Big Mac Supper Club & More McDonald's Trivia

Who remembers this?

When I went looking for info, I learned that McDonald's Big Mac Supper Club was unique to the Los Angeles area. Guess they figured there were so many out-of-work performers that it might be a draw.

So in August, 1976, at 5 pm, McDonald's put checkered tablecloths on the table--and they were cloth, not plastic--and set flowers on the tables (OK, those were plastic). They dimmed the lights to create a different ambiance. A story in the LA Times claims that gowned hostesses actually seated patrons . . . and then the entertainment began.

This was a 3-week program at select McDonald's all over the county, and the only caveat was that the performers had to be amateurs--McD's wanted no trouble with the unions, according to the Times.

Who performed? Locals. "Jugglers, jazz combos, belly dancers, Barbershop quartets, gospel singers," according to the Times. And in Pasadena, a 12-year-old who taken up the Jew's harp two weeks previously.

A follow-up letter-to-the-editor indicates that performers had to sign a contract allowing McD's to use their pictures or recordings made at the event.

BTW, the picture above left is there because 1976 was also the year that McDonald's first tried to aim ads at the African American community, which resulted in some controversy--mostly over the "Dinnertimin'" phrase above.

Back to the Big Mac Supper Club. Did it really last only 3 weeks?

I checked the Corporate Timeline, and the Big Mac Supper Club is not even mentioned. I did learn that the Egg McMuffin made its national debut in 1975, however, so this wasn't a complete waste of time. (The Egg MuMuffin was developed in 1971 by Herb Peterson, who had left an advertising agency that handled McDonalds' account to open his own Santa Barbara franchise a few years before.)

The Mac Tonight video below is from 1987 and Bob Baker created and manipulated the puppet.

Are my memories confused, or is this a redo of the Big Mac Supper Club promotion? Back to Proquest, where I learn that the 1987 Mac Tonight campaign did originate in LA, then went national--but only in 1987.

I vaguely remember a commercial for the Big Mac Supper Club in which a woman in a slinky gown sang that phrase over and over, but have been unable to find the ad on YouTube.

In LA, at least, and to the boomer generation, "The Big Mac Supper Club" entered the lexicon of hip phrases--along with "Tar-ZHAY" and "J.C. Pen-NAY"--used be those who believed they saw right through pretension and could mock those who did not. Hah!

Venice Colonnades

This is Venice--you recognized it, right? Windward Avenue. I cropped this picture so you could focus on the colonnaded building. The whole picture--with charming beach visitors from 1912--is shown at the end of this post. And it's from Shorpy.com, a site that I love.

The colonnade is more than 100 years old, but a century ago, this was the St. Mark Hotel. A lot of the gingerbread trim has disappeared over the years.

The late and much-missed Ray Bradbury was instrumental in saving these columns, joining the efforts of the Venice Historical Society in 2008 to kick off the Ray Bradbury Adopt-a-Column fundraiser. A $2500 donation refurbishes and restores a neglected pillar--read about it here.

Want more of Venice? How about a film that captures it close to half-way between the St Mark's era and today?

Go rent Touch of Evil, a 1958 film noir by Orson Welles, and look long and hard the lengthy opening shot that goes on and on and on, much like this sentence, following Charlton Heston as a Mexican cop walking along the street in a border town with his new bride, played by Janet Leigh, as the music from the bars blare every time they pass an open door. Go rent it now. My blog will be here when you get back.

Jonas Never recently (about six months ago) completed a mural linking Touch of Evil and Venice today. Here's a picture--the actual artwork is 102 feet wide and 50 feet high, and it's on the side of Danny's Deli. Here's an article about the mural and artist from Venice Patch. The Public Parking sign is right in front of Inspector Vargas and his bride.

So--finally--I present the full-view 1912 picture. Click on it to get totally lost in the past, or at least, in one past:

Emmy Plaza: Marlo Bartels

More mosaic art by Marlo Bartels--this is Emmy Plaza, outside the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on Lankershim Blvd in North Hollywood.

The Emmy folks have been here since 1991. Jan Scott, production designer and winner of 11 Emmys herself, is given credit for the grand design of Emmy Plaza, which features a fountain and 27-foot-tall statue of the Emmy Award (hidden by trees in this photo, from Marlo Bartels' blog).

Interestingly, the 1991 Los Angeles Times piece about the TV Academy's opening says it's an 18 foot statue. Maybe it is and the fountain that serves as a pedestal adds another 7 feet?

But none of that has aught to do with Marlo Bartel's work.

Mr. Bartels' contribution to this public plaza--sometimes called Emmy Plaza, or Academy Plaza, or Hall of Fame Plaza--is two 50-foot undulating mosaic statues and seven cubes, all covered with mosaic tiles. The undulating mosaic statues are benches, a form that to this artist allows for endless innovation.

I wasn't able to find any pictures of the cubes, but they are of cracked tile like the meandering long benches that twine between eucalyptus trees.

In the Hall of Fame section of the plaza, busts and statues of iconic TV stars dot the plaza as well. Here's one of Bill Cosby that shows the mosaic bench right next to it.

This last photo and the one above are from the Public Art in LA website, a great source for photos of the individual star bronzes. Those are worth looking at--there's Dinah Shore, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Lucy & Desi, Mary Tyler Moore & Dick van Dyke, Tim Conway, Walt Disney, Johnny Carson, Walter Cronkite, and many more.

The Academy has a detailed and complex history outlined on its site, which only makes me grateful that this post is about the mosaics outside, and not the politics within.

Marlo Bartels' Sylmar Mosaic

Mosaicist Marlo Bartels has work on display all over the Southland, but somehow I've missed seeing his name. So I'm gonna devote the next coupla Mosaic Mondays to him.

Since I've never featured Sylmar in a post before, we'll go there first.

The picture on the left was taken in front of MS Aerospace on Foothill Blvd, during a visit from Astronaut Jim Kelly. (The photo's from their gallery)

Marlo Bartels designed the pyramid an ball behind them. There's another picture of it to the right, and finally a beauty below, which came from the artist's website via a link. (Gotta think that's him reflected in the window, taking the picture.)

Bartels has been working in ceramics since 1977. This is from his website:

He works with ceramic tile, terrazzo & stone; shaping, forming and glazing the clay elements by hand. With the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C., he has developed new techniques for fabricating furniture and sculptures, using tile facings on ferro-cement with polystyrene substrates.

Marlo is the artist-in-residence at Fullerton College this year, and his studio is in Laguna Beach. His work is everywhere, but the OC has quite a lot of it. He's even done some Home Savings and Loans!

Harvey House Girls

The Lomita Railroad Museum hosts some fascinating talks. Coming up this Thursday, October 18, 2012, is one on "Fred Harvey, His Houses, His Girls, and Railway Dining."
There's a reception at 6:30 pm, and the talk starts at 7 pm.
Here's what the flyer says:

Early railroad travel in the U.S. was very uncomfortable and meals were only available at “road houses” where fare typically consisted of rancid meat, cold beans, and old coffee. Fred Harvey, early 1800s entrepreneur, was responsible for changing the railway dining experience to fresh ingredients cooked by European chefs served on Irish linen tablecloths by attractive Harvey Girls. Join us for a fun and informative journey through this history of railway dining and the impact of Harvey Girls on the settlement of the West where men outnumbered women by 2 to 1.

 Presenters are Toni Wasserberger is Professor Emeritus of English and History at El Camino College Compton Educational Center; Susie Dever is Dean of Academic Programs at El Camino College Compton Center and Chair of Lomita Railroad Museum Foundation.

Dia de los Moles

We are all celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month through October 15, a fact that usually stays in the back of my consciousness until someone says Mole. Then I pay attention.

Mole!  There is actually a Feria de los Moles on Olvera Street, October 7th from 10 am to 7 pm.

Last year, 30,000 people showed up. I'm going early. There will also be live music and folk art/craft booths, etc. It's definitely a family-oriented festival.

If you speak Spanish, you can read all about the details here.

Si tu no habla, like me, I'll just tell you that the big event features  moles from Puebla and Oaxaca so you can do your own taste test, and that at least 13 different moles will be available, along with other Mexican goodies which are, to quote the LatinRapper blog, "dulce, salado y picante."

Ah-ha! Here is the Feria de los Moles website with all the information you need. I was going to look up mole's history, but the Feria website already repeats most of it.

Mole is made up of many, many flavors, including pinches of cocoa, clove, cinnamon, pepper, with tomatoes, almonds, and vanilla--just to start. It comes in yellow, green, black, red, and many other varieties. Usually, you get it served over chicken, but some innovative restaurants--like Ortega 120 of Redondo Beach--serve special moles over baby back ribs or enchiladas.

There's a charming legend that the first Mole Poblano was cooked up by the poor nuns of the Santa Rosa Convent in Puebla, who had practically no food when Viceroy Tomas Antonia de la Cerda y Aragon came to call. After some quick but fervent prayers, the nuns were inspired to use the little bits of flavoring they had to make the mole, which delighted the Viceroy.

Civic Center Metro Mosaics: People Portraits

On the Metro Red and Purple lines, on the mezzanine level of the Civic Center Station, are 52 smalti mosaics of people--people playing sports, making music and art, or just looking good. They line four walls, and each Faith Ringgold is the artist. She's internationally known and lauded, and her blog shows photos of all the different mosiacs. The art of Faith Ringgold is in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim and MOMA in New York. She's also a poet, writer, quilter, and performance artist, and her artwork covers many media (is that the right term?): sculpture and painting, as well as mosaics.

Her statement about the art--as printed on the Metro website--is: "The content will reflect the creative energy of the Civic Center area.  Thus it will be color studies of people engaged in creative activities such as: art making, music, dance, performance, fashion modeling, etc."

As always with Metro line mosaics, Mosaika fabricated the work and posted pictures of the artist and work-in-progress (as of 2009; it was installed in 2010) on their blog--like the one at right.

On the bottom picture--which shows how the work is displayed--both pictures are from the Performing Line. Is the guy on the left a mime, maybe?

Forest Lawn Trivia

Since my last post was about a cemetery tour, let's continue the theme.

Forest Lawn's founder, Hubert Eaton, pioneered the "before need" concept of burials. After learning the trade in St. Louis, he moved out to California to work at a cemetery in Tropico--now Glendale. When he took over a few years later he renamed the place Forest Lawn, and his vision was to make it the Happiest Burial Ground on Earth.

BTW, the pictures of Forest Lawn's David reproduction & of Walt Disney's garden and crypt come fromWikipedia and were taken by Kafziel. I like that name.

Eaton wanted his place to be upbeat, rather than dismal. He brought in ducks and birds and fountains, then commenced buying trips to Europe to outfit his cemetery. Big, beautiful, pretty, and inspiring were his criteria, and he put in three churches with thematic stained glass windows. He filled the churches and buildings with art, rich tapestries, antiques, more stained glass--you get the picture. And this was all back in the 1930s.

This information comes from a book I picked up at the library: Encyclopedia of Bad Taste by Jane and Michael Stern. I'm not vetting it--it's way too hot--but just passing it along.

As you can imagine, Hubert Eaton's proclivity for showmanship and happiness did not comport with the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors back then, and they tried (unsuccessfully) to deny him a mortuary license. The film industry loooooved Forest lawn.

Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman and at least 60,000 other couples were married there.

So many stars are buried at Forest Lawn! Silent film icons like Jean Harlow, Clara Bow, and Buster Keaton, personalities like Liberace, innovators like Walt Disney (that's his crypt and garden at right), and today's deceased celebs, including Michael Jackson.

Wikipedia has a list--and there are books about the place too.

Later, Eaton built the Hall of the Crucifixion to house the World's Largest Framed Canvas Painting--45 feet high by 195 feet long. Wonder if Eaton was related to P.T. Barnum?

That painting--the middle third of which you see at right--was brought to American at great expense by the artist, Jan Styka, in the early 1900s. Styka painted "The Crucifixion"--which he called "Golgotha"--at the suggestion Paderewski, the famous pianist, and had exhibited it in Warsaw. He hoped to see it displayed at the St. Louis Exposition, but no one could find a place for it.

The artist had to leave it in America when he returned to Poland, because he just ran out of money. He never saw it again--and that's from the Forest Lawn website. Wikipedia says "The Crucifixion" sat in the basement of the Chicago Civic Opera Company for 40 years, until Eaton purchased it in 1944. And built the hall to display it in.

Angelus Rosedale Cemetery Tour

Like cemetery tours?  C'mon, admit it!  We all like cemetery tours!

The West Adams Heritage Association presents "Entertaining Lives" on Saturday, September 29th, at the Angeles Rosedale Cemetery.

The Living History Tours will begin every 25 minutes, between 9 am and noon.

For this popular event, advance reservations are REQUIRED. Call 323-732-4223, or send an email to  tours@westadamsheritage.org.

Living History Tours cost $25, if ordered by Sept. 24. If you wait till the 25th--if there's space, the tour will cost $35.

The tours are three hours long, and the noon cutoff is just to start the tour. So you could be there through 3pm.

Who will you see? I'm copying this right from the tour flyer:

• Mildred Washington, the charming lady at right, a vaudeville dancer and choreographer who headlined at Sebastian's Cotton Club in Los Angeles;

• Harry Cooke, Magician and Civil War Union Army “scout” who was America’s first Escape Artist;

• Byron Houck, pictured at left, baseball pitcher for the 1913 World Series Philadelphia A’s, who later became Buster Keaton’s cameraman on "The General." Houck was the Vernon Tigers’ ace pitcher when the team was owned by Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle;

• Della Hogan Monroe, Marilyn Monroe’s colorful grandmother; a religious devotee, Mrs. Monroe had baby Norma Jean baptized at the Hawthorne Foursquare Church in 1926;

• Victor Dol, L.A.’s first chef trained in Paris, who opened an elegant French restaurant in 1876 that soon earned the nickname “Delmonico’s of the West”;

• Rita Carewe, a Jazz Age starlet and “Baby WAMPAS” (Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers) winner who appeared in films with Delores del Rio, Edward Everett Horton, and Mary Pickford;

• Sadie Cole, a Fisk Jubilee singer and a civil rights activist who helped desegregate L.A.’s cafes and beaches;

• Honorable Wu (Harry Gee Haw), pictured at right. Wu was an actor, singer, dancer, and vaudeville impresario known as “The Broadway Mandarin.”

All these fascinating people who lived such interesting lives were buried at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery, and you can meet them (kinda) and learn about them on Saturday 9/29/12, while supporting a historical association that has truly become a vibrant part of the West Adams community.

Wear walking shoes!

Sheets Week and Temecula

Two stories for Mosaic Monday.

Actually, the first is so multifaceted it's way more than one part.

LA Curbed just ran a cycle of stories for Millard Sheets Week that includes:

• Adam Arenson's map of Sheets' work throughout the area,

• A photograph-intense post of the artist's former design studio in Claremont,

• A tour of five big Sheets artworks in Los Angeles County--Chase banks in Beverly Hills (my own photo of that below), Studio City, and Rancho Palos Verdes, as well as the City Hall mural and the New Balance store in Santa Monica,



• A special essay on the Hollywood Chase Bank (formerly Home S&L, of course, as are most Chase Banks mentioned),

• The Claremont-Pomona tour, with incredible pictures of the Garrison Theatre (how did they do that? that place is impossible to photograph well!), the Chase Bank in Pomona and the Mall there, the US Bank on Foothill, and the mural in the American Museum of Ceramic Art,

• Another photo-heavy presentation of the Scottish Rite Temple on Wilshire, which I've never featured on my blog because I could never figure out how to get into the place. Curbed LA managed to get dozens of stunning pictures.

• Sheets did not work alone, and Curbed wrote up his collaborators, like Susan Hertel and Denis O'Connor, Arthur and Jean Ames, and other sculptors and architects.

• An article on how Sheets raised funds and built up two academic art institutions: the complex at Scripps College, Otis Art Institute--and was briefly involved with a third, CalArts in Valencia.

So have at it--that will keep you busy through lunch time, at least. Curbed drew a lot from the oral history that Sheets did with UCLA--hours of talking, from the 1970s. It's transcribed online here.

Now for Part II:

Temecula is not in Los Angeles County, but we all go out there occasionally for a bit of history and to tour the wineries, right?

At the beginning of 2011, the city of Temecula unveiled a new mosaic by artist Carole Choucair Ouejian titled "The Emigrant Trail" at their big new City Hall.

The artist used blocks of rough, local granite to enhance and contrast with the the tile and Byzantine glass pictures of men and women with their covered wagon, at right.

The entire work--7 by 10 feet--includes a frame worked with gold smalti--appropriate, because gold is what drew most of those emigrants across the plains and desert to California. In the frame, there is a stagecoach--Temecula was once a stop on the Butterfield Stage Line--and other images that tell the story of the area.

A large, in-depth article with pictures of the artist's other mosaic work, is at Mosaic Art Now. You can see how the entire work was constructed, laid out, and assembled, as well as some of the exquisite details of the gold work. Below is one of many pictures there--I like it because it shows the tactile, sculptured aspects of the mosaic. The pictures of the finished work are beautiful too, of ocurse.