Goofy California

[W. Gray]

There seems to be a few folks from California on this forum.

My first recollection of California as a child (other than from grade school history books) comes from a Dumont TV network program called "You Asked for It" hosted by Art Baker. For those not familiar with Dumont TV, it was America's fourth television network long before Fox TV came into being.

One evening the show featured a place in California called The Mystery Spot. This was a site where a meteor had supposedly hit the earth and distorted the gravitational field in the immediate area. In later years, the operators said that flying saucer aliens planted something in the area that distorted gravity. Water ran upgrade rather than down, baseballs rolled uphill, and people walked at an angle because of the distorted gravity. At one place on the property one could observe two people of differing heights standing opposite each other. One person looked taller than the other. However, if the two changed positions the taller person was shorter than the other.

A few years later, I visited a place in the Ozarks of southern Missouri that had a mysterious house. In that house, water ran upgrade, balls ran uphill, people walked at angles, etc. The characteristics were exactly the same as in the California place. On the one hand, I wanted to believe another meteor had fallen but on the other hand I began to sense Denmark—as with something rotten in.

When I moved to Colorado in the early eighties, I traveled down to Buckskin Joes, a recreated frontier town near the Royal Gorge. Lo and behold the town saloon had the same features. One could walk up to the bar but only by walking at an angle and feeling as though you were going to fall over. Water ran uphill, balls rolled uphill, etc. I now suspected there was an architect out there somewhere who had the master plans for building such places. And indeed, there are several sites in the US and around the world having buildings with these characteristics.

For an explanation of how water runs uphill, etc. see a probable explanation at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Spot

and cursor down to "Illusion Explanation"

[Tobina+1]

Mr. Gray; Yes, I remember Buckskin Joe's and the crazy crooked house!  I have pictures of myself and a friend of mine standing on a chair ledge (less than 1" wide) halfway up a wall, and we were leaning way out into the room.  A fun tourist-trap place with gun-fights in the streets every hour and pie-eating contests.  We were on a band trip and we have pictures of our director in "jail".  So, not sure that just California has the market cornered on "goofy"...   

[W. Gray]

You bet!

"You Asked For It" got me started on Skippy crunchy peanut butter (on two slices of white bread with grape jelly). I still will not put peanut butter in the buggy unless it is Skippy.

I doubt if either of us would have remembered Skippy had the network not framed a picture of the person sending in their request (the "you asked for it" person) in the middle of a jar of Skippy.

When Jackie Gleason indirectly, but actually directly, caused Dumont TV to fold, the You Asked For It program went to ABC TV.

Tobina, thanks for refreshing my memory on the chair. There was also a water faucet suspended in mid air and there no pipe connected to it--but the faucet continuously ran water at full force. That was an easy one to figure out, although I have never seen the actual explanation as to how it was accomplished. 

Buckskin Joe's was where Cat Ballou, The Cowboys, and some other movies were filmed.

One other thing that sticks in my mind about Buckskin Joe's was that the restaurant had to truck in all their water (at least at that time). They asked their patrons on the menu to request water only if they would drink it. The restaurant management should have gone down the street to the saloon and got their water from that continuously running faucet.

[Ms Bear]

My brother-in-law posed for Norman Rockwell for one of the Skippy Peanut Butter ads that was in a Post magazine.  He was the red headed kid.

[Rudy Taylor]

C'mon Ms Bear.  That sounds like a great story.

We're waiting with baited breath!

[Ms Bear]

They lived in Lee, Mass and Norman Rockwell would drive around looking for people to use in his paintings.  His mother was working at a home with another woman and they had some of thier kids with them, all out on the porch and Norman stopped an asked if he could go with him and the other woman told him to go, she would tell his mother where he went.

He posed for that picture, one of him eating a turkey leg for a grocery store ad, a couple of Boy Scout calendars, not sure if there were others.  He was about twelve to fourteen I think.  The newspaper published a list of the checks that Norman Rockwell wrote over a period of time to pay people that had posed for him.

[W. Gray]

Here is a Norman Rockwell Skippy ad from 1963 with a red headed kid:


http://www.tias.com/image.html?s=http://www.tias.com/stores/adateintime/origpics/944b.jpg&p=16.49&t=Norman%20Rockwell%201963%20Pan%20Am%20Whispering%20Tours%20Ad&n=A%20Date%20In%20Time&l=http://pages.adateintimecollectibles.com/11804/PictPage/1922379780.html&z=858

[Ms Bear]

That's him.  I have a cook book that has the same picture on it.  They sent it to me last year for Christmas.

We went through the Norman Rockwell Museum when we were there.  It was like a trip through memory lane from reading the Post all those years.

[dnalexander]

Here is a Norman Rockwell Skippy ad from 1963 with a red headed kid:


http://www.tias.com/image.html?s=http://www.tias.com/stores/adateintime/origpics/944b.jpg&p=16.49&t=Norman%20Rockwell%201963%20Pan%20Am%20Whispering%20Tours%20Ad&n=A%20Date%20In%20Time&l=http://pages.adateintimecollectibles.com/11804/PictPage/1922379780.html&z=858

[patyrn]

It IS a small world!!!! How neat....................