Week Twenty-Six: The Stunt Party

The 1930s were crazy for stunts, or so it seems. The automobile and the aeroplane were coming of age, no longer the newfangled, untested technology. But as has been mentioned before, the stunts Cokesbury refers to are the skits, the japes, the songs, the what-nots that entertained regular folks between bouts of derring-do with stuntmen leaping -- OK, falling -- from airplanes to moving vehicles, or leaping their jalopies nonchalantly over sheds only to land in a broken heap on the other side.

First of all, Cokesbury feels you could make money hosting a stunt night:

In a city of about thirty thousand people a woman’s club has started having annual stunt night and giving a cup to the organization putting on the best stunt. On this stunt night the civic organization, such as the Women’s Club, Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, and American Legion, compete. They charge one dollar admission, and it has been the means of raising money for the organization for several years.

Of course, this means getting people to come to your stunt night. Cokesbury suggests newspapers and other public announcements. Given today’s media climate, if I were you, I’d stick with “other public announcements.” I’d be happy, if anyone out there so chose to host a stunt night, to advertise the event here on the Cokesbury Party Blog, but traffic to the site tells me that virtually no one is coming to this site anyway. You might be better off with a dead tree edition somewhere.

So, now that you’ve got your party on Craigslist (and have secured ample liability and comprehensive property damage insurance for the louts who will invariably show up, toss your dime-store decorations in the pool and put your whistle where the sun don’t shine) it’s time to plan the stunts. Here are a few Cokesbury suggests:

Living Pictures. Living pictures make a very beautiful and impressive stunt. We are assuming that these stunts will be on a stage. Have a large frame constructed about eight feet high and about ten feet wide and hidden lights around the border. Raise this frame up a foot or more from the floor on a platform. A hidden chorus or quartet furnishes the music while the pictures are given in tableau. Between each song that is given in the tableau the quartet or chorus sings “Memories.”

• “School Days.” The tableau would be a small boy and a small girl holding hands, the girl carrying in her hand a slate on which is written “I love you, Joe,” and thus they stand while the chorus or quartet sings.
• “When You and I Were Young, Maggie.” An old couple are on the stage holding hands.
• “Mother Machree.” An old lady dressed in black or lavender with white lace and cap is seated in a rocker. A young man stands by her. He looks down at her as the song is sung.
• “My Wild Irish Rose.” A girl with summer dress, wide-brimmed had, garland with roses, and a boy are on the stage. The boy is dressed in summer sport clothes, white flannels, sweater, white hat in hand. The girl takes a rose and puts it in his buttonhole during the singing of the music. The action should be carefully times to fit the scene.

Obviously, these tableaux will go over well with your Irish-American crowd.

My advice: Think of these as live YouTube videos, but with actual creativity and talent involved, because you can’t just dub over some crappy hip-hop song to the action being shown. If these songs seem too outdated for your hip crowd, then simple re-enact en tableaux some of your favorite YouTube videos. I personally recommend the following, for its simplicity, pathos, and the likelihood of getting a laugh out of your audience.

Then there’s this one, of dubious moral value:

Black-Face Comedy. Have two boys who are clever at impersonating negroes put on a black-face comedy skit. You will find ample material for this in Chapter LII, “The Minstrel Show.” You will also find three or four stunts which could be done by these comedians in the chapter, “The Minstrel Show.”

Remember, if you choose to do this stunt, you are an ass. Even if you’re Australian.

This one is a bit more socially acceptable, and reminds me of this classic Muppet Show bit:

Brain-Testing Machine. Construct brain-testing machine as follows: Make a box with boards about nine inches wide and about one foot square and as high as the width of the boards. Put a board over the top and on the bottom, boring a hole about a half inch in diameter through the top and bottom boards. It is necessary for this box to set about two inches off the table, so around three sides of the it there should be a board one by two nailed up edgewise, so that the bottom of the box will appear to be on the table. Get a piece of small rubber hose at the five-and-ten-cent store about a half inch in diameter. This should be ten or twelve feet long. Put this through the holes in the bottom and top of the box, so that one end of it just projects over the top of the box. It will be necessary to get a small tube, glass or brass, which may be procured either at a hardware store or a plumbing shop. This should be just large enough to slip the end of the rubber hose over and to make it fit tight in the hold and in the box. Then get a toy rubber balloon and slip over the end of the tube. This box is placed on the table with the tube sticking out on the back side, and then the tube is placed behind the curtain, with one person behind the curtain to make the balloon large or small at will by inflating it. It would be well also to have some sort of a dial either drawn on the side of the box or purchased and put on the box. Also have some kind of a crank that will turn other little apparatuses on the box. One the top side there should be driven a nail on each corner and a small wire tired around the entire edge of the box also, tying it to the top of the nails.

Whew. Hope you haven’t let your subscription to Popular Mechanics expire. But on to the payoff:

One person stands on the stage and announces that very recently a wonderful machine has been invented which will test brain capacity and that it operates electrically. He puts one hand on the head of an individual and the other hand on the wire of the brain-testing machine, and the balloon will indicate the capacity of the brain. This is a very humorous stunt if carried out properly. As soon as the hand is placed on the wire, if it is desirous to indicate that the person is a man of brain capacity, the balloon is immediately made large. If not, it might be made to just barely move, and perhaps just to flop over.

Ha ha, what a great gag! And here’s a way to make it an even better gag involving a bald guy!

Another variation of this is to get a bald-headed man and put lamp black on the fingers and make some black spots on his bald head. This will cause much merriment. If it is desirous to especially honor someone, the one who is blowing the balloon might blow it until it bursts, or the one on the stage might puncture the balloon with a pin or touch it off with a cigarette.

Unless, of course, you’re in Kensington, Maryland, where such frivolity with cigarettes if highly frowned upon.

If you want something a little more highbrow, you might consider this stunt instead:

Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra. The kitchen cabinet orchestra is a good stunt, but some care should be exercised in selecting those who have good voices, and there should be some rehearsing. Each player in the orchestra is provided with an instrument, to which has been attached a kazoo. This is a small, inexpensive instrument which can usually be purchase at the five-and-ten-cent store or the music store in any city. Imitations of the sounds of instruments can be made on the kazoo, and a number of good voices, especially mixed voices, give a very pleasing result.

Someone who is very clever at improvising should be asked to make the instruments. A cornet could be made from a rolling pin, with a funnel on one end and the kazoo attached to the handle on the other. A clothes basket with a mop stick and some old wires could be made into a bass viol. A bass horn can be improvised out of an inner tube attached to a funnel and some other kitchen utensil. A long-handled frying pan might be made into a violin. A washing tub would make a good brass drum, and a small dishpan would make a good snare drum. The leader should use a dish mop for a baton.

Or, in other words, just do as Spike Jones and the City Slickers do:

Here’s the best part of Cokesbury’s Stunt Night. A few years ago, for a church function, I actually wrote a series of “stunts” that were performed by other members of the congregation. Fortunately, the video tape we have of the performance has been destroyed. But I may have the script somewhere . . .

Anyway, that’s it until next week, and the much-anticipated Gipsy Party, another Cokesbury costume extravaganza. See you then.