If you read my previous post, you’ll understand the complexity of the relationship between Bozo the Clown and me.

But there was never a problem with me and my relationship with TV in general. We’ve gotten along just fine and dandy. I’m a little unhappy with it these days because it insists on showing me images of real people as they: Whine about wedding dresses, compete viciously with others for a life-long mate, let snooty, holier-than-thou people tell them whether they can a)dance b)sing c)cook or d)raise their kids right (although, in fairness, there are multitudes out there who need to be told that they ARE NOT raising their kids right).

Hopefully, before long, we will have covered the entirety of human depravity and craziness and gotten everyone their 15 minutes so we can get back to watching some good scripted human depravity and craziness.

But, as I say, I never really had a problem with TV. In fact, I was fascinated by it. Not just the shows, but the workings of the medium. When I was a kid, I went to the library in my town and took out all of the books about how television works- by all, I mean one- and read up on the technology. Technology back then meant a big, bulky camera, lights, seven broadcast channels and a big, bulky TV set. But they sure did some amazing things with that stuff in those days. And I wanted to try it.

I tried to lobby my parents into letting me visit studios in nearby New York City. Even though I’d been on the Bozo show, it was when I was very young and before my interest in television began to grow into an obsession. My efforts were met by feeble attempts at putting into practice the ‘delay of gratification’ theory which held that I should be making better grades in school before seeing the inside of a TV studio. This so-called theory was anathema to my bourgeoning career. How did they expect me to make boatloads of money in TV so that I could support them in their old age unless I could soak in the actual exciting, electric atmosphere that was the average TV station? By doing endless math worksheets?

I did start my own TV studio…actually, I had two different ones. The first one was in the garage with the backdrop being the garage door. This worked pretty well until the family cars had to be parked on my stage. The basement worked better, although it was not as spacious as the garage and there was no clear stage area and little room for an audience, except for three spaces on the sofa (this area also being used as our TV viewing room). But It worked out fairly well, as I was able to bring in lighting equipment (a hanging one-bulb lamp that was used primarily to hang on car hoods for working on engines) which I hung on a pipe that crossed the ceiling of my ‘studio’. And I secured a TV camera from my sympathetic grandfather, who fashioned a tri-pod of rickety wood, topped with a cardboard box painted black with paper towel tubing for lenses. The camera could even pan back and forth and move up and down. For a boom microphone, all I needed was a long thin piece of wood propped against a chair with a plastic bottle attached to the end and I had it made.

My main gig was as the vampire host of a show that presented monster pictures. Kind of post-Vampira and pre-Elvira, except that I was closer to what Bela Lugosi may have been like at age 9 (well, I hope not too close). I just donned my Halloween costume and got a few neighborhood kids to join in as co-stars and audience members. I don’t remember who operated the camera and I don’t know which movies I ‘showed’. My tastes at the time ran heavily to anything in the Frankenstein series and, of course, Dracula. If I found a movie on late night TV that I hadn’t heard of before but succeeded in scaring the hell out of me after I turned off the TV and the basement light and walked up the long stairs out of the darkness, I considered it a masterpiece of the genre.

By the way, I did end up visiting 2 or 3 TV studios later on, my parents having relented and deciding I would be easier to live with if I was encouraged to see what the whole process was really like. I think they hoped I would be convinced not to pursue it further.

It didn’t work. And I still didn’t take any prizes for my grades.

More on this later!