Absolutely last bit of Coyle and Sharpe for a while

[...]

Sharpe: Could we go through a transformation right now and have Mr. Coyle become a werewolf for you on the street just to prove that he is a werewolf? And we can do it now. Can we do this?

Huffman [innocent bystander]: I don't particularly care to see something like that.

Sharpe: Can we go ahead?

Huffman: I don't know. I certainly don't have any particular desire to see this. I don't know if it's going to prove anything by becoming a werewolf on the streets or anything.

Coyle: I have showed it to the people at the radio station, I'll show it to you.

Huffman: I guess it's all right with me.

Coyle: May I go through a pre-wolf intensity?

Huffman: All right go ahead.

Sharpe: I make a wolf sound which brings this out in him and Mr. Coyle will start turning into a werewolf. Are you ready? gr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r (he growls). Now there are some sounds coming from Mr. Coyle, the transformation is beginning!

Coyle: (fierce sounding growls)

[...]

More Coyle and Sharpe

Mal Sharpe actually dropped me a line to thank me for the link. To thank him for thanking me I am going to infringe his copyright and ram some more of his work down your throat! Here is a small snippet of transcript.

Coyle (to passerby): The nature of the job is, it's a little unusual, just like anything else there are certain risks entailed in it. You would be working down in a pit, in which I have created, through scientific endeavor, I have created intense flame. People throw objects into the flaming pit, you go through, you pick them up, they name the objects and you pick them up and I charge them admission.

{snip to later in conversation}

Sharpe: Have you ever had any experience with snakes, large snakes?

Passerby: No.

Sharpe: See the bats actually they're foes down in this pit. The reason why the bats are there is because there are snakes in the pit. The bats attack the snakes and the snakes will be curling around your feet as you're trying to handle the maniacs...

Passerby: I'm not scared of snakes though.

Sharpe: What?

Passerby: I'm not scared of snakes.

Coyle: Are you at all, be honest, are you at all afraid of the maniacs?

Passerby: No, not really.

Coyle: What're you going to do with them if they start attacking you?

Passerby: Fight them off.

...

Coyle and Sharpe

I have just come across these guys, they were "early masters of street pranks and puts-ons. Using hidden microphones, they clandestinely recorded their bizarre encounters with unsuspecting citizens on the streets of San Francisco in the 1960’s" to quote their site. According to their bio "In 1967, Coyle left California to pursue a career in tunneling. He died in 1993 while burrowing under the City of Barcelona."

Their stuff is just such so fresh and funny. Its the mid sixties, pre-hippies, all the targets they talk to are so naive and square. They have got one of the very first portable tape recorders hidden in their suitcase. I'm amazed I had never heard of them before.

The link above takes you to their site, some audio samples are here

Email your heroes

I love this time in history. You can email your heroes. They usually email back, sometimes later the same day.

I got an email yesterday from Martin Flanagan, Australia's most interesting journalist and an all-round fantastic writer. Today I got an email from Mal Sharpe, of early-sixties San Francisco comic japesters Coyle and Sharpe. I have filed somewhere an email from Tim Lane, doyen of football commentators, and another from Greg Miller, Richmond's director of football.

I was inspired by Sally, who long ago wrote to her favourite comic artist Jim Woodring. In reply she received an invitation to visit him in the US, and evn do some inking for him. I thought to myself - wow. You can actually contact these Famous People, and they appreciate it enough to write back.

So give it a go. Think about what you really want to say, preferably something specific and not creepy, find their email address on the net, and tell your heroes that they're your heroes! Go on!

Perry Como's back catalogue

A couple of years ago I discovered Coyle and Sharpe - two amazingly funny guys who did street prank comedy on San Francisco radio in the early sixties. Mal Sharpe read my blog, somehow, and kindly sent me a set of their recordings.

I hadn't listened to the discs straight through for a while, but yesterday I did, and paid more attention to the bits of 60s radio ads and programming that are sprinkled through the comedy segments. One of the songs back-announced was Keep It Gay by Perry Como. I suppose this was before the phrase "lighten up" was coined, and that was all he was asking us to do. Dear old Pezza.