The Smiley Smile Message Board

If you grew up (or lived in, or otherwise spent much time in) the greater LA area in the 1980s and 1990s, Wally George, host of KDOC-TV's "Hot Seat," needs no introduction. If you're not familiar with him, put his name in YouTube and prepare to be amazed.

A few hours ago OC Weekly, the alternative paper in Orange County (aka Wallyland during the aforementioned decades), posted its current cover story,

http://www.ocweekly.com/2013-10-03/culture/wall-george-hot-seat/

 an oral biography of the man and his times. As one might expect of anything concerning Wally it contains many startling things. But none quite as startling as this quote from musician and sometime Manson apologist Nicholas Schreck, a frequent Hot Seat guest:

"He was a frustrated performer and musician himself, and I don't really think he took this Republican persona as seriously as he presented it. He told me that he used to be a music reviewer for a magazine or newspaper. We got to discussing our mutual taste in music for the film composer Les Baxter's and Martin Denny's 1950s and 1960s exotica music, and we were both very admiring of Brian Wilson's more experimental work, so it would be surreal to see the difference between our onscreen relationship and our off-screen."

Well - I knew that Wally, back in the late '50s and early '60s, often reviewed exotica and tiki-lounge music in the pages of the Los Angeles Times - see

http://tikilagoon.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-exotic-sounds-of-wally-george.html  which includes an amazing photo of the young Wally with thick, dark, apparently real hair.

But to picture Wally groovin' to "Cabinessence," "Surf's Up" and SS and maybe even Love You - right into his days as the be-blazered predecessor of Morton Downey Jr and Jerry Springer, and beyond? Man, that's some kind of image.

As it happens, Brian, Dave, Al and Jeff are playing in my neck of the woods, Washington DC, on the tenth anniversary of Wally's death.

I wonder if, between now and then, I'll have the nerve to Tweet a link to this article to Van Dyke.

That is hilarious, and I have enjoyed Wally's show (as a super guilty pleasure at the absurdity of it - I disagree completely with his politics) for many years... The crazy thing is, that literally just today at work during some downtime, I was showing my coworkers a Youtube episode of Hot Seat where the audience + Wally got into a pre-arranged singalong (with Wally on lead vocals, audience on backing vox) of "Louie Louie", only redone as "Wally Wally"... and I commented to my coworkers (who know I'm a Beach Boys nut) that the BBs covered "Louie Louie" too, and I was annoyed that Wally omitted the key change that is supposed to occur later in the song, per the BBs vocal arrangement.

So needless to say, to read this post of yours was *super* crazy weird timing for me.  (I had no idea about this OC Weekly article when I started watching Wally clips today, or that Wally was a BW fan for that matter, though it makes sense when you think about it).

I only lived out here in time for the best-ofs he would introduce on KDOC but got to witness his reaction to 9/11 and was mesmerized by that insane mop on his head and his whole persona... I'd use his show in cut-ups and collages... "Who would think this would happen in AMERICA!!?! That we would be afraid to open our MAIL?!?!"  The archive clips were hysterical, thanks for the link and the reminder that I need to youtube up a storm.

Wally's early career is hardly touched upon in the article but someday, somebody should look into it.  In the late '40s when he was a teenage deejay in Glendale, he supplemented his income with appearances on Ozzie & Harriet (the radio version).  By the late '50s, he was leading a combo on the Strip, playing quasi-rockabilly numbers like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjaxx-tvIxg

He also worked as a standup comedian at Gene Norman's Crescendo on weekdays, and hung out with Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce - apparently Lenny was quite fond of him and considered him something of a protege. I wonder if there's a photo of those two together.  

One very unusual rumor about Wally that I heard in LA, during the last days of new Hot Seat shows in the early '90s, concerned Rod McKuen.

In '58 and '59, the story went, Rod, to help pay the rent between recording and performing gigs, had a little service going called Rent-A-Beatnik.  If you were some Beverly Hills or Pasadena grande dame, and wanted to spice up your otherwise predictable and dull party with some unusual-looking hip-talking poetry-reciting bongo-bopping types, you'd call Rod, and he'd provide you with a half-dozen Beatniks - that is to say, Venice coffeehouse types (or Strip regulars who could pass for such), chicks in leotards and bands, guys in goatees and dungarees, who were still well-behaved enough that you wouldn't have to worry about them lifting the silverware to handle their "monkey."

I was told that, for a while, Wally was among their number - that he combed down his hair, slapped on a fake goatee, and did the full Maynard.  But whether any photographic evidence or eyewitness testimony (apart from Rod's) would now exist to prove it, I dunno.

(http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6005/5980721594_35ca9dc822_z.jpg)

Fascinating stuff! It would indeed be a great topic for someone to write about. Nick Tosches, say.

Son of a gun. I get the feeling there might have been more rent-a-beatnik services operating in LA than just Rod McKuen's, assuming that story's true.

For those unfamiliar with the special magic that was Hot Seat, here's a prime example - the first of many appearances by Wally's favorite female guest Renee Vicary -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4FVjUmgAqk

and a sample from that most marvelous of Wally projects - his five-days-a-week half hour show where he'd simply sit at a desk, look at the camera, and take calls, almost all of which were crank ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqGirbVm1eQ

And here's an interesting article from 1992

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-11/entertainment/ca-1468_1_wally-george

with a chronology of Wally's career up to that point. Didn't know he had spent the Summer of Love working all the way up north in Eureka.

Ah Wally. I saw him in Illinois somehow on a very crappy cable station with bad reception. I loved him and got the joke even then. Wow he was funny and fresh. He did not have any sort of polish and that's why I loved him. He just sat there and did his stick. He was probably a normal musician actor in some ways. He sold his stuff well and was copied by so many who had better production but less heart. So funny and he had bad health that meant he died before I could ever meet him, or talk to him.

I KNEW HE LIKED THE BEACH BOYS

I read a lot on him and music was big thing. He reviewed a 1957 Elvis concert very well.

I used to write him and get a photo once in a while. He must have been ill already or not taken me serious. I wanted his tape of an interview he did with the guys crica 1965-66 but I never did have the nerve to call him. I was a kid but I did prank a few of his guests that were dumb enough to use real phone numbers. They liked the attention really. LOL
I WAS A KID OK

It would have been a trip to sit there in his audience.

He did a good book before he passed and even in his later years the humor did not leave him. His last website update said he was kidnapped by hippies and being held in a Birkenstock factory by Al Jardine......No I made that Jardine part up...the rest is true!

Here are some more links regarding the late Wally George, and I'll start with the one the subject heading pertains to.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WALLY-GEORGE-Sings-the-Rock-Hits-ORIGINAL-1985-US-LP-SEALED-MINT-/370850837115?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item56586eb27b

A Florida vendor is offering at eBay (and Amazon as well) a sealed copy of a 1985 album which is one of the rarest Wally collectibles. (Not to be confused with the "Wal-ly! Wal-ly!" EP that Rhino released around that time, itself a pretty uncommon item now.)

The record is divided into sides "USA" and "USB." (Leave it to Wally to anticipate the invention of the stick drive by fifteen years.)  The B-side opens with "Kansas City," a song Wally performed many, many times at karaoke bars and in nightclub and other public appearances, and features his vocalizing on Sade's "Smooth Operator."

The A-side consists of songs with USA in the title. Last song on this side is "Surfin' USA." I wonder how often this rendition has turned up in discographies of BBs covers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmpCyvVWKFE

is a special that aired earlier this month on KDOC, Wally's old station, and provides a useful introduction to him and his show for the uninitiated. Its main drawback is the absense of interviews with bands - which is a pity, because, as the OC Weekly article linked to above shows, musicians understood Wally and loved his shtick more than perhaps anyone else.  But this link -

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentality/2012/10/wally_george_top_10_band_int.php

provides ten clips that make up for the special's omissions.

Finally,

http://web.archive.org/web/20010810000649/http://wallygeorge.com/wally2.jpg

shows a very young Wally MC'ing at what looks like a strip joint, long before he donned the wig and took up politics. 

As for what Mike says about the interview with the BBs - I hope somehow that tape may turn up.  What I'd really like to know is if there's a photo of Wally with the guys.  Something like that would be a fine thing indeed to put on the mantelpiece.

(http://image1.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2009/277/7957128_125477043878.jpg)

I've been digging through the youtube compilations this past week and marveling at some of them -- thanks for the additional stuff! I did two deranged phone calls myself to him recorded somewhere in EP mode on a VHS... definitely have to dig them up tho I think I put one in realvideo back when people did that. For some godforsaken reason.

That album sounds insane -- I've heard the Rhino EP and the thought of Kansas City done Wally style is beyond enticing. Wally doing Surfin' USA? tetter totter love goes up!

I caught the special on KDOC, nice timing.

(http://lifeinlegacy.com/2003/1011/GeorgeWally.jpg)