Friday Night Video

I see Robert Morse was in the news this past week. I always wondered what happened to him. I guess he's had a role in TV' s "Mad Men". If I bothered to watch the stack of Mad Men DVD's I have over on the shelf, I might have known that- but I'm saving them and about a hundred others for- I have no idea what for.

I always kind of like him. But the weird thing is, I have no idea why. I'm sure I must have seen him in more than one movie, but only one stands out- and even then, like most of my memories, it's pretty fragmented.

On one of my family's well documented trips to Asheville one summer, our family stayed at a nearby camp called Kanuga. I've surfed for information about this place and apparently it's a Christian camp. I'm kind of surprised by this. I'm not sure why they let us in- unless we were riding on Nona's coat tails.

Anyway, putting us up in this camp turned out to be a wise move on Nona's part because as I recall, it pretty much rained the entire time we were there. And the only thing worse than having a family of seven crash at your place for the summer would have been having a family of seven crash at your place while it rained constantly.

Because it was always raining, there were limited things to do. One of the activities they had was a craft building. I remember my sister Karen carving a pretty decent looking castle out of a block of clay. And I remember making an acceptable robot out of clay that looked remarkably like a brick with arms.

But other than that, and eating candy at night in a sleeping bag borrowed from my aunt, I only remember a couple of other things entertainment-wise. Both had to do with movies. And since it was back in "those days", we're talking real film- reels, a projector and a screen- the whole deal.

One movie was Disney's "Alice in Wonderland". For some reason, they showed this late at night. I remember the film getting stuck and melting and finally all sorts of people hovering around the projector like bees on honey until finally we gave up and walked back to our cabin in the dark and pouring rain.

The other movie was late at night too. This movie was called "The Loved One" staring Robert Morse. I was shocked to find out many years later (i.e.: this past week), that it was a comedy. Why? Because the only scenes I remember are of some guy who had hung himself from the swimming pool's diving board and he's just dangling there, and another scene of some obese woman in bed gorging herself on food, including stabbing a fork in some roasted bird's eye. All of this before we had to walk back to the cabin in the cold dark rain.

As you watch the following clip, imagine that you're somewhere around ten years old, sitting in a dark shelter out in the woods at night as the rain pours down around you. Imagine walking back to the cabin in the cold, dark rain after the movie is finally, mercifully over and then getting back to the cabin so you can hide as deep in your sleeping bag as you can get. Thank God I had some candy.

Man, they don't make comedies like this anymore. Enjoy!