Hated Math, Loved MATHNET

I have always hated Thursdays. I consider them insufferable twenty-four periods you have to wade through to get to Friday and the start of the weekend. But long before I figured that out, I just always hated the day and couldn’t tell why. Then, one day, it dawned on me—Thursdays were the days Mrs. Rivers, our Principal and Math teacher at my elementary school, scheduled her tests. And the first F I ever received was on one of her math tests. I have hated Thursdays ever since.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about television. My generation grew up on a cornucopia of fascinating television shows for kids—The Adventures of Pete and Pete, The Ren & Stimpy Show—heck, even slightly lamer affairs like Salute Your Shorts and Hey Dude at the very least captivated our attention for years to come. I would have watched television all day long if I could have back then. But I didn’t just like the commercial stuff, Nickelodeon being in some golden age where they still showed reruns of Canadian fare like Sharon, Lois, and Bram, You Can’t Do That On Television, and Today’s Special. I also liked good old wholesome, educational PBS, particularly the game show version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, but especially Square One Television, a show intended to interest children in mathematics.

It is the crux of some mammoth conundrum that the thing I hated most on Thursdays was the subject of one of my favorite after-school shows. Of course, looking at the math on the show now, it’s below what would be considered today even primary school math. But I can’t guarantee I understood the math because my left brain has, well let’s say, dead spots. But Square One really was entertaining television and the reason it stays with me to this day is because of one of its recurring segments—Mathnet, a parody of Dragnet that showed a group of policing mathematicians who strove “to cogitate and solve.”

It might seem bizarre to think of Dragnet as a good basis for parody for a children’s program, but in the 1980s, Dragnet was still a massive part of popular culture in syndication and even spawned a film in 1987. Mathnet was narrated by a Joe Friday-sounding female mathematician. She spoke with the same frankness and deadpan tone of Jack Webb. In the early seasons, the character was Kate Monday, played by Beverly Leech. In the later seasons, reset from L. A. to New York, she was Pat Tuesday, played by Toni DiBuono. Her partner (on both coasts) was George Frankly, played by an oft-seen, seasoned television actor named Joe Howard.

Many great actors played small roles on Mathnet, including (incredibly) James Earl Jones who was Chief of the LAPD Thad Green (yes, Mathnet was a division of the LAPD, though hopefully softer on the streets). Other guest stars included Marcia Wallace, Wayne Knight, and even “Weird Al” himself.

It is not hard to see what pulled me to the show. I grew up, also, on Nick at Nite and Dragnet was one of its signature programs in the years they still played shows from the 1950s and ‘60s. That channel, literally “Nickelodeon at Night,” introduced me to all the greats, The Dick Van Dyke show especially, but also criminally underrated shows like The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis plus, later on, the joys of Taxi and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

So, Dragnet was something I watched a lot and admired, which is why the comical ’87 film version with Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks rubbed me the wrong way. “This is a comedy?” I said to Dad, who took me to see it when I was six or so. He interpreted this in a funnier way than I intended because the movie is shockingly unfunny in addition to dragging Dragnet through the mud.

For a small retrospective for Mathnet, I want to remember two especially good, often-played-in-rerun episodes, one from the L. A. years, one from the NYC years. From LA, we had “The Trial of George Frankly,” which hit another of my buttons, loving legal shows like Perry Mason.

In the episodes, Frankly is framed for a bank robbery and finds himself in the dock, representing himself. Unlike most episodes of the show, math didn’t quite save the day as much as the detective work of Frankly and Monday. Frankly discovers that two men he put in prison impersonated his likeness so that the video evidence pointed squarely at him. The two prisoners learned about make-up and costuming through the prison’s drama troupe.

But the greatest episodes by far are the series known as “The Case of the Mystery Weekend.” I’m giving myself away again, because these are all parodies of my favorite TV genres—legal shows, detective shows, and mysteries. (I have broader tastes, but I use the term genre in a loving, prodding way).

In this case, Frankly and Tuesday head upstate for a mystery weekend game, Frankly dressed as Sherlock Condo (it’s modern) and Tuesday as Dr. Whatsit. As chance would have it, a directional sign with a pointing finger has been blown by the weather in the wrong direction and they end up at Whitts End, a dark manor house. They believe everything inside is a game, but it turns out there is something more nefarious afoot.

Of course, the situation at Whitts End looks like a game—even a live reenactment of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None—where there is a butler, Peeved, who has to prepare a dinner party for the anonymous guests of his anonymous boss. There is also a collection of curiously named individuals who don’t know why they’ve all been brought together. Like Christie’s story, the theme is they have all committed crimes. The difference is they are all innocent, mathematics having been the lynch pin to acquit them of their charges.

But obviously someone thinks justice was not served as each guest disappears, the mastermind leaving behind only a clipping of their acquittal from the papers and a statue of Justice. In the end, the butler did it. Peeved was a former court stenographer who grew up hating math and believed all the guests were guilty.

The plot may seem clichéd and a shameless rip-off, but it is the charm of the performances and the surprisingly good costumes and sets that make it such a pleasure to watch, even now. Math is used throughout—to calculate the number of hours it will take the detectives to get to the Mystery Weekend party, the color wheel is introduced to show a pattern of the kidnappings (as each guest is given a differently-colored room). Lord knows now how much I even thought of the math in the episode, but what is clear is how much the creators tried to both entertain (in a genuine sense) and teach a subject that, in America, has been a week-spot in our educational system for many years (and seemingly getting worse).

Mathnet was a charming show and I hope you use the links below to enjoy these episodes, wonderfully preserved on Youtube. There are times I think I would get rid of all streaming services and be alone with my Youtube Premium. I’m a Youtube junkie, I’ll admit. How wonderful to see what could be so much lost media preserved by fans and given back to us today. A wonderful use of technology amidst a world of terrible uses.

To Mathnet, may it be preserved and appreciated!

The Trial of George Frankly

The Case of the Mystery Weekend

Universal Monster Mash

I thought I had picked out the perfect week to take my vacation. The third week of October, I said, would be my favorite kind of weather—crisp Autumn air. Instead, I find myself in the middle of an Alabama phenomenon called Hot-tober and the week I go back to work, we’ll struggle to make it to highs in the 60s. Oh, well—you can’t win them all.

With Halloween approaching, I usually try to watch something creepy, and I intended on some sort of horror series for my week off. I’m not what you’d call a fan of horror films, preferring true crime documentaries or psychological thrillers, which are more likely to stay with me. There are certainly horror films I admire, but they are usually comical in nature, r. e. the Evil Dead series. But over the last couple of years, I’ve tried to branch out and watch some of the so-called classics of the genre.

Last year, it was the slasher films of the 1980s. What I watched would have been something unimaginable to my younger self. I first caught a glimpse of Robert Englund’s portrayal of Freddy Krueger when I was five years old. The face alone made me run upstairs and nightmares followed several nights after. Yet, last year, I watched all the Krueger movies, up through the New Nightmare and mostly laughed myself silly. Whatever power that face had had dissipated with all my other childhood fears.

So, this year I decided to go back all the way to the beginning—if not the actual beginning, meaning I would eschew certain important silent films like Nosferatu or re-watching The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the style of which would be copied for decades, including in the films I viewed. Instead, I decided to watch the three most important films of what is a franchise known as the Universal Classic Monsters. A mixed-bag to be sure, these early Universal horror films are still the gold-standard of the horror genre, or at least represent its golden age. A lot of what we imagine when we first hear the names Dracula or Frankenstein come right out of this unofficial film series, which lasted from the early 1930s to the late 1950s before horror would go into a different phase, becoming more violent and wielding, shall we say, a “Hammer.”

The first horror “talkie,” Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) was the first in the series and I had never seen it before, I knew it was important in Hollywood’s history, but I assumed it would have little to no effect on me as a scary film. The opposite was true. A flawed genius, Browning conjures truly terrifying pictures, and it is easy to see that Bela Lugosi was a better actor than his future typecasting would indicate.

It is interesting to note, along with the second film, James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931 also), that Dracula was not a straight adaptation of Bram Stoker’s epistolary novel. In fact, it was an adaptation of a theatrical version by Garrett Fort, further adapted by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The dramatic version, with Lugosi in the title role, was a smash and probably served as a better foundation for adaptation than Stoker’s novel alone, which is a sort of work made up of “found” materials.

Searching on the streaming platforms, I was delighted to find the version of the film that was later re-scored by Philip Glass, our greatest living composer. He had done this in 1998 with the Kronos Quartet, and I had listened to the score before, wondering how on earth it would gel with the picture, but it works entirely. By using a string quartet, Glass evokes both something of 19th century dread and something totally modern—striking, full of anxiety and fear.

Several Universal sequels followed, including Dracula’s Daughter, Son of Dracula, and House of Dracula and, of course, Dracula has been reimagined by many other studios, most notably with a star-studded ‘90s version by Francis Ford Coppola which has more detractors than admirers. Dracula remains the prototypical vampire and Lugosi’s portrayal hangs over any other, even Christopher Lee who would take over the part in color films.

Frankenstein, I had seen before. Rather I slept through it. So, I had to go back and really give it a fair shot. I liked it more this time, but it still feels staid, inert somehow, especially in comparison to Dracula. Also adapted from a theatrical version, this time by Peggy Webling, I think it comes from a novel that is itself unadaptable. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is an exhausting read. Some have not even called it a horror novel, but more of a precursor to science fiction.

But there is obviously something about it that has mass appeal. The way Dracula became synonymous with “vampire,” Dr. Frankenstein has become synonymous with the mad scientist and Colin Clive’s portrayal in the early scenes is terrifying in its own sort of way as Frankenstein calls God’s bluff. Then, of course, the film leads to mob violence and, being pre-Code, has a surprisingly shocking scene of the Monster tossing a little girl to her death thinking she is akin to the flowers she and he tossed into a pond.

Boris Karloff would be another actor pigeonholed into horror roles and Frankenstein would have the longest commercial appeal of any of Universal’s monsters. The sequels The Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, and (absurdly, though I’m told it’s funny) Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein all followed over the next two decades. Since the portrayal of the Monster is so vague in Shelley’s novel, Karloff’s make-up and neck bolts became the way we have continued to imagine the character. It’s difficult to estimate how much this Frankenstein has pervaded popular culture. One thinks of Phil Hartman’s hilarious impersonation on Saturday Night Live more than Robert DeNiro’s turn as the Monster in Kenneth Branagh’s trashy and maximalist adaptation in the mid-1990s.

I did notice something on this second watching that made me re-think a kind of spinoff of Frankenstein. I have always been mercilessly driven to boredom watching Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. I have often thought Brooks’ films needed quicker editing and his 1974 offering, by today’s comedy standards, is as stiff and stodgy as Whale’s staging—using sets perhaps inspired by German Expressionism, but with none of the remarkable staging of Caligari to show the off-kilter world. I understand Brooks’ film a lot more now because it is clear he was satirizing something he admired. While I cannot share admiration for the original film, I can appreciate his timing more, as it is perfectly in line with the 1931 original.

If you look at the whole Universal line-up, The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man and even the Creature from the Black Lagoon often show up in the line-up. Having limited time, I decided to complete my viewing with 1932’s The Mummy as these first three films in the series (discounting an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue) provided the bulk of the series’ fodder.

The Mummy is a genuine monster movie, but not one that instantly conjures up Halloween. Piggybacking on the early 20th-century excavations in Egypt, the film concerns a mummy who is brought back to life, Imhotep, who longs to reincarnate a love from his past in a contemporary woman. Based on a screen treatment by Nina Wilcox Putnam and Richard Schayer, the film plays on Egyptian mummification practices and The Book of the Dead. While all these things add up to something interesting, fear is not the primary emotion you carry with you. It is interesting, but never much more than that.

Though a modest box office success, it would spawn many sequels from Universal—The Mummy’s Hand, The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost (you can see the cleverness here, right?), and The Mummy’s Curse. Years later, Brendan Fraser’s versions probably became more iconographic than Boris Karloff’s mummy. But it does go to show you Hollywood hasn’t really changed. Franchises were as important in the early days as they are now. If you have a property that has a guaranteed audience, how can one go wrong financially?

There are, obviously, a lot of things that come into play with people who like horror films. There are people who genuinely get tickled at being scared. There are those that find the humor in the gore of some of the more contemporary offerings. There are those who just like a good scream. There are probably even those who delight in the non-existent“dangers” of the genre (i. e. those who find something pervasive and real in The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity—not that I’m equating the latter two in quality with the former). I don’t find myself fitting into any of these categories. More often than not it is the real monsters who walk among us that I find the scariest. These creatures may display some of the things we fear and magnify them, but the real monsters almost always look like us. I wish it wasn’t so—heck, if they did dress up like Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, they would be easier to catch.

By the way, if you’re in the Birmingham metro area, I’m playing percussion for a Halloween show at the Sugar Creek Supper Club Saturday night with The Cash Domino Killers, a terrific ‘50s-‘60s cover band. More info can be found here.

And Happy Halloween!

Fourth Publication this Year!

Cover of the Sept. '23 MINI PLAYS REVIEW.

I find myself often at a loss as to what publishers of poetry and drama want these days. I’m told the subjects to which I’ve always been dedicated—love, labor, birth, death, taxes, God—are all verboten. So, I will pull up lists of contests/awards/publications and, when I investigate the journal, they always want me to check out what they’ve awarded/published before, and I strain to see connections in my own work that fits their needs. Perhaps it is best that this year I submitted to two publications which were either a) just beginning or b) re-launching because they seemed to be interested in my subjects—things eternal rather than temporal.

I figured getting my poetry published would always be a self-publishing job. In 2018, I collected what I felt were my best “love poems” into a volume called Eons and Other Love Poems which, through my own imprimatur, Holly Grove Press, sold rather well as I peddled it among friends and associates. When I look back on it now, it is a collection that makes me sad. There are a few rapturous loves poems—but mostly contained therein are poems of love and loss and rue toward loves past. But it still does have some of my favorite pieces I've written—in particular “Sifting through Damage” and “Lauren Bursting through the Shadows” (the latter of which which I’ve since republished on the blog).

Announcement of Prize.

But thanks to lists on the internet for publications/prizes you don’t have to pay entry fees for, I came across one by an ecologically-minded organization out of Massachusetts called Blue Institute. This year was their 5th annual Words on Water Writing Contest and I submitted a poem from yesteryear (as it was written when dad was still alive) called “The Rain Dance.” Some fixes were in order, but I was pleased when it garnered second place and even more pleased a fellow Benningtonian was the judge (as Bennington was the first place not to recognize my poetic tendencies). The poem was published on their website and, though some of the formatting of the stanzas are off, it is nice to see it in print and recognized.

Then, I found a journal seeking poems on the subject of past regrets. Well—right up my alley, I thought. Literature Today: An International Literary Journal was re-starting its electronic and print publication and I submitted another older poem, “Toast to Reneé," a sort of send-off to a former muse. It was selected and I finally felt like a true prize-winning, published poet. I’m not sure what that means in terms of the world today, but it has a nice ring to it.

July '23 Edition.

Also through the internet, I discovered an enterprising editor who was starting a journal of “mini plays,” not a forum for making bread obviously, but it does have its forebears. Many established playwrights write short monologue-themed one-act plays for publication (David Mamet, Neil LaBute, August Strindberg, even) and these find their way into nights of short works. Regardless, the two-page minimum was a challenge and, as I’ve connected with other playwrights published by Mini Plays Review: An International Journal of Short Plays, I discovered many of us took selections or re-tooled previous pieces to fit into the page numbers allowed.

The first issue was, indeed, concerning love and (in a strange way) the piece was the first written for the aforementioned muse. Approaching the Summer Sun began as a monologue spoken by one character. It was written in verse—I was going through a phase when I considered having my plays explode into verse (attempting a style.) I have not kept up with this, but the only major work that survives from the period is Wars and Rumors of Wars, the play where Approaching the Summer Sun found its spot, this time as a fantasy, dream-like dialogue between two people who are essentially finishing each other’s sentences—thus, the piece is still (for all intents and purposes) a monologue, just split between two people.

Original Teaser Poster for Reading.

Wars and Rumors of Wars did receive a concert reading in 2011, featuring a terrific performance from my friend Ray Cole, who I most recently acted with in Waiting for Godot. The work was generally well-received though the major theme—a teacher's relationship with a student—caused some actors to question it. Now, we find miniseries on this topic once every couple of years. The dangerous theme went well with a play about a man whose psyche is torn and who regularly verbally spars with his dream self. The play was written not as a play to be staged, but a play to be performed like an oratorio or reading—the actors would read from the text off sheet music stands, in formal dress, as if they were about to perform Handel's Messiah. They each had “arias” (monologues) and “recitatives” (scenes of dialogue). So, the little sliver of Approaching the Summer Sun was a bit of an odd offer, coming from an odd play, but it made it in the first issue.

Of course, the writers were let known another edition was forthcoming, this time with the theme of friendship. Again, all of these publications not wanting hot-button political topics was refreshing because that is well out of my métier. I did have such a piece (of a friendship dying) and it, again, formed a part of a longer play, albeit a ten-minute one, A Judah Kiss from 2008. The play, a quarrel between two friends over the death of their third Musketeer, rose in its climax to a blistering monologue from Dylan who takes his anger at his friend’s death and throws it up to Blake, who was not around during the deceased’s illness.

Rehearsals for AJUDAKIS.

A Judah Kiss was originally meant to be a more poetical title, conjuring up images of the famous Judas kiss from the Gospels and the imagery of the Lion of Judah from the Hebrew Bible. The same day we did a reading of Wars, we also did a complete reading of the short play cycle from which Judah was culled—The Brotherhood Cycle—meant to be nine short piece performed by the same two actors playing differing roles, one actor Caucasian, the other African American. Its frankness wouldn’t fly today as I was writing about those of African descent where I grew up, who largely were the only Black member of a church and had very different perspectives on race. Overall, though, it’s the short play cycle (I’ve written three) of which I’m most proud. There was even a plan to film a version of A Judah Kiss. A screenplay was written, Ajudakis—an even more wacky title—and some scraps of scenes were filmed, but budgetary issues and poor planning left the project from getting lift-off.

Still, the tiny scene of the confrontation has always retained a mean kind of power and by eliminating stage directions and focusing it down to its essence, The Judah Kiss emerged as a selection for Mini Plays Review. I’m delighted to write it was accepted for the September 2023 edition. I have yet to receive my copy, but the work is already electronically published and for sale along with the works of over fifty other playwrights.

As you might know, I read a play a day to keep limber and I’ve been going through the plays in Issue 1 as they provide for more work during the day and I get to know playwrights I normally wouldn’t be introduced to. If you’re curious about my “daily read,” I post the plays and feature the playwrights on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram daily.

Thanks again to Mini Plays Review for the opportunity to be in print—four times this year! It has certainly been a lucky year for publications.

To more! And, for those of you who have something interesting, submit it—you just never know.