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PERSONALITIES
JEAN SHEPHERD
Jean Parker Shepherd (July 26, 1921 – October 16, 1999) was an American raconteur, radio and TV personality, writer and actor who was often referred to by the nickname Shep.[1]
With a career that spanned decades, Shepherd is best-known to modern audiences[2] for the film A Christmas Story (1983), which he narrated and co-scripted, based on his own semi-autobiographical stories.
MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Shepherd
Jean Shepherd: Radio's
Noble Savage
by Edward Grossman
first published in Harper's Magazine, January, 1966
In the old days, when Dewey used to run for President, the radio had an honored place in the American living room. It stood there in its big veneered box, and it provided information and entertainment. Suddenly television arrived. With its superior wonders it chased the radio out of the living room and nearly abolished it altogether. But by adapting- by setting up thousands of local stations and virtually abandoning the networks, by transistorizing, by abdicating to sponsors- the radio industry survived, and today it is turning an unprecedented profit. The difference is in the sound it makes: twenty years ago it was Tommy Dorsey and Fred Allen; today, it is pimple music and controverisal panel discussions, controverisal enough to keep the insomniacs awake.
One of the precious few sources of relief from this pap is the Jean Shepherd
program, broadcast nightly over WOR in New York City, KFRC in San Francisco, and
WNAC in Boston. Shepherd's business is to talk-- alone, in a scriptless free
form, about his life and about what he hears, sees, and smells as an inhabitant
of Manhattan and the world. He is uniquely inventive, sometimes hectic, and by
no means everybody's meat. There is even disagreement about what he is really up
to. "Shepherd is a professional scoffer," a noted clergyman once
warned his flock, " and therefore a bad influence, especially on
children." The conscientious New York Times, however, describes Shepherd as
"a witty commentator." Another, entirely difference conclusion was
drawn by a lady in Teaneck, New Jersey: she sent Shepherd a decrepit
Hallicrafters receiver, with a letter instructing him to "fix this radio
and have it back to me by Thursday."
Who was Jean Shepherd?
Jean Shepherd was a
writer, humorist, satirist, actor, radio raconteur, TV & film personality
and an American original. He was a master story teller in the league of Mark
Twain, S.J. Perlman and P.G. Wodehouse. Taking bits and pieces from his own
life, he weaved tales of the joys, humor, intrigue and angst of growing up. His
youth in Hammond, Indiana, his adventures in the Army Signal Corps and stories
of the obscure and infamous were all fertile sources for his tales. For almost
three decades, he told these stories to eager radio audiences. In Cincinnati
between 1950 and 1954 Shep did a DJ show from Shuller's Wigwam on WSAI
and a nightly comedy show on WLW called "Rear Bumpers".
This led to a television version at KYW in Philadelphia. In 1956 Shep
moved to the Big Apple on WOR New York where for 21 years listeners all over the
Northeast were treated to a nightly dose of genius. His shows were a
menagerie of comments, silly songs, jokes and other digressions all orbiting
around a central tale. For 45 minutes you laughed and wondered if he would
remember to conclude the story at hand. He always made it! His other great radio
enterprise was live broadcasts on Saturday night from The Limelight, a nightclub
in Greenwich Village. Marshall McLuan once called Shep "the first radio
novelist."
Shep always loved the stage. He began his entertainment
career in Chicago as a performer at the Goodman Theatre . He did night club acts
on Rush Street. Shep appeared on Broadway in Leonard Sillman's revue "New
Faces" in 1962 and "Voice of the Turtle". Shep played a dance
instructor in the film "The Light Fantastic" (1963). Jean was also a
sportscaster doing baseball broadcasts for the Toledo Mudhens and Armed Forces
Radio.
In the Seventies, he took his talents to television in
a series of humorous narratives for PBS call "Jean Shepherd's America"
later continued on the PBS New Jersey Network as "Shepherd's Pie".
Here he was able to show us the more off-beat aspects of America and
particularly the state he loved to ridicule. Shep actually lived in
Washington Township, New Jersey during this time, and his commute up and down
Route 22 yielded a unique perspective on modern American culture.
10th Anniversary of Shep's Passing
On October 16 , 1999 the world lost a voice like no other. Jean Shepherd passed away in Florida where he quietly lived alone after the passing of his longtime companion and wife Leigh Brown the year before. It's hard to believe 10 years has passed, but it is good to see his memory live on with the tremendous success of "A Chrismas Story" which is opening on stage as a musical this Christmas Season. No doubt he's keeping all our ancestors entertained with his stories at this very moment.
THE GREAT AMERICAN FOURTH OF JULY AND OTHER DISASTERS
A CHRISTMAS STORY
The Story of "I,
Libertine"
by Bob Kaye
Let me start by saying that I am a musician and not a writer, I hope you forgive
my humble attempts at relating this great story, but someone had to do it. The
info that I am about to relate is pretty much verbatim, as I culled it from a
January 1968 tape of Shep being interviewed on The Long John Nebel Show on WOR
in New York.
When Jean Shepherd first came to New York from the midwest, he had a very
different idea about what radio should be. At that time, (and especially now)
radio was highly formatted. Back in the early 50's there were still radio-dramas
held over from the 40's, but mostly djs were the prevailing format. Shep's idea
of radio was to treat it like a blank page, in which to express his ideas, about
whatever. The fact that he was on all night was a strong influence on how the
show developed. Up until then, the 12-5 am slot was for background (what would
today be called "elevator") music. WOR didn't think it paid to even
keep the studio open so they put Shep out at the transmitter in Carteret, NJ!
Well, this was the very beginning of what became known as "black comedy ".
Satire was unknown. Comics like Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, and Shelley Berman were
not on the scene yet. Shep was a true revolutionary in this medium.
Anyway, as Shep said, "New York was a city that was entirely run by
lists." Nobody dared go to the theater without reading ten reviews first!
If Clive Barnes said the show was good, it was good. "Even if you fell
asleep in the first act, you somehow felt that it was your fault!
Did it ever occur to you that lists are compiled by mortals? When the Oscar is
awarded for Best Picture was it really the Best Picture? Well, everyone is
influenced by these critics. You may laugh at the people who read the Daily
News, but then YOU believe in the New York Times !"
"Did ever occur to you that the guy responsible for compiling these lists
was some little guy who was stuck for four years doing obituaries. Now it's his
job is to call bookstores and find out what's selling this week.
Well, Fred Applerot recently bought 500 copies of "Who Shot John", and
he still has 497 copies on the shelf. The guy calls and asks what's hot? 'WHO
SHOT JOHN"! BIG HIT! Well, the little guy puts it on his list and soon
everyone goes out and buys it!"
"At 3:00 am the people who believe in lists are asleep. These are the
people who get all the latest hit show tickets. Anyone still up at 3 am secretly
has some doubts. There are only two kinds of people. Us and Them. And they don't
know that we exist!"
It was about this time that Shepherd created a term which became part of the
language. "Like hot diggety dog!, or Gosh!" He said that there were
two kinds of people. First, there was the guy who believed in day time. He felt
most alive from 8-6. Meetings, lunches, deals, that was his thing. When he came
home and flopped in front of the tv with a beer, it was dead time. Over. To
sleep.
Then there's the other guy. His time is at 2 or 3am. He might still have to get
up at 7 am but at 3 am, that is when he is in his own private world. He is a
NIGHT PERSON.
The point was that these two types rarely meet, or know much about the other's
world. (Shep was given credit in The American Dictionary of Slang and Usage for
creating the terms "Night People and Day People".)
"Now, these two groups are constantly battling. but they don't know that
they are!"
The Day People truly believe in lists. And prices. A $20 ticket HAS to be better
than a $1 ticket. The Top Ten Movies MUST be better than the Second Ten!
"Now, when this guy turns on my show, he thinks we're crazy! What is that
idiot talking about? Then he puts on WPAT (Muzak), the opiate for the
masses."
MORE: http://bobkaye.com/ilibertine.html
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