Tales from the Tube: "Oooeey-gooeey"

Back when I was a kid, American TV was stupid, crappy and cheap the way it should be. My family had an old black-and-white Zenith ("The quality goes in before the name goes on!") that was more like a Nadir. No cable. No clicker. Only three channels.

In fact, we didn’t even get three channels. That was the curse of living in Sarasota, Florida. ABC came out from Channel 10 in Largo and another Channel 10 in Fort Myers. My hometown was equidistant between the two—thus, the signal was equally crappy from either station. So, I spent my childhood deprived of ABC. No Batman. No Bewitched. No Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.” Poor me. Years later, I actually saw the shows I'd missed. Jesus. I didn’t miss much. (The poor damn actor from La Strada reduced to dueling with ghost pirates for Irwin Allen, etc.) But I’d be lying awake at night thinking wow, what am I missing, a submarine with big windows in the future, Batman kicking the crap out of the Joker, aliens ...

The two stations that reached Sarasota came out of Tampa: WTVT Channel 13 and WFLA, Channel 8. As a result, I knew Tampa better than my own hometown. My brain was filled with phantom reference points: Dale Mabry Boulevard, The Frisch’s Big Boy (We didn’t even have a Big Boy) Courtney-Campbell Causeway — Aw, shut the hell up! Somebody drop a bomb on Tampa! I hate Tampa!

WTVT had a guy called "Salty Sol" Fleischman who talked about fishing, and another freckle-faced, red-haired guy named Andy Hardy, who resembled Howdy Doody and did the weather. Late, late at night (in an interminable live commercial, plunked, evilly, dead-center in the horror movie time slot), Andy Hardy would do a fake interview with Manuel Beiro, an ancient Cuban gentleman who looked like a corpse in a white suit and owned the Valencia Garden Restaurant. Both of ‘em would sit behind a table, packed with a massive, photogenic spread of Cuban food on a white tablecloth. Mr. Whiteboy’d be grinning and sitting, waiting patiently for Mr. Beiro to say his line. After a long stretch of dead air, the undead Cuban would finally raise a glass of wine and say, “Salud and happy days.” Andy’d ask him, “Uh, what’s all that Manuel?” and Manuel would explain, "Well, this is flan de leche custard, this is..." He'd then describe the attributes of each dish slowly, one by one, while Andy kept grinning. (I don't recall either of them actually eating anything.)

And I’d sit there watching that mind-numbing ritual because I was a TV addict.

Addict. Not in the sense of, ha-ha, exaggeration for rhetorical effect. I was a little TV addict. Literally. “TV will ruin your mind,” as Dad always said. He was right.

I’d pop up at 4:30 in the morning to watch — whatever.

If the tube was showing a steaming turd, I'd watch it.

I'd watch the camera panning back and forth across a barometer and a wind-speed indicator.

I'd watch snow.

Anything.

There were times when there was NOTHING on. Even Saturday mornings....

But I’d be up. Popping awake like toast far before dawn. Padding down the hall like a zombie. Must have TV! Stumbling into Florida room. Aghhhhh! Need TV! Turning on the TV. Watching! Apart from the flickering screen, the house is pitch black. Everybody else is asleep. Not me. I was watching TV! TV good. TV good.

So, I’d be there, in front of the Zenith, in a modified zazen sitting posture in front of the TV screen, flickering blue light pouring over my face, eyes wide open like the 2001 space fetus. Watching.

For an hour or so, the camera would keep panning back and forth over those fucking BAROMETERS and windspeed indicators — rows and rows of big black round dials with various weather information — slowly, slowly, back and forth. And I’d sit there watching it.

Because there was nothing else on.

Sometime around 5 a.m., WTVT started broadcasting some crappy early-1950s space opera, damned if I remember the show's name. A spaceport with gantry, etc. Rockets with fins that shot flames like Fourth of July firecrackers. Guy with big chin. Woman with big knockers. I think there was a monkey, but this may be progressive memory interference from Amazon Women on the Moon ...

As dawn approached, Saturday morning content got less and less shitty. Blocks of real cartoons were just ahead. If I could just hold on.

Gumby. Some low-rent puppet show....

Then, around 8, we’d enter a big block of crappy Hanna-Barbera cartoons — Wally Gator, Space Ghost, Scooby Doo, and etc. Predictable gags, limited animation, it never made me laugh. (Even as a kid, I was a cartoon snob.) Lame or not, I’d be mainlining the stuff. About 3 hours into it, I'd start to get a headache. I'd keep watching. Ignoring my Dad, who kept screaming DON’T SIT SO CLOSE TO THE TV! YOU’LL RUIN YOUR EYES! Fighting with my sister over content control. NO, I DON’T WANT TO WATCH PENELOPE PITSTOP, aggghhh WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THERE STOP THAT WHO STARTED.

All this time, I'd be fighting a constant battle with my parents not to turn off the TV and do chores (a battle lost or won depending on my parents’ hangovers) and with my sister not to watch icky girl TV.

I fought this war of attrition and kept my eyes peeled. Just kept watching, watching, watching. At some level, I always knew what I watched was steaming caca. I mean, come on! Sure, I'm still a kid. But I could see every joke coming a mile away. Then, sometime around 10 a.m., an oasis appeared in the Saturday morning wasteland. Warner Brothers cartoons! Yes! Finally! Fantastic comedy featuring Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner and friends—including a surreal interlude I’ll remember for the rest of my life where Yosemite Sam repeatedly dies, slides down a chute and goes to hell. Now that made me laugh.

Then, around 12:30 p.m. the cartoons flickered out. After that, Salty Sol started talking about fish. “Well the tarpon are...” Fuck the tarpon! Do I give a shit about tarpon? No. A shit I do not give. No towheaded fishing pole-carrier I. But I'd watch anyway. Because THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE ON. I knew that, if I held out, if I could just hold out, sometimes (depending on the whim of Channel 13’s erratic programming schedule) they’d show “Shock Theater” at 1:30 p.m., a neat, mini-seminar on the effects of radiation on bugs, gila monsters and 50-foot women with big bazongas. Then, around 2 p.m. my parents would kick me outside.

No more TV!

I wanna watch TV!

No. Go play, you little shit. Play! That's what kids are supposed to do!

Dad would push me out the front door. I'd hiss at the sun like Renfield in Dracula and run and hide.

Now, if any of you out there are still with me after this self-indulgent, projectile-vomit-inducing nostalgia trip, here’s more...

The same TV-addict dynamic applied after school. I’d get in, and fight my parents over whether I’d watch TV or do homework. (I had a very strange household, namely one with parents in it. Dad, a one-book published writer suffering from a five-year spell of “writer’s block” was always home; Mom, a teacher, got home around 2:30 or 3 p.m.)

At 4 p.m. there was a bizarre little kiddie show featuring Uncle Dave -- “Uncle Dave’s Restraining Order,” or whatever the hell they called it. A by-the-numbers kiddie show, natch. "Uncle Dave" had a peanut gallery of screaming kids and a clown assistant (of the Hobo Kelly knockoff variety) called “Barnie Bungleupper.” Uncle Dave entertained kids with kiddie games, humiliated the clown, had a “Cavalcade” of old, cartoons, showing crappy Popeye cartoons (evil King Features mediocrity) and a few surprisingly good cartoons — surreal, R Crumby stuff from the 1930s in which fire grew legs and ran down stairs ...

Most of Uncle Dave's kiddie games were stupid. One was bizarre, surrealistic, sadomasochistic, David Lynchian and disturbing.

That game was called “Oooey Gooey.” It was a sort of Russian Roulette for kids, I kid you not.

Six kids would sit on the floor around a lazy susan — a wooden wheel, about one foot in diameter, about three inches off the floor. Six upright paper bags were poised on the wheel, mouths hanging in emptiness.

Inside five of the bags were cheap little prizes. Decoder rings. Viewmaster projectors. Candy. Balloons...

Inside one bag was something nasty. Runny eggs, etc., inserted by Uncle Dave (or his exploited clown assistant).

How it worked —

Uncle Dave would spin the wheel with six kids sitting around it. Wheel spins, stops. In clockwise order, each kid puts hand in bag expecting either prize — or slime. When one of the kids got slimed (awful facial expression, pulls out hand covered with nastiness) all the other kids would shout out "OOEEY GOOEY!” and Uncle Dave’d would come up, haha, you’ve been a good sport, here’s your consolation prize, a ticket to...

So, one day, it doesn’t work out so well.

Uncle Dave spins the wheel. It spins, stops. Each kid takes turn.

Kid #1 - gets prize.

Kid #2 - gets prize.

Kid #3 - gets prize.

Kid #4 - gets prize.

Kid #5 - gets prize.

And there's only one freaking bag left.

Now it’s Kid #6’s turn. All the kids turn and look at him. Mixed expressions. Feeling sorry for him with a little ha-ha thrown in.

They know there's slime in the bag. He knows there’s slime in the bag. He knows.

He knows, now, that what he’s supposed to do is stick his hand in the bag of slime, pull out his slimed-hand, and have all the other kids shout “OOOEY GOOEY!” Everybody’s waiting around for him to do it. But he’s not going to do it. He’s not sticking his hand in there.

“C’mon,” says Uncle Dave. “Stick your hand in there.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Be a good sport.”

“No.”

“You’ve gotta stick your hand in there.”

“I don’t wanna stick my hand in there.”

Uncle Dave and the kid exchange looks. It’s a battle of wills now. Uncle Dave realizes this kid is making him look bad on his own show. (My God...what if this kid gets away with this? It’ll be anarchy...anarchy!) On some deep, sick, control-freak level, Uncle Dave is morally outraged at this kid. The kid knew the rules when he got into this game. He was willing to take a prize, natch. He lost. Now he has to pay the price. (Bust a deal — face the wheel.) It’s the principle of the thing!

“Stick your hand in the bag.”

“No.”

“Be a good sport, kid. You don’t want all your friends to see you and think you’re a bad sport, do you?”

The kid shakes his head no — meaning, Fuck you, Uncle Dave. I don’t give a shit, I don’t care what my friends think, I’m not sticking my hand in the bag.

The kid starts to get up and walk away.

At this point Uncle Dave loses it. That little snotnose punk isn't following orders! This is open rebellion! An act of defiance! Well, he's not getting away with it. This is still the Uncle Dave Show, not the Snotnose Punk Show. And Uncle Dave's going to show that little punk who's boss.

Uncle Dave runs up to the little rebel.

He grabs the scrawny kid by his skinny little wrist, drags him back to the lazy susan, and starts man-handling the kid’s hand into the bag. The kid resists. He's howling NO! NO! like there’s sulfuric acid in that bag. The kid fights, with everything he’s got. But Uncle Dave, with an expression like Mister Hyde on his red face, is winning. He forces the kid’s hand down into the slime. All the other kids shout “OOEEY GOOEY!” The kid pulls out his slime-dripping hand and starts bawling at the top of his lungs.

"WAHHHH! MOMMY! WAHHHHH!"

Suddenly, Uncle Dave realizes he’s in deep shit.

All at once, he realizes his assertion of authority was a mistake.

He pats the kid on the back, “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Barney Bungleupper is wiping the kid’s hand off. Kid’s still crying.

“Say, we’ve got a consolation prize!”

“WAHHHHHH!”

“It’s...I’ve got a ticket to — wouldn’t you like to go to...”

Kid’s backing away like Uncle Dave’s a child molester.

“It’s a whole day’s pass to —"

“WAHHHHHHHH!”

“Hey, dry those eyes kid. I’ve also got —"

Mommy's screaming off-camera.

“Leave him alone! Haven’t you done enough...”

Outraged Mom is coming up now -- kid runs to her, buries head in her skirt. Uncle Dave’s looking trapped. Barney Bungleupper’s sorta caught in the middle. Kid’s still holding onto Mom and screaming. You can hear his voice kinda muffled. Uncle Dave starts doing the cut-throat kill-the-camera gesture.

Which is when the PLEASE STAND BY card comes up.

The Barney Bungleupper Show premiered the next Saturday.

And Uncle Dave was never seen again.

At least on Channel 13.