him a trip to New York City. While there he attended Radio City Music Hall, where he was transfixed by the theatre's gigantic pipe organ. He went onto study the classical organ at Washington University.
His interest in the organ led him to convince Ed Arthur, who then owned the Fabulous Fox, to restore the theatre's old Wurlitzer organ. He and his fellow students did as many repairs as they could before calling in an expert on organ restoration, W.A. Brummer. Kann would play the organ at the Fabulous Fox Theatre during the silent movies shown there and before and after sound movies. He also played it at any special events held at the theatre. Kann would play the organ at the Fabulous Fox from 1953 to 1975. He also performed at various St. Louis area restaurants, including Ruggeri's Restaurant on the Hill and Stan and Biggie's. In the Fifties and Sixties he served as the music director on The Charlotte Peters Show and The Noon Show on KSD-TV. He also played the organ for sequences in the film The Fury and the TV show M*A*S*H.
It was in the Sixties that Kann met Phyllis Diller, then living in Webster Groves, Missouri. The comedian not only admired his organ playing, but thought he was also extremely funny. When Kann let Diller see his vacuum cleaner collection, she introduced him to Johnny Carson, who booked him and several of his antique vacuums on his show for June 8, 1966. Kann would appear on The Tonight Show several times throughout the Seventies. He also made appearances on The Mike Douglas Show, The Alan Hamel Show, The Merv Griffin Show, and Hee Haw. Kann appeared in the documentary short Meet Marlon Brando in 1966. In 2005 Mike Steinberg directed the documentary Stan Kann: The Happiest Man in the World, chronicling Stan's life. As a comedian, he sometimes filled in for Diller on her shows and appeared in such venues as The Playboy Club.
From 1975 to 1998 Kann lived in Los Angeles, California. He returned home to St. Louis in 1998. His last performance on the organ at the Fabulous Fox was the Saturday before he died. Fittingly, his memorial service is being held there.
While many knew Kann for his extensive vacuum cleaner collection, I have no doubt he will be remembered as an organist. Having played at the Fabulous Fox Theatre for years and at various other venues around the country, he effectively made his whole career out of the instrument. Over the years he even won awards for his talent. It made his famous in St. Louis, where he was one of the city's most valued citizens. For anyone who loves organ music, the passing of Stan Kann is saddening indeed.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Kingston Trio Co-Founder Nick Reynonlds Passes On
Nick Reynolds, who with Dave Guard and Bob Shane founded the Kingston Trio, passed on Wednesday at the age of 75. He had been suffering from acute respiratory disease.
Reynolds was born July 27, 1933 in San Diego, California, but grew up on Coronado Island, California. His father was a Navy captain and a guitarist with a penchant for old folk songs who often led the family in singalongs. This naturally created an interest in music on Reynolds part. He graduated from Coronado High School in 1951, then attended the University of Arizona. It was there that he met Bob Shane. He met Dave Guard through Shane, who had played music with him before. Together they formed the Kingston Trio in 1957. They were heavily influenced by Pete Seeger's group The Weavers and The Kingston Trio originally performed much of the same political songs that The Weavers had performed when they were playing colleges. Noting that The Weavers had been blacklisted during the Red Scare, the Kingston Trio made a conscious decision to shift more traditional, apolitical folk music. They were discovered at a club, the Cracked Pot, located around Menlo College in Atherton, California.
The Kingston Trio's first record was also their first hit, a rendition of the 19th century traditional folk song "Tom Dooley." It went to #1 in 1958 and earned a gold record. The Kingston Trio would follow "Tom Dooley" with more hits, including "The Tijuana Jail, (which went to #12), "M.T.A." (which went to #15), and "A Worried Man" (which went to #29, all in 1959. In 1960 they would have hits with "El Matador" (which went to #32) and "Bad Man Blunder" (which went to #36) in 1960.
In 1961 Guard left the Trio to form his own group, The Whiskeyhill Singers. Reynolds and Shane carried on without him,, replacing him with John Stewart. The two continued to have hits, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" in 1962, "Greenback Dollar" in 1963, "The Reverend Mr. Black (which went to #8)" also in 1963, and "Desert Pete" that same year. At one point in the early Sixties the Kingston Trio had four separate albums in the top ten selling albums. Sadly, the British Invasion would spell the end of the Kingston Trio's enormous success. Although they continued to record and their albums would do well enough, they never had another hit single. The Kingston Trio disbanded in 1967, although Shane would form a New Kingston Trio in 1969.
After the Trio disbanded, Nick Reynolds moved to Oregon where he raised his family. He would reunite with the Trio in 1981, in a line up which included both the original members and new members (it was actually more than a trio at that point). On 1983 he would work with John Stewart and Lindsey Buckingham (of Fleetwood Mac fame) on the CD Revenge of The Budgie. He would reunite with the Trio again in 1987 and 1988 and stayed with them for 11 more years before retiring.
Arguably the Kingston Trio was among the most influential groups of all time. They would have an influence on bands as diverse as The Beach Boys and The Byrds. Perhaps their biggest impact on the American music scene is that it was their success that sparked the folk music boom of the early Sixties. Quite simply, they paved the way for such artists as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and The New Christy Minstrels. While they were sometimes criticised for their decidedly apolitical music of their early days, it must be pointed out that this not only allowed them the success necessary to spark the folk music band, but it set them apart from other folk artists. While other artists were performing decidedly political fare from the 20th century, the Kingston Trio was performing such traditional songs as "Tom Dooley," "500 Miles (credited to Hedy West, but apparently based on a traditional song she learned from her paternal grandmother)," "Sloop John B (also recorded by The Beach Boys later on), and "Old Joe Clark." And they could be diverse in their styles, performing everything from traditional folk to what would later be termed bluegrass to calypso. As a founding member of the group, the man who handled the middle section of the group's three part harmonies, and who provided them with instrumentation ranging from guitar to percussion instruments such as bongos and congas, Nick Reynolds was a large part of the Trio's success. He definitely earned his place in American music history.
Reynolds was born July 27, 1933 in San Diego, California, but grew up on Coronado Island, California. His father was a Navy captain and a guitarist with a penchant for old folk songs who often led the family in singalongs. This naturally created an interest in music on Reynolds part. He graduated from Coronado High School in 1951, then attended the University of Arizona. It was there that he met Bob Shane. He met Dave Guard through Shane, who had played music with him before. Together they formed the Kingston Trio in 1957. They were heavily influenced by Pete Seeger's group The Weavers and The Kingston Trio originally performed much of the same political songs that The Weavers had performed when they were playing colleges. Noting that The Weavers had been blacklisted during the Red Scare, the Kingston Trio made a conscious decision to shift more traditional, apolitical folk music. They were discovered at a club, the Cracked Pot, located around Menlo College in Atherton, California.
The Kingston Trio's first record was also their first hit, a rendition of the 19th century traditional folk song "Tom Dooley." It went to #1 in 1958 and earned a gold record. The Kingston Trio would follow "Tom Dooley" with more hits, including "The Tijuana Jail, (which went to #12), "M.T.A." (which went to #15), and "A Worried Man" (which went to #29, all in 1959. In 1960 they would have hits with "El Matador" (which went to #32) and "Bad Man Blunder" (which went to #36) in 1960.
In 1961 Guard left the Trio to form his own group, The Whiskeyhill Singers. Reynolds and Shane carried on without him,, replacing him with John Stewart. The two continued to have hits, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" in 1962, "Greenback Dollar" in 1963, "The Reverend Mr. Black (which went to #8)" also in 1963, and "Desert Pete" that same year. At one point in the early Sixties the Kingston Trio had four separate albums in the top ten selling albums. Sadly, the British Invasion would spell the end of the Kingston Trio's enormous success. Although they continued to record and their albums would do well enough, they never had another hit single. The Kingston Trio disbanded in 1967, although Shane would form a New Kingston Trio in 1969.
After the Trio disbanded, Nick Reynolds moved to Oregon where he raised his family. He would reunite with the Trio in 1981, in a line up which included both the original members and new members (it was actually more than a trio at that point). On 1983 he would work with John Stewart and Lindsey Buckingham (of Fleetwood Mac fame) on the CD Revenge of The Budgie. He would reunite with the Trio again in 1987 and 1988 and stayed with them for 11 more years before retiring.
Arguably the Kingston Trio was among the most influential groups of all time. They would have an influence on bands as diverse as The Beach Boys and The Byrds. Perhaps their biggest impact on the American music scene is that it was their success that sparked the folk music boom of the early Sixties. Quite simply, they paved the way for such artists as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and The New Christy Minstrels. While they were sometimes criticised for their decidedly apolitical music of their early days, it must be pointed out that this not only allowed them the success necessary to spark the folk music band, but it set them apart from other folk artists. While other artists were performing decidedly political fare from the 20th century, the Kingston Trio was performing such traditional songs as "Tom Dooley," "500 Miles (credited to Hedy West, but apparently based on a traditional song she learned from her paternal grandmother)," "Sloop John B (also recorded by The Beach Boys later on), and "Old Joe Clark." And they could be diverse in their styles, performing everything from traditional folk to what would later be termed bluegrass to calypso. As a founding member of the group, the man who handled the middle section of the group's three part harmonies, and who provided them with instrumentation ranging from guitar to percussion instruments such as bongos and congas, Nick Reynolds was a large part of the Trio's success. He definitely earned his place in American music history.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
TV Writer Oliver Crawford Passes On
Oliver Crawford, who wrote scripts for TV shows ranging from Bonanza to Kojak, passed on September 24 at the age of 91.
Oliver Crawford was born on August 12, 1917 in Chicago. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and later studied at the Goodman Theatre, where among his fellow students were future actor Karl Malden and future director Sam Wanamaker.
Crawford made his first sale to television in 1951, writing an episode of The Stu Erwin Show. He would also write episodes of Terry and the Pirates and Boston Blackie. He broke into motion pictures by writing the story for The Man From the Alamo, which was released in 1953. He also wrote one of the segments for the movie The Steel Cage. His career as a writer was on the rise, having scored a two movie deal when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) contacted him in 1953. After he refused to reveal the names of alleged Communists, he was blacklisted.
Crawford then moved to New York and worked a number of different jobs to make a living. It was his friend, actor Sam Levene, who got him back into writing by helpin him get a job. In the late Fifties he wrote episodes for Kraft Television Theatre, Lux Video Theatre, The Restless Gun, and Rawhide, among other shows. In the Sixties into the Seventies he would write episodes of Perry Mason, The Rifleman, Gilligan's Island, The Fugitive, Star Trek, Bonanza, I Spy, The Wild Wild West, Love American Style, Ironside, and Kojak.
Crawford was also an associate professor of filmmaking at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Oliver Crawford was among the most successful television writers of the Fifties and Sixties. He was also a very talented writer. He wrote some of my favourite TV episodes on TV shows in the Sixties: "Joe Cartwright, Detective" for Bonanza, "Night of the Sudden Death" for The Wild Wild West, "Case of the Tarnished Trademark" for Perry Mason, and "Incident of the Town in Terror" for Rawhide. Crawford had a talent for developing unique and interesting episodes for various TV shows--in fact, he was the first writer to write an episode in which the Galileo, one of the shuttlecraft of the Enterprise, played a central role. He was one of a generation of television writers who was not only prolific, but capable of some high quality writing as well.
Oliver Crawford was born on August 12, 1917 in Chicago. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and later studied at the Goodman Theatre, where among his fellow students were future actor Karl Malden and future director Sam Wanamaker.
Crawford made his first sale to television in 1951, writing an episode of The Stu Erwin Show. He would also write episodes of Terry and the Pirates and Boston Blackie. He broke into motion pictures by writing the story for The Man From the Alamo, which was released in 1953. He also wrote one of the segments for the movie The Steel Cage. His career as a writer was on the rise, having scored a two movie deal when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) contacted him in 1953. After he refused to reveal the names of alleged Communists, he was blacklisted.
Crawford then moved to New York and worked a number of different jobs to make a living. It was his friend, actor Sam Levene, who got him back into writing by helpin him get a job. In the late Fifties he wrote episodes for Kraft Television Theatre, Lux Video Theatre, The Restless Gun, and Rawhide, among other shows. In the Sixties into the Seventies he would write episodes of Perry Mason, The Rifleman, Gilligan's Island, The Fugitive, Star Trek, Bonanza, I Spy, The Wild Wild West, Love American Style, Ironside, and Kojak.
Crawford was also an associate professor of filmmaking at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Oliver Crawford was among the most successful television writers of the Fifties and Sixties. He was also a very talented writer. He wrote some of my favourite TV episodes on TV shows in the Sixties: "Joe Cartwright, Detective" for Bonanza, "Night of the Sudden Death" for The Wild Wild West, "Case of the Tarnished Trademark" for Perry Mason, and "Incident of the Town in Terror" for Rawhide. Crawford had a talent for developing unique and interesting episodes for various TV shows--in fact, he was the first writer to write an episode in which the Galileo, one of the shuttlecraft of the Enterprise, played a central role. He was one of a generation of television writers who was not only prolific, but capable of some high quality writing as well.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Answers to the Pulp Magazine Quiz
Here are the answers to the Pulp Magazine Quiz from September 23.
1. What is generally considered the first pulp magazine?
Argosy
2. What was the first pulp magazine dedicated to a single genre?
Detective Story Magazine
3. What was the name of the famous horror pulp (originally published by J.C. Henneberger in 1823 and published stories by Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, and H. P. Lovecraft?
Weird Tales
4. The Shadow was mostly written by what man?
Walter Gibson
5. In what year was the science fiction magazine Astounding (now Analog) first published?
1930
6. Name Doc Savage's five assistants (their nicknames will do)?
Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny.
6. What was the name of The Spider's girlfriend?
Nita Van Sloan
8. What famous hero pulp was first published by Popular Publications the same month that Popular first published The Spider?
G-8 and His Battle Aces
9. Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, first appeared in what pulp magazine?
Spicy Detective
10. In what year did Street Smith cancel nearly all of its pulp magazine line, including The Shadow and Doc Savage (bonus points for the one Street and Smith pulp magazine that was spared and survives to this day)?
1949. Astounding was the one that was spared.
1. What is generally considered the first pulp magazine?
Argosy
2. What was the first pulp magazine dedicated to a single genre?
Detective Story Magazine
3. What was the name of the famous horror pulp (originally published by J.C. Henneberger in 1823 and published stories by Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, and H. P. Lovecraft?
Weird Tales
4. The Shadow was mostly written by what man?
Walter Gibson
5. In what year was the science fiction magazine Astounding (now Analog) first published?
1930
6. Name Doc Savage's five assistants (their nicknames will do)?
Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny.
6. What was the name of The Spider's girlfriend?
Nita Van Sloan
8. What famous hero pulp was first published by Popular Publications the same month that Popular first published The Spider?
G-8 and His Battle Aces
9. Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, first appeared in what pulp magazine?
Spicy Detective
10. In what year did Street Smith cancel nearly all of its pulp magazine line, including The Shadow and Doc Savage (bonus points for the one Street and Smith pulp magazine that was spared and survives to this day)?
1949. Astounding was the one that was spared.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Satanic Panic of the Eighties
Those of you who are old enough may remember that there was a good deal of concern being expressed about Satanism in the United States in the Eighties, both in the media and through the grapevine. There were a number of accusations of Satanic ritual abuse (abuse during Satanic rituals) and quite a few even went to court. Rumours sprang up accusing various individuals and even whole companies of being Devil worshippers. Rumours also spread about allegedly Satanic content in rock songs, role playing games, and even children's cartoons. During the Eighties, there were a number of people speaking of the Devil.
This phenomenon would later be termed by sociologists and other professionals, "the Satanic panic." It was essentially a moral panic (which occurs when a large number of people express concerns over groups of individuals or alleged groups of individuals whom they view as a threat to the moral fabric of society), not unlike the witch hunts of Renaissance Europe or the Red Scare of the United States in the Fifties. That there was little, if any, evidence that widespread Satanic ritual abuse ever took place in the United States or that there were hidden messages on various rock songs did not prevent numerous individuals from expressing undue concern at the threat of Satanism.
The beginnings of the Satanic panic perhaps have their roots in the Sixties. Prior to the Sixties Devil worshippers were rarely mentioned in Anglo-American pop culture. The 1934 Universal horror movie The Black Cat featured Boris Karloff as an unabashed diabolist. Val Lewton's 1943 horror movie The Seventh Victim also dealt with Satanists, although to avoid controversy they were called Palladists (a term used of an alleged Satanic/Masonic group first mentioned in the 19th century). For the most part, however, portrayals of Devil worship and the Devil or demons in the mass media were rare before the Sixties. This would change during that decade, which saw the portrayal of Satanists in the 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby and the 1968 film based upon it, the 1968 Hammer film The Devil Rides Out, and even the TV show Dark Shadows. Depictions of Satan or Satanism would only increase during the Seventies, with the publication of The Exorcist in 1971 and the release of the film based upon it in 1973, the movie Race with the Devil and other low budget horror movies, The Omen and its sequels, and a number of other books and films. While these movies and books did not necessarily spark the panic, they did provide much of the mythology for the Satanic panic, in much the same way that the Renaissance witch hunts had provided much of the mythology for horror novels and movies of the late twentieth century which dealt with Devil worship. At the same time, the foundation of the Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in 1966 and the publication of his Satanic Bible in 1969 may have caused concern for many, even though the Church of Satan has always denied the existence of the Devil.
The Sixties would provide the beginnings of the Satanic panic in another way as well. The Sixties was a time of profound change. The decade saw the rise of the Sexual Revolution, feminism, gay rights, and an increase in recreational drug use. For many the Sixties would cause concern that our society was on the edge of moral collapse. Perhaps as a backlash to the changes which occurred in the Sixties, Christian Fundamentalism would start to grow in numbers in the United States in the late Seventies into the early Eighties. Christian Fundamentalists also became more active in the political sphere, with the creation of the Moral Majority in 1979. According to Jeffrey S. Victor in his 1993 book Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend, those most likely to believe rumours of Satanic ritual abuse were poor, conservative Protestants from the working class. And it was precisely among poor, rural, conservative Protestants from the working class that Fundamentalism would take hold in the late Seventies and late Eighties. Because of the very nature of their beliefs, which among other things espouse a belief in the existence of Satan as an individual, Fundamentalism may have predisposed poor, rural, conservative Protestants to believe in Satanic ritual abuse more so than other groups.
Other factors also probably played a role in the rise of the Satanic panic. Jeffrey S. Victor attributed much of the Satanic panic to economic decline, unemployment, and concern over what was perceived by some as the decline of the nuclear family. With regards to economic decline as a cause of the Satanic panic, Victor could well be correct. The Eighties in the United States was a time when the economy went into sharp decline. Wages did not keep pace with the cost of living. Unemployment was widespread. The homeless became more common. Farm foreclosures took place at record highs. And the gap between the rich and the poor only grew greater. It is perhaps significant as the economy grew worse in the Eighties, the Satanic panic also increased in its intensity. By mid-decade the unemployment rate reached postwar highs. Significantly, the Satanic panic perhaps reached its peak in 1987, the same year that Black Monday took place in October, when stocks collapsed at an unprecedented level.
If one must choose a starting point for the Satanic panic, it should perhaps be 1980, when the book Michelle Remembers by Dr. Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith was published. It was the first book ever written on Satanic ritual abuse, recounting Smith's treatment at Pazder's practice in Victoria, British Columbia in the late Seventies. During Smith's treatment Pazder used hypnosis to uncover alleged repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse that had occurred to her when she was a child. The abuse allegedly was the work of a "Satanic Cult" in town, of which her mother was a member. The book received a good deal of publicity, and Pazder and Smith went on an extensive publicity tour. The book introduced many of the hallmarks of alleged Satanic abuse, including the recovery of repressed memories through hypnosis. It would also introduce the term "ritual abuse." Much of the book would later be proven to be inaccurate and inconsistent, but it would have an impact nonetheless.
It was not long before other individuals claiming to have repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse under hypnosis in psychotherapy emerged. At the same time the first of the Kern County, California child abuse cases, in which Alvin and Debbie McCuan were falsely accused of sexually abusing children, sparked what has become called the "day care sex abuse hysteria." It would not be long before accusations of abuse made by children towards parents and other caregivers would include elements of Satanic ritual. Indeed, it was in 1983 that accusations of Satanic ritual abuse were made towards the McMartin preschool of Manhattan Beach, California. Investigation and arrests in the case lasted from 1984 to 1987. The trial itself would last from 1987 to 1990. The first trial ended in jury deadlock. A second trial would result in an acquittal and a dismissal. Similar allegations would arise towards daycare centres and other caretakers in the United States and abroad. Among the most notable were the Country Walk Babysitting Service case from Dade County, Florida (which went to trial in 1986, although the first accusations were made in 1983), the Glendale Montessori case in Stuart, Florida, and the Little Rascals Day Care Centre case in Edenton, North Carolina.
In 1988 Geraldo Rivera's special Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground perhaps added fuel to the Satanic panic and the daycare sex abuse hysteria. It would be Geraldo's only primetime special to air on NBC (previously he had been a reporter with ABC News and was then a daytime talk show host). Airing on October 25, only a few days before Halloween, the special dealt not only with alleged Satanic ritual abuse of children, but also with such topics as alleged breeding of babies for sacrifice in Satanic rituals, the drinking of the blood of children at cocktail parties, and other sensationalist topics. Evidence was sorely lacking for any of this in the special, and its intent seemed to be more to shock than to inform. Despite this it was watched by more people at the time than any other television documentary. There are many who believe that Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground escalated the Satanic panic in many parts of the country.
Most studies of the Satanic panic of the Eighties deal only with the accusations of Satanic ritual abuse by adults claiming repressed memories and accusations of current abuse by children. I would argue that it entailed more than that. In fact, the Eighties was a period when people saw the Devil everywhere. There were rumours and concerns on the part of some on Satanic content in rock music, role playing games, and even childrens' cartoons. What is more, urban legends of Satanism with regards to individuals and even companies would be widespread in the Eighties.
In fact, one of the most bizarre aspects of the Satanic panic was accusations that many rock groups used backmasking to insert Satanic messages in their music. Backmasking, also called "backwards masking," is a recording technique in which sounds are recorded backwards on a recording that is meant to be played forwards. Backmasking was first used on a wide scale in the Fifties musical movement called musicque concrete, an avant garde form whereby fragments of recorded sounds are edited together to make music. The first well known instance of backwards masking occurred when John Lennon and George Martin used the technique on The Beatles songs "Tomorrow Never Knows," "I'm Only Sleeping," and "Rain." As early as the late Seventies, there were rumours of backwards masking used to insert a message beginning "Oh here's to my sweet Satan..." on Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." The rumour only grew after Christian DJ Michael Mills made the claim on several radio programmes in 1981. From there rumours of backwards masking gained momentum. In 1982 Paul Couch of the PTL Club hosted a show on which a so called neuroscientist William Yarroll made the claim that rock groups were working with the Church of Satan to place diabolic, subliminal messages on their records. Many began to capitalise on these rumours, such as minister Gary Greenwald who held several lectures on the subject. The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) would even repeat such claims about Led Zeppelin. Many Fundamentalists were active on a more local level in spreading accusations that there were Satanic messages backmasked on rock songs. In my area there was a man whose last name was either spelled "Munsey," "Muncy," "Muncey," or "Muncie" who held various lectures on the subject. Among the many songs that were accused of Satanic backmasking were "Do the Dark" by Blondie, "Gonna Raise Hell" by Cheap Trick, "Metal Health" by Quiet Riot, "Fire on High" by the Electric Light Orchestra, and "Snowblind" by Styx.
The backmasking and subliminal message rumours would even result in a lawsuit brought by the families of two Nevada youths who committed suicide against Judas Priest in 1990. The families claimed that the boys were led to take their own lives by a subliminal message on "Better By You, Better Than Me" from their album Stained Class. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that there was no real evidence that Judas Priest placed subliminal messages on their records. In his statement, he pointed out that scientific research does not show that subliminal messages could even cause acts of such a grave nature. Lead Singer Rob Halford pointed out the ludicrousness of it all, stating that it would be counterproductive for Judas Priest to kill off their fan base through subliminal messages to commit suicide.
Of course, while rock groups in the Eighties were plagued by rumours of Satanic subliminal messages in their music, accusations of Satanism had been made against many rock groups (especially heavy metal bands) from the early days. From their very first album in 1970, Black Sabbath had to deal with accusations that they were Satanic. And a rumour current in the Seventies was that members of Led Zeppelin (except for John Pual Jones) had sold their souls to the Devil for their success. A rumour that sprung up about KISS, either in the late Seventies or early Eighties, was that the band's name stood for Knights In Service of Satan. The rumour persisted despite denials on the part of the band and plenty of evidence to the contrary. It was widely believed that The Eagles' "Hotel California" was about the Church of Satan. Of course, it perhaps did not help that in the Eighties some artists, such as Venom, Slayer, and King Diamond actively cultivated a Satanist image. In fact, King Diamond even expressed admiration for Anton LaVey, not the sort of thing that would endear him to Fundamentalists. Later he would reveal that he followed no religion, but that was in 2006 long after the Eighties Satanic Panic had passed.
Of course, it is probably not surprising that accusations of Satanic content was made towards rock groups. After all, as early as the Fifties it was called "the Devil's music," but then during the Satanic panic accusations of Satanism were even made towards things that would not be considered Satanic by the average American. The prime example of this may be Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and fantasy role playing games (RPGs) in general. Of course, the reasons why Fundamentalists would accuse Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy RPGs of Satanism is simple. To many Fundamentalists magic is more or less witchcraft and in their view witchcraft by its very nature is diabolism. It is the same reason accusations of Satanic content in the Harry Potter books have been made. At any rate, the fact that these accusations towards the fantasy RPGs were made during the Satanic panic perhaps made it much worse than the Harry Potter controversy ever was.
If one must pinpoint the time when the accusations of Satanism towards Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy RPGs began to gain steam, it is perhaps with the suicide of Patricia Pulling's son Irving in 1982. Irving Pulling had been an avid D&D player, and his mother thought his suicide was directly linked to the game. She would even sue TSR Inc., then the owners of Dungeons and Dragons for wrongful death. The lawsuit was dismissed. It was then that she launched a crusade against Dungeons and Dragons, founding BADD (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). She would accuse the game of using everything from assassination, barbarism, blasphemy, cannibalism, demonology, demon summoning, desecration, divination, gambling, homosexuality, insanity, necromancy, prostitution, sadism, satanic type rituals, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, suicide, and other teachings. BADD would achieve a great deal of success with Fundamentalist groups. She even wrote a book expressing her opinions, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan. Pulling would be followed by other similar critics, such as the notorious Jack T. Chick. Infamous for publishing Fundamentalist tracts since 1960, he naturally tackled the subject of role playing games in one of them.
If accusations that D&D was Satanic might seem strange to many today, stranger today would be thought the accusations that even movies and TV shows that many consider innocent were somehow Satanic. Perhaps the strangest accusation of diabolic content in pop culture artefacts of them all were the classic Walt Disney animated features. Fundamentalists would point to the demon Chernabog in Fantasia and the magic prevalent in his movies in everything from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty (of course, magic is the work of the Devil in their view). This would lead to rumours that Walt Disney himself was a Satanist. The ludicrousness of this is that Disney was not only a Protestant, but very conservative in his views. Once, when two of his cartoonists produced a pornographic cartoon for his birthday, he fired them both promptly on the spot. Of course, perhaps even stranger was the accusation that there was Satanic content in the animated carton The Smurfs (based on Belgian cartoonist Peyo's long running Les Schtroumpfs). Of course, this was largely due to the frequent use of magic in the cartoon (Papa Smurf often whipping up a magical solution in a crisis).
It was not simply rock stars and animators who had reason to worry during the Satanic panic. Among the earliest victims of the panic was the company Procter and Gamble. Starting around 1981 a rumour began circulating that their original logo was a Satanic symbol. The accusation originated from Revelation 12:1, which reads, "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." As Procter and Gamble's original logo (as seen above) consisted of a man in the moon facing thirteen stars, it led some to believe that it was a mockery of this image from Revelation, making it Satanic. Some would go further and claim that where the beard meets the circle, a mirror image of 666 can be seen inside the logo (I don't see it myself). Of course, that their symbol was Satanic in the eyes of many meant that the company itself must be Satanists. Procter and Gamble would ultimately sue many who have spread these rumours. And not only has the company denied any links to Satanism, but there has never been any evidence of such. Indeed, as anyone with any knowledge of the history of trademarks know, the Procter and Gamble logo was created in 1851 when man in the moon imagery was popular. The 13 stars symbolise the 13 founding states of the United States of America. Sadly, despite Procter and Gamble's efforts to defend their old logo, they were eventually forced to adopt a new one.
A later victim of the Satanic panic was designer Liz Clairborne. Starting around 1990, an urban legend began circulating that Clairborne had confessed to being a Satanist and was donating 30% of her company's profits to the Church of Satan on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The upshot of this is that Liz Clairborne has never appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, nor did she ever make any other such confession on any other talk show.
As the Eighties passed, the Satanic panic would begin to lose steam. Among the first victims of the panic were the rumours that backmasking was being used to place Satanic messages on rock songs. The reason for this was simply that anyone with a phonograph could put the accusations to shame simply by playing records backwards on the machine. I remember after Reverend Munsey (or Muncey, or Muncie...) made another visit to our area, my brother and I got a hold of some of the tapes of his lectures he sold and then listened to them. We then went to our extensive vinyl collection (which contained most of the songs he accused of having subliminal messages) and played them backwards. Often, what we heard weren't Satanic messages, but gibberish. In other instances where there was an actual hidden message, it wasn't what he was claiming was being said at all (and not Satanic in the least bit)! Of course, in instances of alleged subliminal messages on rock songs beyond backmasking, all it took was a good set of recording equipment to disprove any such claims of Satanic messages. The 1990 dismissal of the lawsuit against Judas Priest seems to have been the final nail in the coffin of the whole backmasking/subliminal message controversy, which had been on the wane since around 1984-1985 anyhow.
As to the accusations that D&D and other role playing games were somehow Satanic, that too would be put to the test. Many would point out the extreme inaccuracies in Pulling's portrayals of D&D and other RPGs in her writings and particularly her book, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan. In fact, speaking as someone who spent much of his youth playing D&D (and I can tell you that I did not turn into a serial killer, a rapist, or a Satanist--in fact, I am a well adjusted guy who owns his own home), I can testify that practically everything she had to say was utter hogwash. Indeed, there have been many who have pointed out that Patricia Pulling's assumption that her son Irving's suicide was linked to D&D was not the case. Irving Pulling was a troubled young man who had been suffering from depression for many months prior to his suicide. He had trouble fitting in at school and, if reports are to be believed, was off his medication when he killed himself. There were probably many factors which led to Irving Pulling's death, of which D&D was most likely not one of them. In fact, the American Association of Suicidology, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, and Canada's Health and Welfare would all independently conclude there was no link between role playing and suicide.
Ironically, Geraldo's special Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground in 1988 may have been part of the beginning of the end of the Satanic panic. While it was responsible in part for increasing allegations of Satanic ritual abuse among many, it was also raked over the coals by TV critics, commentators, and a good number of people for its utter lack of evidence for its claims and its sensationalist nature. It seems to me that this was not lost on the average person. I remember, with the exception of a few Fundamentalists, the common view of the man on the street seems to be that it was one of the worst pieces of garbage to ever air on television, offering no real proof of some vast Satanic conspiracy or that child sacrifices were taking place on a wide scale.
As to the heart of the Satanic panic, the claims by adults to have recovered memories of ritual abuse as children and the accusations of children that they had suffered ritual abuse, media coverage of such would grow increasingly negative in 1987. One factor in this change of heart on the part of the media is the fact that the existence of repressed memory is not accepted by the mainstream psychological community at large. In fact, so called recovered memory therapy is not even listed in the DSM-IV or used in mainstream psychotherapy. There is even a theory that hypnosis can produce what is known as false memories, either because a psychotherapist underestimates the suggestibility of his or her patient or, worse yet, the therapist asks leading questions creating such false memories.
Indeed, questions regarding the accuracy of the book Michelle Remembers arose nearly as soon as it was published. It was in the October 27, 1980 issue of Macleans that reporter Paul Grescoe questioned Michelle Smith's father, who strenuously denied the accusations she had made against her mother, as well as a childhood friend of Smith's mother who said that she was a kind and loving woman. Grescoe also noticed some omissions in the book--it did not mention either of Smith's sisters, nor that Dr. Pazer and Smith had by that point gotten married to each other. While the Macleans article would not have much impact, it was the first shot in what would eventually become a point of controversy regarding the book. In fact, it would be in 1990 that The Mail on Sunday conducted an investigation into the book. In an interview with Smith's father, he indicated that she had lied on at least three points. Interviewing Smith's childhood family physician, he theorised that the book was created by an overactive imagination. Neighbours of the family when Smith was growing up agreed that her mother was not only kind and gracious, but it was not possible that Smith could have been abused without someone finding out. A childhood friend of Smith had similarly good things to say about her mother. The clincher in the article may well have been when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police noted that there never has been even one prosecution in Victoria for Satanism. The 1995 book Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt by Michael R. Snedeker and Debbie Nathan revealed further inconsistencies. In the book Smith had claimed that there had been a car crash, but there were no newspaper reports from that period of such a crash. Teachers, childhood friends, and former neighbours all testified that Smith had never been absent from school for a long period of time, even though the book claims she was abused in an 81 day non-stop ritual with literally hundreds of Satanists taking part. Absolutely no one who knew Smith as a child could back up any of the claims she made of ritual abuse in the book. The debunking of the book Michelle Remembers would be a serious blow to the Satanic panic, being as it was the book that had started it all.
The debunking of the book Michelle Remembers would only be the beginning. In 1992 I remember an article that appeared in Playboy largely debunking the alleged phenomenon of Satanic ritual abuse. That same year the FBI would issue its Investigator's Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse. Among other things, this influential report noted the impossibility of an organised Satanic conspiracy, the utter lack of evidence that babies were being bred for cannibalism by devil worshippers or that 50,000 infants had been murdered in Satanic sacrifices, or that diabolists had seized control of the country's daycare centres and preschools. It also concluded that the vast majority of allegations of Satanic ritual abuse are most likely false. Coming from the top law enforcement agency in the nation, The Investigator's Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse would provide a huge blow to those arguing that Satanic ritual abuse was occurring regularly across the country.
It would be in 1993 that Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend by Jeffery S. Victor would be published. Perhaps the best overview of the Satanic panic, it provided the final blow to a phenomenon that had been losing credibility since 1987. In fact, it is to be noted that since 1992 and 1993, reports of Satanic ritual abuse had drastically decreased. In fact, if we are to say that the Satanic panic began around 1980, we might be able to say it ended in 1992 or 1993.
Today it is easy to look back at many aspects of the Satanic panic of the Eighties and laugh. For many of us today (as it was for many of us then) it seems ridiculous that anyone could have believed rock stars were backwards masking Satanic messages into their records. For many more of us it probably seems even more ridiculous that anyone could believe there were Satanic overtones to classic Disney films, let alone that Walt Disney was a Satanist (he was a Congregationalist, for gods' sakes...) or that there was Satanic content in The Smurfs. But the truth is that the Satanic panic caused a great deal damage as well. Many people's lives were ruined. There were those parents and other caretakers falsely accused of Satanic ritual abuse and even placed under arrest. While most would be acquitted or dismissed, the damage to their lives was done. Indeed, Ray Buckey was cleared of charges against him and his case dismissed in the McMartin Preschool Trial only after he had spent five years in jail. The harm caused by the Satanic panic did not end there. Many families were divided. I remember a case here in Missouri (Springfield, I think) where an adult woman accused her father of abuse--it was dismissed when it was found that despite her claims of repeatedly being raped as a child, she was still a virgin (how a woman could not know this when her maidenhead was still intact, I don't know...). The family later sued the psychotherapist who had implanted the false memories in her mind. As to those who learned their memories of abuse were false, they often find themselves suffering post traumatic stress disorder due to those false memories and guilt over having made accusations based on what was ultimately untrue.
Like the Red Scare of the Fifties, in the end the Satanic panic harmed many. Like so many moral panics before it, ultimately the Satanic panic was anything but moral.
This phenomenon would later be termed by sociologists and other professionals, "the Satanic panic." It was essentially a moral panic (which occurs when a large number of people express concerns over groups of individuals or alleged groups of individuals whom they view as a threat to the moral fabric of society), not unlike the witch hunts of Renaissance Europe or the Red Scare of the United States in the Fifties. That there was little, if any, evidence that widespread Satanic ritual abuse ever took place in the United States or that there were hidden messages on various rock songs did not prevent numerous individuals from expressing undue concern at the threat of Satanism.
The beginnings of the Satanic panic perhaps have their roots in the Sixties. Prior to the Sixties Devil worshippers were rarely mentioned in Anglo-American pop culture. The 1934 Universal horror movie The Black Cat featured Boris Karloff as an unabashed diabolist. Val Lewton's 1943 horror movie The Seventh Victim also dealt with Satanists, although to avoid controversy they were called Palladists (a term used of an alleged Satanic/Masonic group first mentioned in the 19th century). For the most part, however, portrayals of Devil worship and the Devil or demons in the mass media were rare before the Sixties. This would change during that decade, which saw the portrayal of Satanists in the 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby and the 1968 film based upon it, the 1968 Hammer film The Devil Rides Out, and even the TV show Dark Shadows. Depictions of Satan or Satanism would only increase during the Seventies, with the publication of The Exorcist in 1971 and the release of the film based upon it in 1973, the movie Race with the Devil and other low budget horror movies, The Omen and its sequels, and a number of other books and films. While these movies and books did not necessarily spark the panic, they did provide much of the mythology for the Satanic panic, in much the same way that the Renaissance witch hunts had provided much of the mythology for horror novels and movies of the late twentieth century which dealt with Devil worship. At the same time, the foundation of the Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in 1966 and the publication of his Satanic Bible in 1969 may have caused concern for many, even though the Church of Satan has always denied the existence of the Devil.
The Sixties would provide the beginnings of the Satanic panic in another way as well. The Sixties was a time of profound change. The decade saw the rise of the Sexual Revolution, feminism, gay rights, and an increase in recreational drug use. For many the Sixties would cause concern that our society was on the edge of moral collapse. Perhaps as a backlash to the changes which occurred in the Sixties, Christian Fundamentalism would start to grow in numbers in the United States in the late Seventies into the early Eighties. Christian Fundamentalists also became more active in the political sphere, with the creation of the Moral Majority in 1979. According to Jeffrey S. Victor in his 1993 book Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend, those most likely to believe rumours of Satanic ritual abuse were poor, conservative Protestants from the working class. And it was precisely among poor, rural, conservative Protestants from the working class that Fundamentalism would take hold in the late Seventies and late Eighties. Because of the very nature of their beliefs, which among other things espouse a belief in the existence of Satan as an individual, Fundamentalism may have predisposed poor, rural, conservative Protestants to believe in Satanic ritual abuse more so than other groups.
Other factors also probably played a role in the rise of the Satanic panic. Jeffrey S. Victor attributed much of the Satanic panic to economic decline, unemployment, and concern over what was perceived by some as the decline of the nuclear family. With regards to economic decline as a cause of the Satanic panic, Victor could well be correct. The Eighties in the United States was a time when the economy went into sharp decline. Wages did not keep pace with the cost of living. Unemployment was widespread. The homeless became more common. Farm foreclosures took place at record highs. And the gap between the rich and the poor only grew greater. It is perhaps significant as the economy grew worse in the Eighties, the Satanic panic also increased in its intensity. By mid-decade the unemployment rate reached postwar highs. Significantly, the Satanic panic perhaps reached its peak in 1987, the same year that Black Monday took place in October, when stocks collapsed at an unprecedented level.
If one must choose a starting point for the Satanic panic, it should perhaps be 1980, when the book Michelle Remembers by Dr. Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith was published. It was the first book ever written on Satanic ritual abuse, recounting Smith's treatment at Pazder's practice in Victoria, British Columbia in the late Seventies. During Smith's treatment Pazder used hypnosis to uncover alleged repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse that had occurred to her when she was a child. The abuse allegedly was the work of a "Satanic Cult" in town, of which her mother was a member. The book received a good deal of publicity, and Pazder and Smith went on an extensive publicity tour. The book introduced many of the hallmarks of alleged Satanic abuse, including the recovery of repressed memories through hypnosis. It would also introduce the term "ritual abuse." Much of the book would later be proven to be inaccurate and inconsistent, but it would have an impact nonetheless.
It was not long before other individuals claiming to have repressed memories of Satanic ritual abuse under hypnosis in psychotherapy emerged. At the same time the first of the Kern County, California child abuse cases, in which Alvin and Debbie McCuan were falsely accused of sexually abusing children, sparked what has become called the "day care sex abuse hysteria." It would not be long before accusations of abuse made by children towards parents and other caregivers would include elements of Satanic ritual. Indeed, it was in 1983 that accusations of Satanic ritual abuse were made towards the McMartin preschool of Manhattan Beach, California. Investigation and arrests in the case lasted from 1984 to 1987. The trial itself would last from 1987 to 1990. The first trial ended in jury deadlock. A second trial would result in an acquittal and a dismissal. Similar allegations would arise towards daycare centres and other caretakers in the United States and abroad. Among the most notable were the Country Walk Babysitting Service case from Dade County, Florida (which went to trial in 1986, although the first accusations were made in 1983), the Glendale Montessori case in Stuart, Florida, and the Little Rascals Day Care Centre case in Edenton, North Carolina.
In 1988 Geraldo Rivera's special Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground perhaps added fuel to the Satanic panic and the daycare sex abuse hysteria. It would be Geraldo's only primetime special to air on NBC (previously he had been a reporter with ABC News and was then a daytime talk show host). Airing on October 25, only a few days before Halloween, the special dealt not only with alleged Satanic ritual abuse of children, but also with such topics as alleged breeding of babies for sacrifice in Satanic rituals, the drinking of the blood of children at cocktail parties, and other sensationalist topics. Evidence was sorely lacking for any of this in the special, and its intent seemed to be more to shock than to inform. Despite this it was watched by more people at the time than any other television documentary. There are many who believe that Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground escalated the Satanic panic in many parts of the country.
Most studies of the Satanic panic of the Eighties deal only with the accusations of Satanic ritual abuse by adults claiming repressed memories and accusations of current abuse by children. I would argue that it entailed more than that. In fact, the Eighties was a period when people saw the Devil everywhere. There were rumours and concerns on the part of some on Satanic content in rock music, role playing games, and even childrens' cartoons. What is more, urban legends of Satanism with regards to individuals and even companies would be widespread in the Eighties.
In fact, one of the most bizarre aspects of the Satanic panic was accusations that many rock groups used backmasking to insert Satanic messages in their music. Backmasking, also called "backwards masking," is a recording technique in which sounds are recorded backwards on a recording that is meant to be played forwards. Backmasking was first used on a wide scale in the Fifties musical movement called musicque concrete, an avant garde form whereby fragments of recorded sounds are edited together to make music. The first well known instance of backwards masking occurred when John Lennon and George Martin used the technique on The Beatles songs "Tomorrow Never Knows," "I'm Only Sleeping," and "Rain." As early as the late Seventies, there were rumours of backwards masking used to insert a message beginning "Oh here's to my sweet Satan..." on Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." The rumour only grew after Christian DJ Michael Mills made the claim on several radio programmes in 1981. From there rumours of backwards masking gained momentum. In 1982 Paul Couch of the PTL Club hosted a show on which a so called neuroscientist William Yarroll made the claim that rock groups were working with the Church of Satan to place diabolic, subliminal messages on their records. Many began to capitalise on these rumours, such as minister Gary Greenwald who held several lectures on the subject. The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) would even repeat such claims about Led Zeppelin. Many Fundamentalists were active on a more local level in spreading accusations that there were Satanic messages backmasked on rock songs. In my area there was a man whose last name was either spelled "Munsey," "Muncy," "Muncey," or "Muncie" who held various lectures on the subject. Among the many songs that were accused of Satanic backmasking were "Do the Dark" by Blondie, "Gonna Raise Hell" by Cheap Trick, "Metal Health" by Quiet Riot, "Fire on High" by the Electric Light Orchestra, and "Snowblind" by Styx.
The backmasking and subliminal message rumours would even result in a lawsuit brought by the families of two Nevada youths who committed suicide against Judas Priest in 1990. The families claimed that the boys were led to take their own lives by a subliminal message on "Better By You, Better Than Me" from their album Stained Class. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that there was no real evidence that Judas Priest placed subliminal messages on their records. In his statement, he pointed out that scientific research does not show that subliminal messages could even cause acts of such a grave nature. Lead Singer Rob Halford pointed out the ludicrousness of it all, stating that it would be counterproductive for Judas Priest to kill off their fan base through subliminal messages to commit suicide.
Of course, while rock groups in the Eighties were plagued by rumours of Satanic subliminal messages in their music, accusations of Satanism had been made against many rock groups (especially heavy metal bands) from the early days. From their very first album in 1970, Black Sabbath had to deal with accusations that they were Satanic. And a rumour current in the Seventies was that members of Led Zeppelin (except for John Pual Jones) had sold their souls to the Devil for their success. A rumour that sprung up about KISS, either in the late Seventies or early Eighties, was that the band's name stood for Knights In Service of Satan. The rumour persisted despite denials on the part of the band and plenty of evidence to the contrary. It was widely believed that The Eagles' "Hotel California" was about the Church of Satan. Of course, it perhaps did not help that in the Eighties some artists, such as Venom, Slayer, and King Diamond actively cultivated a Satanist image. In fact, King Diamond even expressed admiration for Anton LaVey, not the sort of thing that would endear him to Fundamentalists. Later he would reveal that he followed no religion, but that was in 2006 long after the Eighties Satanic Panic had passed.
Of course, it is probably not surprising that accusations of Satanic content was made towards rock groups. After all, as early as the Fifties it was called "the Devil's music," but then during the Satanic panic accusations of Satanism were even made towards things that would not be considered Satanic by the average American. The prime example of this may be Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and fantasy role playing games (RPGs) in general. Of course, the reasons why Fundamentalists would accuse Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy RPGs of Satanism is simple. To many Fundamentalists magic is more or less witchcraft and in their view witchcraft by its very nature is diabolism. It is the same reason accusations of Satanic content in the Harry Potter books have been made. At any rate, the fact that these accusations towards the fantasy RPGs were made during the Satanic panic perhaps made it much worse than the Harry Potter controversy ever was.
If one must pinpoint the time when the accusations of Satanism towards Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy RPGs began to gain steam, it is perhaps with the suicide of Patricia Pulling's son Irving in 1982. Irving Pulling had been an avid D&D player, and his mother thought his suicide was directly linked to the game. She would even sue TSR Inc., then the owners of Dungeons and Dragons for wrongful death. The lawsuit was dismissed. It was then that she launched a crusade against Dungeons and Dragons, founding BADD (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). She would accuse the game of using everything from assassination, barbarism, blasphemy, cannibalism, demonology, demon summoning, desecration, divination, gambling, homosexuality, insanity, necromancy, prostitution, sadism, satanic type rituals, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, suicide, and other teachings. BADD would achieve a great deal of success with Fundamentalist groups. She even wrote a book expressing her opinions, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan. Pulling would be followed by other similar critics, such as the notorious Jack T. Chick. Infamous for publishing Fundamentalist tracts since 1960, he naturally tackled the subject of role playing games in one of them.
If accusations that D&D was Satanic might seem strange to many today, stranger today would be thought the accusations that even movies and TV shows that many consider innocent were somehow Satanic. Perhaps the strangest accusation of diabolic content in pop culture artefacts of them all were the classic Walt Disney animated features. Fundamentalists would point to the demon Chernabog in Fantasia and the magic prevalent in his movies in everything from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty (of course, magic is the work of the Devil in their view). This would lead to rumours that Walt Disney himself was a Satanist. The ludicrousness of this is that Disney was not only a Protestant, but very conservative in his views. Once, when two of his cartoonists produced a pornographic cartoon for his birthday, he fired them both promptly on the spot. Of course, perhaps even stranger was the accusation that there was Satanic content in the animated carton The Smurfs (based on Belgian cartoonist Peyo's long running Les Schtroumpfs). Of course, this was largely due to the frequent use of magic in the cartoon (Papa Smurf often whipping up a magical solution in a crisis).
A later victim of the Satanic panic was designer Liz Clairborne. Starting around 1990, an urban legend began circulating that Clairborne had confessed to being a Satanist and was donating 30% of her company's profits to the Church of Satan on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The upshot of this is that Liz Clairborne has never appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, nor did she ever make any other such confession on any other talk show.
As the Eighties passed, the Satanic panic would begin to lose steam. Among the first victims of the panic were the rumours that backmasking was being used to place Satanic messages on rock songs. The reason for this was simply that anyone with a phonograph could put the accusations to shame simply by playing records backwards on the machine. I remember after Reverend Munsey (or Muncey, or Muncie...) made another visit to our area, my brother and I got a hold of some of the tapes of his lectures he sold and then listened to them. We then went to our extensive vinyl collection (which contained most of the songs he accused of having subliminal messages) and played them backwards. Often, what we heard weren't Satanic messages, but gibberish. In other instances where there was an actual hidden message, it wasn't what he was claiming was being said at all (and not Satanic in the least bit)! Of course, in instances of alleged subliminal messages on rock songs beyond backmasking, all it took was a good set of recording equipment to disprove any such claims of Satanic messages. The 1990 dismissal of the lawsuit against Judas Priest seems to have been the final nail in the coffin of the whole backmasking/subliminal message controversy, which had been on the wane since around 1984-1985 anyhow.
As to the accusations that D&D and other role playing games were somehow Satanic, that too would be put to the test. Many would point out the extreme inaccuracies in Pulling's portrayals of D&D and other RPGs in her writings and particularly her book, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan. In fact, speaking as someone who spent much of his youth playing D&D (and I can tell you that I did not turn into a serial killer, a rapist, or a Satanist--in fact, I am a well adjusted guy who owns his own home), I can testify that practically everything she had to say was utter hogwash. Indeed, there have been many who have pointed out that Patricia Pulling's assumption that her son Irving's suicide was linked to D&D was not the case. Irving Pulling was a troubled young man who had been suffering from depression for many months prior to his suicide. He had trouble fitting in at school and, if reports are to be believed, was off his medication when he killed himself. There were probably many factors which led to Irving Pulling's death, of which D&D was most likely not one of them. In fact, the American Association of Suicidology, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, and Canada's Health and Welfare would all independently conclude there was no link between role playing and suicide.
Ironically, Geraldo's special Devil Worship: Exploring Satan's Underground in 1988 may have been part of the beginning of the end of the Satanic panic. While it was responsible in part for increasing allegations of Satanic ritual abuse among many, it was also raked over the coals by TV critics, commentators, and a good number of people for its utter lack of evidence for its claims and its sensationalist nature. It seems to me that this was not lost on the average person. I remember, with the exception of a few Fundamentalists, the common view of the man on the street seems to be that it was one of the worst pieces of garbage to ever air on television, offering no real proof of some vast Satanic conspiracy or that child sacrifices were taking place on a wide scale.
As to the heart of the Satanic panic, the claims by adults to have recovered memories of ritual abuse as children and the accusations of children that they had suffered ritual abuse, media coverage of such would grow increasingly negative in 1987. One factor in this change of heart on the part of the media is the fact that the existence of repressed memory is not accepted by the mainstream psychological community at large. In fact, so called recovered memory therapy is not even listed in the DSM-IV or used in mainstream psychotherapy. There is even a theory that hypnosis can produce what is known as false memories, either because a psychotherapist underestimates the suggestibility of his or her patient or, worse yet, the therapist asks leading questions creating such false memories.
Indeed, questions regarding the accuracy of the book Michelle Remembers arose nearly as soon as it was published. It was in the October 27, 1980 issue of Macleans that reporter Paul Grescoe questioned Michelle Smith's father, who strenuously denied the accusations she had made against her mother, as well as a childhood friend of Smith's mother who said that she was a kind and loving woman. Grescoe also noticed some omissions in the book--it did not mention either of Smith's sisters, nor that Dr. Pazer and Smith had by that point gotten married to each other. While the Macleans article would not have much impact, it was the first shot in what would eventually become a point of controversy regarding the book. In fact, it would be in 1990 that The Mail on Sunday conducted an investigation into the book. In an interview with Smith's father, he indicated that she had lied on at least three points. Interviewing Smith's childhood family physician, he theorised that the book was created by an overactive imagination. Neighbours of the family when Smith was growing up agreed that her mother was not only kind and gracious, but it was not possible that Smith could have been abused without someone finding out. A childhood friend of Smith had similarly good things to say about her mother. The clincher in the article may well have been when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police noted that there never has been even one prosecution in Victoria for Satanism. The 1995 book Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt by Michael R. Snedeker and Debbie Nathan revealed further inconsistencies. In the book Smith had claimed that there had been a car crash, but there were no newspaper reports from that period of such a crash. Teachers, childhood friends, and former neighbours all testified that Smith had never been absent from school for a long period of time, even though the book claims she was abused in an 81 day non-stop ritual with literally hundreds of Satanists taking part. Absolutely no one who knew Smith as a child could back up any of the claims she made of ritual abuse in the book. The debunking of the book Michelle Remembers would be a serious blow to the Satanic panic, being as it was the book that had started it all.
The debunking of the book Michelle Remembers would only be the beginning. In 1992 I remember an article that appeared in Playboy largely debunking the alleged phenomenon of Satanic ritual abuse. That same year the FBI would issue its Investigator's Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse. Among other things, this influential report noted the impossibility of an organised Satanic conspiracy, the utter lack of evidence that babies were being bred for cannibalism by devil worshippers or that 50,000 infants had been murdered in Satanic sacrifices, or that diabolists had seized control of the country's daycare centres and preschools. It also concluded that the vast majority of allegations of Satanic ritual abuse are most likely false. Coming from the top law enforcement agency in the nation, The Investigator's Guide to Allegations of Ritual Child Abuse would provide a huge blow to those arguing that Satanic ritual abuse was occurring regularly across the country.
It would be in 1993 that Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend by Jeffery S. Victor would be published. Perhaps the best overview of the Satanic panic, it provided the final blow to a phenomenon that had been losing credibility since 1987. In fact, it is to be noted that since 1992 and 1993, reports of Satanic ritual abuse had drastically decreased. In fact, if we are to say that the Satanic panic began around 1980, we might be able to say it ended in 1992 or 1993.
Today it is easy to look back at many aspects of the Satanic panic of the Eighties and laugh. For many of us today (as it was for many of us then) it seems ridiculous that anyone could have believed rock stars were backwards masking Satanic messages into their records. For many more of us it probably seems even more ridiculous that anyone could believe there were Satanic overtones to classic Disney films, let alone that Walt Disney was a Satanist (he was a Congregationalist, for gods' sakes...) or that there was Satanic content in The Smurfs. But the truth is that the Satanic panic caused a great deal damage as well. Many people's lives were ruined. There were those parents and other caretakers falsely accused of Satanic ritual abuse and even placed under arrest. While most would be acquitted or dismissed, the damage to their lives was done. Indeed, Ray Buckey was cleared of charges against him and his case dismissed in the McMartin Preschool Trial only after he had spent five years in jail. The harm caused by the Satanic panic did not end there. Many families were divided. I remember a case here in Missouri (Springfield, I think) where an adult woman accused her father of abuse--it was dismissed when it was found that despite her claims of repeatedly being raped as a child, she was still a virgin (how a woman could not know this when her maidenhead was still intact, I don't know...). The family later sued the psychotherapist who had implanted the false memories in her mind. As to those who learned their memories of abuse were false, they often find themselves suffering post traumatic stress disorder due to those false memories and guilt over having made accusations based on what was ultimately untrue.
Like the Red Scare of the Fifties, in the end the Satanic panic harmed many. Like so many moral panics before it, ultimately the Satanic panic was anything but moral.
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