March 31 – April 06 (2025) – Wally On The Web

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

This catalog page sure brings back some good memories!

When I was a kid I’d hear “Soulful Strut” by the Young-hold Unlimited on the radio a lot. But it was usually used for commercials and bumpers in and out of shows. But hearing this song sure brings back a lot of good vibes!

Monday the 31st – FLIPPING MY WIG! – The day started with a last-minute audition, and then my pal Sergio Lopez came by so we could attend to a few errands necessary for the creation of my new Roger M00re James Bond figure. Sergio has done the hair on all of the life-size figures in my collection. It was fortuitous because my pal Kelly, and the rest of the crew at Blok 4 (the fabrication house who’s putting together the final figure) asked me to come by their shop in Canoga Park to look at the paint job of the hands and head. It was great that Sergio was able to come with me to see this! The drive to Canoga didn’t actually take us that long, and when we found the facility we went inside to have a look! WOW! The first pass at the paint job on the Roger M00re head was fantastic! Heath, the Creative Director of Blok 4 discussed with us some of the additional things he was going to add to the head. Sergio had a few suggestions as well, and when we settled on everything Kelly, Health, Sergio and I went to the local Chili’s for lunch. It was a great time. But before the day got away from us Sergio and I had to do some wig shopping. We hit our favorite wig shop in North Hollywood called Nigel’s and looked around. The women’s wigs were too “pretty” for our needs. The strands of hair had a rainbow of different colors woven in, but it didn’t look very “Bond-like,” so we asked to see the men’s wigs. Men’s wigs are different because the color of the hair is generally more modest, and the fibers are woven into a fine mesh (called “lace” in the industry) which creates the illusion of a hairline when worn. But with all of this extra stuff, the men’s wigs are obviously more expensive. I had planned to get a suitable wig and have Sergio sew in a narrow piece of lace all around the front of the wig, and then he was going to hand-tie hair fibers into the lace front to approximate a male’s hairline. It was going to be a lot of work for him. But once we settled on the perfect color, the wig lady brought down a wonderful wig. We pulled it out of the box and Sergio and I both gasped. I said, “This is it, isn’t it?” He agreed. The shade of the hair was perfect, it had a lace front, and the hairstyle was already in the famous Roger M00re arena, albeit a bit long. But that’s what Sergio is for. His styling abilities are second to none. I first met him years ago when we were both working at the Beetlejuice show at Universal, and now he styles character wigs at Disneyland. I asked how much the wig was, and the price the lady quoted was expensive, but not out of the realm of reality. Given the fact that I would have to pay Sergio all that extra to do the hand sewing and tying, it seemed like a pretty good option. Then she said if we used Sergio’s professional discount, it would be even less. When I heard the final number I didn’t hesitate…SOLD! Then we found some lace-tied eyebrows and some upper and lower eyelashes. A successful day! We got back to Planet Wallywood and Sergio took off to try and beat the traffic back home. I went inside to do some work, and then relax. Later I recorded my auditions, took my nightly WOG (walk/jog) and then wrote Wally’s Week.

Tuesday the 1st – CHRISTOWEEN ON THE MOVE! – My pal and webmaster Scott Sebring came over so we could work on transferring the domain of Christoween.com to a better host. The host it was on was “sticky,” and it wasn’t coming up right away. The Christoween.net domain worked much better and came up more immediately. Scott explained that since the .net domain was on a better host, it would serve us well to transfer the .com domain to the same host. But because of our host’s security protocols it was difficult for him to get on-line to do the work, because the host always sent a confirmation email to MY email address, and it was tough to coordinate the activity to get done what needed to be done. But since he was at my house on his laptop, and I was on my desktop, we could coordinate the transfer. It worked out very well, and after several days it all got transferred over successfully. So now both domains (.net and .com) come up right away. We headed over to lunch at Paty’s to enjoy the afternoon. It was cloudy, but pretty warm. I came back home to do some miscellaneous work, and then relaxed for a bit. I recorded all the auditions in my inbox and sent them to my agent, took my nightly WOG, and then did some editing work. I made a Paladin Saladin, and watched a few more episodes of “Have Gun – Will Travel.” The writing and acting on this show is phenomenal! Richard Boone as Paladin is one of the all-time great TV western characters. I also got to see the episode of “Collector’s Call” that I had taped over the weekend. This one was a recap episode called “Collector’s Recall,” and it featured some of the past collectors that have been featured on the show. Late last year they asked me to record a 1 minute video that they could use on the show, and they ran the entire thing! Amazing! What fun!

Wednesday the 2nd – COMATOSE WEDNESDAY! – After spending the last two weekends on the move (Sac Comic Con the weekend before, and WonderCon last weekend) it was nice to take a day off and just be a zombie for a while. My pal Officer Mark dropped by later so we could have dinner at DuPar’s down by the Farmer’s Market. I miss DuPar’s in Studio City, as it’s been gone for several years now. I believe the only location left is the Farmer’s Market location. But it was a pretty lackluster visit, unfortunately. I had my mouth set on a hot turkey sandwich and mashed potatoes, just like the old days. But at 6 at night they were already out of mashed potatoes. So then I decided on breakfast for dinner. But as Officer Mark and I sat there the guy next to us started watching TV on his phone at a very loud level. Annoying! We asked to be reseated in a different area, since the dolt next to us obviously couldn’t afford a $10 pair of headphones. (Where has common civility gone?) Once we ordered we sat at our booth and watched several people who had been seated after us, get their food orders. It literally took about 35 minutes for us to get our order. Guess I won’t be going back to DuPar’s anytime soon. It’s too bad too. Because their food is actually pretty good. But the past two weeks of solid activity had left me a bit tired around the edges, so when I got home I rested up. Later I did my WOG, which was wonderful, and did some video editing work.

Thursday the 3rd – “KAPPEN” OFF A GREAT DAY! – The first order of business was to record a last-minute audition. But as I sat there working on it a text came in from my pal Dave Baumeister in Sioux Falls, South Dakota letting me know that our old Community Playhouse pal Phil Kappen had succumbed to his cancer. Very sad, but Phil had a great life. And it was fortuitous that I was able to visit with him (and some of the other old Playhouse gang) when I was back in February for my dad’s 90th birthday party. Back then it was well known that Phil had only been given about 3 months. I noted that, given Phil’s lifelong penchant for puns and jokes, it probably would have been his preference to go on April Fool’s Day. That would have been so “Phil!” I called my pal Chris Malmin, who also knew Phil from the old Playhouse days, and told him we should meet for lunch at Paty’s to raise a glass to our fallen Playhouse comrade. While we sat on the patio it clouded over densely. Then the sky opened up and it rained pretty intensely for about 20 minutes. Chris and I just sat on the patio and enjoyed the sight, the sound and the smell of the rain. Nice! I went back home to do some work, record some auditions, and then relax for a bit. Later I did my nightly WOG, did some more video editing, worked around the house, and made another Paladin Saladin and watched a few more episodes of “Have Gun – Will Travel” before bed.

Friday the 4th – STEAK! IT’S WHAT’S FOR DINNER! – After spending the day making some phone calls and doing various work, I got ready to meet my pal Joe Garner at the Smoke House for dinner. It’s always yummy and a great way to end the week! After dinner I got some groceries, and then headed home to relax. After the hectic schedule of the past two weekends, it was going to be nice having a weekend all to myself to reset. I did my WOG, and spent the rest of the night editing videos.

Saturday the 5th – LAUREL & HARDY THEATRE! – I kept thinking how nice it was to be home on a weekend with really nothing of import to do. I vacuumed the carpets, cleaned up around the house, balanced my corporate bank account and reconciled my receipts against my monthly statement, and made some more phone calls. Later I took my WOG and did some work around the house. I had been looking forward to this day for a while. As it’s the first Saturday of the month, it was time for the personal commemoration I call “Laurel & Hardy Theatre,” a way for me to nostalgically connect with my early teens and watch some great Laurel & Hardy films. As usual, I made my Chef Boyardee pizza-in-a-box, enjoyed a banana Twinkie, my Oliver Hardy mug filled with ice and Diet Pepsi, and some popcorn. I’ve been making my way through the Blu-ray of “Laurel & Hardy Year Two,” all of the silent films they made as a team in the second year of their comedy partnership; 1928. Later this year they’ll be releasing “Year Three; 1929,” and I believe that’s the last one of the series. All of the films have been remastered and restored and they’re beautiful. In 1930 sound came into motion pictures, and all of their films were talkies after that. So I believe we only have one more Blu-ray set to go. The films I watched were “Early To Bed,” and “Two Tars.” It was great seeing “Two Tars” again, because it’s most likely the first Laurel & Hardy silent film I had ever seen. My old pal Rob Richards used to run this film on his 16mm projector and accompany it on the organ back in the early 70’s in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I vividly remember sitting in his basement watching him accompany the film as he rehearsed for an upcoming gig. Great memories. Just as I thought, a lot of the visual gags from “Two Tars” came back to me as I watched the film. What a delightful movie! Next month I’ll finish the Blu-ray set with the two final silent shorts from 1928; “Habeus Corpus,” and “We Faw Down.” There is plenty of bonus material on the set, so I may watch that stuff as well. When I watch the silents, I like to watch the films once with the musical accompaniment, and then watch them again with the commentaries provided by L&H experts. I learn so much! What a fun night!

Sunday the 6th – SCAN HELL! – About midway in the afternoon I woke up to take care of Spook and get him fed. Since we’ve put him on the stool softeners and the pumpkin food additive, his situation has improved greatly. Though he still has a few minor episodes, the problem has generally improved about 90%. Whew! He eats like crazy and he seems pretty healthy and active. I went back to bed to get some more sleep. When I got up later I took my nightly WOG, and even spent some time afterwards outside in the anti-gravity chair, looking at a gorgeous ¾ full moon. The weather was nice, but not warm enough for me to stay out for very long. When I got back inside I started the tedious task of scanning a ton of residual checks that came in the mail. Not that I’m complaining about money coming in, but it seems like it would make more sense to put the total residual amount on ONE CHECK, and send along the paperwork breakdown of which episodes they came from. But no. That would be too easy. So for a series I did six seasons of, they sent us one check for the runs of each episode. That was about 140 total checks which I had to scan and total up for my deposit. Though the amounts weren’t particularly large, as it was an older series, it was still arduous work. But I stayed up all night and got it done so I could make the deposit on Monday afternoon. Whew!

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

BINGO! The wig Sergio and I found for the Roger M00re figure is perfect! Just a little trim here and there, it we’re golden! (Note: this is NOT the final head. It’s just a test head)

Here are the 3D printed hands fresh off the printer, and ready to be painted!

This is the right hand after the painting was done. Hard to believe that’s not a real gun, but simply a 3D print of one!

SO. MUCH. FOOD!

Raising our glass to the memory of our pal Phil Kappen! My pal Chris Malmin and I honor the life of a guy with whom we did many plays at the Sioux Falls Community Playhouse. He was a talented singer and actor. And funny as heck!