Call Me Lumpy: My Leave It to Beaver Days and Other Wild Hollywood Life by Frank Bank, Gibu Twyman Page A
Authors: Frank Bank, Gibu Twyman
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anyhow, what I did, because I have pretty much of a photographic memory, I started using it on rock 'n' roll. I'd always had pretty good retention. If they showed me a script, I read it twice and I knew it. Reading the encyclopedia, things in school . . . anything that seemed worth remembering.
Now rock 'n' roll was worth it.
When a song became half-popular, I remembered the artist. I remembered the label. The chronology. What was on the other side of the record, how long the record was, who produced it, who the bandleader was, who the people in the band were.
I almost made a bundle off this essentially useless knowledge.
Almost, but not quite.
Remember my great timing?
Well, it almost always was perfect.
There were exceptions.
Such as this major one.
Page 72
The "$64,000 Question" is on the air along about now. It's become the biggest show in the country.
In my quest for greatness, I said to myself, "Self, what could you do with $64,000?"
Then I tried to say to myself, "How could I get tripped up on a category when I knew every single record?"
I had every copy of Cashbox magazine in a stack in my room from 1953 on. I had every copy of Billboard . I knew how high the record got on the charts, when it hit the charts, how many weeks, how high the cover record was.
I was like so good, I was incredible.
You take songs like "Ivory Tower." Most people didn't know the original one was by Cathy Carr. To make a long story short, I didn't think there was any way I could lose.
So I went down and took all kinds of exams at CBS Television City. I'm just into teenage-hood, about ninth or 10th grade.
They would have taken me . . . the younger, the better. And they were going to.
So now I am scheduled to go on the show. But there was a waiting list of people in different categories. They wanted to switch categories around so it was interesting.
Five guys in a row come on doing English literature, it gets pretty boring.
So they went for odd angles. They loved it when Joyce Brothers was on and she'd do boxing. I mean it was all bogus in a way, because she didn't give a hoot about boxing. The whole deal was to have this cute little, sweet, petite, blonde psychologist come on and talk about boxing. She wanted her name around, so it was a good stroke by her. She got what she went after, but she wasn't really a boxing fan.
Boris Karloff was another good example of the off-beat contestant. Having "Frankenstein" come on for children's literature. I thought that was great and the whole country did.
So having me onthis was before "Beaver", so I wasn't Lumpy Rutherford yetas a 1314-year-old kid who was an expert on rock 'n' roll would have worked.
I was all set.
Then the Charles Van Doren scandal hitthe whole thing about Van Doren being set up on the show "21." They found out he'd been fed some answers and groomed as a star. The next thing you know, all those shows are poison. "The Question," "21," all of them go kaput.
It went from:
"Sorry, kid, we're puttin' you on hold."
To: "Well, we're gonna go on hiatus."
Page 73
To: "We're canceling the show."
Oh well, it didn't cost me anything.
Like hell.
There was no way I was going to be tripped up. I knew what records Elvis made before he went to RCA. What his first RCA record was, what his last Sun record was. How many copies did
"Blue Moon" sell?
All that junk . . . I was really great at it.
And they took it off the air.
The way I figure it, I got hosed out of 64 grand.
'Cause I woulda made it unless they drugged me or something. I didn't even need the "expert" they give you to help prepare you for the show.
I was my own expert.
And I got nothing for it.
Except lots of chicks.
Girls loved it when you could spout all that crap about records and artists and all that.
So what did I need with the "Question?"
I still had "The Quest."
To get laid as often as humanly, or inhumanly, possible, as the case may be.
Without the quiz show I could go back to concentrating on what really mattered.
Sex.
It's all
Now rock 'n' roll was worth it.
When a song became half-popular, I remembered the artist. I remembered the label. The chronology. What was on the other side of the record, how long the record was, who produced it, who the bandleader was, who the people in the band were.
I almost made a bundle off this essentially useless knowledge.
Almost, but not quite.
Remember my great timing?
Well, it almost always was perfect.
There were exceptions.
Such as this major one.
Page 72
The "$64,000 Question" is on the air along about now. It's become the biggest show in the country.
In my quest for greatness, I said to myself, "Self, what could you do with $64,000?"
Then I tried to say to myself, "How could I get tripped up on a category when I knew every single record?"
I had every copy of Cashbox magazine in a stack in my room from 1953 on. I had every copy of Billboard . I knew how high the record got on the charts, when it hit the charts, how many weeks, how high the cover record was.
I was like so good, I was incredible.
You take songs like "Ivory Tower." Most people didn't know the original one was by Cathy Carr. To make a long story short, I didn't think there was any way I could lose.
So I went down and took all kinds of exams at CBS Television City. I'm just into teenage-hood, about ninth or 10th grade.
They would have taken me . . . the younger, the better. And they were going to.
So now I am scheduled to go on the show. But there was a waiting list of people in different categories. They wanted to switch categories around so it was interesting.
Five guys in a row come on doing English literature, it gets pretty boring.
So they went for odd angles. They loved it when Joyce Brothers was on and she'd do boxing. I mean it was all bogus in a way, because she didn't give a hoot about boxing. The whole deal was to have this cute little, sweet, petite, blonde psychologist come on and talk about boxing. She wanted her name around, so it was a good stroke by her. She got what she went after, but she wasn't really a boxing fan.
Boris Karloff was another good example of the off-beat contestant. Having "Frankenstein" come on for children's literature. I thought that was great and the whole country did.
So having me onthis was before "Beaver", so I wasn't Lumpy Rutherford yetas a 1314-year-old kid who was an expert on rock 'n' roll would have worked.
I was all set.
Then the Charles Van Doren scandal hitthe whole thing about Van Doren being set up on the show "21." They found out he'd been fed some answers and groomed as a star. The next thing you know, all those shows are poison. "The Question," "21," all of them go kaput.
It went from:
"Sorry, kid, we're puttin' you on hold."
To: "Well, we're gonna go on hiatus."
Page 73
To: "We're canceling the show."
Oh well, it didn't cost me anything.
Like hell.
There was no way I was going to be tripped up. I knew what records Elvis made before he went to RCA. What his first RCA record was, what his last Sun record was. How many copies did
"Blue Moon" sell?
All that junk . . . I was really great at it.
And they took it off the air.
The way I figure it, I got hosed out of 64 grand.
'Cause I woulda made it unless they drugged me or something. I didn't even need the "expert" they give you to help prepare you for the show.
I was my own expert.
And I got nothing for it.
Except lots of chicks.
Girls loved it when you could spout all that crap about records and artists and all that.
So what did I need with the "Question?"
I still had "The Quest."
To get laid as often as humanly, or inhumanly, possible, as the case may be.
Without the quiz show I could go back to concentrating on what really mattered.
Sex.
It's all
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