PLEASE TURN UP
YOUR SPEAKER AND LET THE SHOW LOAD
This compilation of material
from early programs of the Nutty Nut News Network is an 18
minute presentation, half of which contains rare audio
from the Sons of the Desert's First International
Convention held in 1978. The clips from this event
include presentations by Grand Sheik Hal Stanton of the
Night Owls Tent of the Connecticut Valley, Laurel and Hardy author and
Boston Brats Grand Sheik Scott MacGillivray,
Philadelphia's Two Tars Tent and a cleverly performed skit
by the Bacon Grabbers of Chicago. This is all hosted by
the late Al Kilgore, cartoonist, filmmaker and a founding
Sons member who famously drew the Sons' crest.
The compilation opens with
audio clips from the Connecticut-based From Soup to Nuts
Tent at one of their 1983 meetings and a picnic with Grand
Sheik and Nutty Nut News Network Show creator Guido
Cipriani. Due to the primitive nature of the recording
equipment at the time, our voices occasionally sound
higher than normal, very much in keeping with the style of
our tent's hi-jinks.
Interspersed among the usual
silliness is a greeting from Graham McKenna, Grand Sheik
of the UK's Laughing Gravy Tent of Tingley. There's
also two expressions of appreciation for both The Nutty
Nut News Network Show and
the then new release of LeRoy Shields' "The Moon and You"
by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, these coming from
Dwain Smith of the New York Founding Tent and Grand Sheik
Leon Smith of California's Do Detectives Think Tent.
This is followed by the 9
minutes of historical audio from that first Sons
convention in Chicago.
We are happy to make available
another exclusive presentation from The Nutty Nut News Network website, celebrating
the audio series which provided intra-tent communications
in the early days of the Sons of the Desert.
Three of
the Sons of the Desert founding fathers Al Kilgore, Chuck
McCann and John McCabe
AL KILGORE
Born on 19th of
December 1927 in Bloomfield, New Jersey, Al Kilgore was an
American artist who worked as a cartoonist and filmmaker.
Kilgore attended Andrew Jackson
High School where he played basketball with a young Bob
Cousy who went on to play point guard with the National
Basketball Association's (NBA) Boston Celtics from 1951 to
1963. He also met Dolores Preusch at this time, who
he went on to marry in 1958. During World War II, he
served in the United States Army Air Forces.
Al was an artist on the
short-lived Rocky and Bullwinkle comic strip.
He appeared as an actor in
Louis McMahon's serial parody Captain Celluloid vs. the
Film Pirates. This four-part, semi-professional production
paid homage to Republic Pictures and its adventure
serials, while kidding the antique-movie subculture of the
1960s.
He was awarded the National
Cartoonist Society Special Features Award for 1983 for his
Elvis the Paper Doll Book. He drew the escutcheon for The
Sons of the Desert that can be seen above.
Al Kilgore sadly passed away in
1983 from an embolism.
Sons of the Desert Constitution
Article I
The Sons of the Desert is an organization with scholarly
overtones and heavily social undertones devoted to the
loving study of the persons and films of Stan Laurel and
Oliver Hardy.
Article II
The founding members are Orson Bean, Al Kilgore, John
McCabe, Chuck McCann, and John Municino.
Article III
The Sons of the Desert shall have the following officers
and board members who will be elected at an annual
meeting:
* Grand Sheik
* Vice-Sheik (Sheik in charge of vice)
* Sub-Vice-Vizier (Sheik-Treasurer, and in charge of
sub-vice)
* Grand Vizier (Corresponding Secretary)
* Board Members-at-Large (This number should not exceed
812)
Article IV
All officers and Board Members-at-Large shall sit at an
exalted place at the annual banquet table.
Article V
The officers and Board Members-at-Large shall have
absolutely no authority whatever.
Article VI
Despite his absolute lack of authority, the Grand Sheik or
his deputy shall act as chairman at all meetings, and will
follow the standard parliamentary procedure in conducting
same. At the meetings, it is hoped that the innate
dignity, sensitivity, and good taste of the members
assembled will permit activities to be conducted with a
lively sense of deportment and good order.
Article VII
Article VI is ridiculous.
Article VIII
The Annual Meeting shall be conducted in the following
sequence:
1. Cocktails.
2. Business meeting and cocktails.
3. Dinner (with cocktails).
4. After-dinner speeches and cocktails.
5. Cocktails.
6. Coffee and Cocktails.
7. Showing of Laurel and Hardy film.
8. After-film critique and cocktails.
9. After-after-film critique and cocktails.
10. Stan has suggested this period. In his words: "All
members are requested to park their camels and hire a
taxi; then return for One for the desert!"
Article IX
Section "4" above shall consist in part of the following
toasts:
* "To Stan"
* "To Babe"
* "To Fin"
* "To Mae Busch and Charlie Hall - who are eternally
ever-popular."
Article X
Section "8" above shall include the reading of scholarly
papers on Laurel and Hardy. Any member going over an 8 1/2
minute time limit will have his cocktails limited to
fourteen.
Article XI
Hopefully, and seriously, the Sons of the Desert, in the
strong desire to perpetuate the spirit and genius of
Laurel and Hardy, will conduct activities ultimately and
always devoted to the preservation of their films and the
encouragement of their showing everywhere.
Article XII
There shall be member societies in other cities called
"Tents," each of which shall derive its name from one of
the films.
Article XIII
Stan has suggested that members might wear a fez or blazer
patch with an appropriate motto. He says: "I hope that the
motto can be blue and grey, showing two derbies with these
words superimposed: 'Two minds without a single thought'."
These words have duly been set into the delightful
escutcheon created for The Sons of the Desert by Al
Kilgore. They have been rendered into Latin in the spirit
of Stan's dictum that our organization should have, to use
his words, "a half-assed dignity" about it. We shall
strive to maintain precisely that kind of dignity at all
costs - at all times.
