 |
Jean Shepherd's America April 11, 1971 |
The "Jean Shepherd's America" series was produced by WGBH Boston for PBS.
There were 13 shows in the first series in 1971 and 10 new shows in the second series in 1985 with 3 shows (Beer, Alaska, and Wyoming) being repeated from the 1st season. The first season was rerun in 1975 on PBS
Thanks to Olivia Tappan for her input. Snow Pond Productions - Snow Pond is where Shep had a cabin in Maine
In the 1985 Press Kit Shep wrote a small piece
The Devil Has All the Best Lines
by Jean Shepherd
I'm not one for fantasies. In fact, I can't honestly say that l've ever consciously had one. As a kid, I never fantasized that I was Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle or Humphrey Bogart. Sure I admired them. But fantasizing that I was them? Never.
But there are things that we all secretly would like to have done-or have been had time and circumstances allowed. I wonder how it would have felt to have been a knight during the reign of Richard The Lion-Hearted, or a buHalo hnnter on the Great Plains in the days of Cochise.
I've always seen television, at least my television, as a kind of magic wand. You can go places and do things that nobody in his right mind could ever pull off. For example, who among us has never wanted to visit Death Valley? Now there's a romantic name. Death Valley Soottyl The 20-mule team! .All of that. Well, why not go? And not just as a visitor, but as a participant.
So, in my new public television series, I played the role of a grizzled prospector struggling across the salt flats under the blazing sun, my only companion my faithful burro Flower. Who wouldn't like to do that? And what red-blooded male hasn't
always secretly wanted to turn a few laos at Indianapolis - the Brickyard- the home of the legendary 500? Why not? So seated in a magnificent million-dollar Dusenberg, in another of my new shows dressed in the costume of an early Indy
race driver, I raced against the heroic "Duke" Nalon, a real race driver of the Indy's glory days. What a gas!
How 'bout playing the Dev.il, with cape and sinister Palm Beach hat, visiting night time New Orleans for a little recreation and a field trip to see how sin is progressing on earth? We did, and 1 can tell you l began to feel that I was typecast as Satan by the end of the shoot. I loved it. As George Bernard Shaw said, "The Devil has all the best lines."
Fantasies? No. Television is magic, and I love it. |
| Studio / Network: |
WGBH - Snow Pond Productions |
| Exec Director: |
|
| Director: |
Fred Barzyk |
| Asst Director: |
|
| Contr Director: |
|
| Exec Producer: |
|
| Producer: |
Olivia Tappan, Leigh Brown |
| Asst Producer: |
|
| Contrib Producer: |
|
| Running Time: |
|
|
|
| Episodes: |
| Season: 1 |
| |
Ep # |
Date |
Episode Title |
|
1 |
April 11, 1971 |
The Phantom of the Open Hearth Lives - Somewhere in Indiana
"...THE PHANTOM OF THE OPEN HEARTH LIVES - SOMEWHERE IN INDIANA."
There's a lot of folks in America who don't bel1ev7 in ghosts or phantoms of any size or shape. It's a cinch they've never seen the open hearth at Inland Steel. Jean Shepherd has ( he worked there back in '41 and '42), and he claims that the Phantom of the Open Hearth is a sight you'll never forget.
So, non-believers, now's your chance. Jean Shepherd is planning to reveal that fabulous phantom on JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
While the Phantom of the Open Hearth is a featured performer, Jean Shepherd has actually put together a different kind of program. It's not the usual documentary style, where the camera shows a machine and a narrator tells you, "This is a machine." Instead, Jean captures the mood of the mills in a virtual bombardment of visual images, and in the great stories he tells.
He knows how it feels to get that new pair of "safety shoes" and he describes it with love. And he knows what it's like to be the man behind the safety goggles - "You see the world like you're looking through a brlllo pad."
Sometimes he gets downright poetic. With great affection, Shepherd tells what it's like to punch in at dawn on the day before a day-off. Or that first swallow of coke after 3000 0 of fire and brimstone.
And, did you know that steel-mill workers are great lip-readers? They have to be.
|
|
2 |
April 17, 1971 |
28 Flavors - Maine
"...ONE MAN'S VERSION OF HEAVEN IS A SUPER HOWARD JOHNSONS WITH 28 FLAVORS AND NO LINES FOR THE REST ROOMS. MINE IS A FAST-MOVING STREAM."
One man's version of heaven, says Jean Shepherd, is a super Howard Johnsons with 28
flavors and no lines for the rest rooms. But Shepherd himself would gladly skip all 28 for a fishing rod and a fast-moving stream in Maine. That's his version of heaven.
It's not a new dream. One of Jean's childhood joys was fishing for crappies in northern
Indiana. And fishing for crappies is just another name for snagging hooks on beer cans
and old submerged tires. The "dream" was to fish from the banks of the Kennebec River.
And that's what he finally gets to do.
That's not all you'll hear about, because Shepherd keeps up a non-stop monologue. He
doesn't just follow the camera around, explaining what's being seen. And he is definitely
not into show-and-tell. When you see an unbroken stand of Maine forest, he's telling
some great fishing story. And it's beautiful.
Shepherd himself puts it this way, "If a guy sees a glass of beer on the screen, he knows
what it is and I don't have to tell him. My series isn't a documentary. It's going to be hallucinogenic."
There's a main street of a small town in Maine, looking like an America of Simpler times. And a county fair, where you'll meet Bob, the champion weight-puller of the Skowhegan County Fair. Bob is only the strongest horse in the whole world. At least that's what Jean Shepherd says.
|
|
3 |
April 24, 1971 |
Trains
"...THE END OF AN ERA - RIDING THE 'CITY OF LOS ANGELES' ON ITS LAST JOURNEY
ACROSS THE AMERICAN WEST"
Jean Shepherd took a train recently. But they made him put it back. Fortunately, you can see the whole caper on JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
Shepherd has been scouring America to find out what makes it America. And he finds every-day life, things too commonplace for anyone else's television show. Things like houseboats, turnpikes, pizzas, county fairs - and trains.
The train odyssey is pure Shepherd, a ramble through the vast freight yards of life. He remembers the last train ride he ever took, back in World War II, with K Company. It was a troop train, heading off froin Boot Camp with thousands of soldiers. And Jean Shepherd pulled KP. On a troop train.
Now this isn't exactly the way most people would go about fitting trains into the American scene. In fact, Shepherd never comes to any serious conclusions at all. He's too busy having a good time.
If you've ever heard a train whistle in the night, felt lonely, and wanted to be on that train - if you mourn for the passing of this part of American life." then you'll know what Jean Shepherd is all about.
|
|
4 |
May 2, 1971 |
Alaska
"...A BUNCH OF THE BOYS WERE WHOOPING IT UP AT THE MALAMUTE SALOON"
There's still a bunch of the boys whooping it up at the Malamute Saloon. But the chances are the shooting isn't coming from gunfighters. It's coming from TV cameramen, capturing the mood of Alaska for JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
Robert Service fans, and everyone else interested in that frozen hunk of land that makes
Texas the second largest state, JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA is on PBS.
Shepherd's jaunt to Alaska leads off with this piece of fantastic information: "Alaska, it just isn't like Cleveland."
One of the reasons that no one could confuse the two is immediately apparent. Shepherd is cracking his jokes directly in front of an enormous glacier. Now glaciers are not the sort of thing that appear on television every day. But when Jean Shepherd threatens to hurl his body against it to stop its further progress, you know you're seeing a television first.
Shepherd's Alaskan venture is full of strikingly original camera shots, and, of course, the inimitible Shepherd wit.
His technique is really a whole new approach to television, call it video-verite. The
point is spontaneous conversations, unplanned occurrences.
One such unrehearsed moment finds Shepherd questioning a leathery old gentleman from Nome. The man dwells on the romance of Alaska's bars, and you can't help loving it.
JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA is another sensual essay with the camera's eye view the next best thing to being there.
|
|
5 |
May 9, 1971 |
Food
"...THERE'S A LOT MORE TO LIFE THAN A HOSTESS TWINKlE"
Jean Shepherd is a man with a mission, a cause, something to believe in. Food. Especially American food. He thinks it's great, that it smells good, tastes good, and looks good. Anything from Maine lobster to Klondike bear stew, they're all the Mona Lisa to him.
So he's taking his crazy love affair with American cuisine to television, on JEAN SHEPHERD'S
AMERICA.
Shepherd believes that Americans are one of the most inscrutable, mysterious nationalities in the world today. And one way to figure out the mystery of what it is to be an American is through the stomach. We are what we eat, and all that.
So Shepherd shows us our food - like we've never seen it before. Loving, lingering close-ups of rocky mountain rainbow trout, Virginia pecan pie, New England baked beans, deep southern candied sweet-potatoes, fancy hogs-head cheese...the list goes on and on.
And, all the time there's Jean Shepherd in the background, smacking his lips. And cracking his jokes, telling his stories, talking about the mouth-watering food with genuine relish.
Maine lobster is one of his great favorites, so naturally there's a quick lesson in consuming one of these beasts. "I'm an ad-libber when it comes to lobster, not a classical lobster devourer," he admits.
There's a lesson to be learned from it all. Jean Shepherd puts it this way, "I just thought you ought to know, there's a lot more to life than Hostess Twinkies."
|
|
6 |
May 16, 1971 |
Houseboat
"...AND THE BAD GUYS ARE BACK ON THE SHORE, SHAKING THEIR FISTS"
Jean Shepherd might well be the world's only real-life comic-book hero. The things he actually does come right out of dreams, comic-book fantasies. Like this episode of JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
Jean remembers one comic-strip from his boyhood in which the hero gets away in a houseboat. The bad guys are faked out, and left back on the shore shaking their fists. Meanwhile, as the sun slowly sinks in the west, the hero sails safely away. And thanks to the houseboat, good triumphs over evil.
Ever since that time, Shepherd has wanted to be the "houseboat hero. n And now he gets his big chance on JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA. No bad guys this time, and no chase. Just Jean Shepherd on a houseboat.
But "Just Jean Shepherd on a houseboat" is truly something to behold. He stands proudly at the helm, reaching into :his never-ending stock of stories. There's the soft sound of the engine purring in the background, and the gentle lapping of the waves to complete the mood.
It's all part of his love affair with America's crazy fads and foibles. A lot of us have wild dreams about living a nomadic life at sea. And Jean Shepherd goes and does it. He's America's reflection of itself, and he's enjoying himself every minute. You can't help enjoying his dream version of the "houseboat hero."
|
|
7 |
May 23, 1971 |
Driving
"...THE PERPETUAL SWISH OF. THE WIND-SHIELD WIPERS IS THE SOUNDTRACK FOR
OUR LIVES"
Why doesn't Jean Shepherd trust anyone who wears bow ties and doesn't drive a car? Why does he say that anyone with glands must love to drive? You'll find out when JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA gets behind the wheel on PBS.
Shepherd thinks he knows the ultimate dream of every American male - to sit in the driver's seat and drive to the ends of the earth. Right or wrong, moving along the turnpike is an unquestionable part of the American mystique.
So Jean Shepherd drives along, relaxed, watching America go by the window, something all
of us do when we feel the need fa get away. He has comments and stories about everything,
especially the important parts of a driver's self-enclosed world.
"The perpetual swish of the windshield wipers is the soundtrack for our lives. Think of the millions of dramas played out to that tune. And Jean Shepherd does, and tells about it lyrically.
Today's steering wheel is what the wheel of a New Bedford canvas-sail was, back in 1810. To Americans, there's something adventurous about a wheel, whether it's on a sailing ship or a racing car.
JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA comes to no conclusions. It Just gives us' a chance to look at ourselves. And that's Shepherd's specialty.
|
|
8 |
May 30, 1971 |
Mobile Home
"...IT WON'T ALWAYS BE THIS WAY"
"There has always been a basic tension in the way we want to live," says Jean Shepherd. "On the one hand, we want roots, the nesting instinct. On the other, we want mobility, freedom to go anywhere."
Shepherd thinks we can have both. And the time is now. He shows us this vision of the immediate future on JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
Shepherd's look at tomorrow's style of living is no documentary. It's a fast-moving collage of events, backed up by Jean's gift of gab.
One place where Shepherd finds the future is in a vast crater surrounded by mountains, near Boulder, Colorado. It's the beginnings of a city called Pueblo West, and it's an island of civilization in the middle of the wilderness, not designed for completion until the 21st century.
Jean Shepherd finds another kind of joy in a luxurious mobile-home. Not everybody can wheel their house around a hair-pin turn at 40 miles per hour. Shepherd does, and tells the amazing story of Gertz and his pre-fab Cape Cod Manor at the same time.
Predicting the future has always been a popular spectator sport. But Jean Shepherd never could stand back and watch. He's making his version happen today.
|
|
9 |
June 13, 1971 |
Beer
"...FROM ITS GOLDEN, ICE-COOL DEPTHS COME THE ECHOS OF LOST BATTLES, THE
SOUND OF ANCIENT VICTORIES, THE NOISE OF A MILLION BALL GAMES"
Beer is on the job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And Americans are not quite sure if they want to know why.
Jean Shepherd has always known about Americans and their love affair with beer. And
he welcomes the golden brew on JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
Shepherd treats beer with a respect approaching reverence, calling it a phenomenon more universal than sex. At any given moment, thousands of Americans everywhere are imbibing the nectar-of-the-hops.
Running down the "beer mystique" takes Jean Shepherd to many places. One of them is Mary Vnuk's Tavern, on Packard ,lIvenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The late-night shift from the factory across the street, piles in there at 7:00 every morning for some serious drinking. And Jean Shepherd comes away from this visit with his share of foamy realism.
But beer is not just some innocent beverage that makes us happy. Jean Shepherd shows us the whole story - beer art, beer bottle ballet and beer shampoos.
Beer becomes a first-class citizen of JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA only after Shepherd rips off the pop-top and lets go with one of his fabled beer stories. And Jean finally }inds the answer to that vital question, "Which comes first, paternal love, or that first long pull on a can of Canadian Ace after a long day's work ? "
|
|
10 |
June 13, 1971 |
Florida
"...I MIGHT EVEN SNAG ONE FOR OLD AHAB HIMSELF"
Americans everywhere can rest a bit easier now - Sea Weed Ernie has been found. It all happened quite accidentally, while Jean Shepherd was in Florida finding an America hardly anyone else knows.
Sea Weed Ernie and a few more vital discoveries are on JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA,
Sea Weed Ernie was a complete surprise to everyone, including Shepherd. But that's not unusual for JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA. Ernie lives in an old wrecked boat in the middle of a watery nowhere. He's a bay-side hermit, but he's friendly and human, and he has a lot to offer to the man who'll listen. Jean Shepherd listens.
Jean Shepherd is also a fishing fanatic, so he can't resist a try at the fabled waters of Florida's Black Water Bay. Predictably, he comes up with no fish, but he's got a Shepherd fishing story instead. The story tells what happens when four Midwesterners try deep-sea fishing off the Florida coast. And Shepherd was there. Sea sickness aside, it is a heroic experience. Jean Shepherd feels one with such sea-going immortals as Ernest Hemingway and Captain Ahab.
This is a part of Florida you might never get to see, except for JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
|
|
11 |
June 20, 1971 |
Flying
On his February 7, 1975 radio show, Shep says that he used his own plane in this episode
|
|
12 |
June 26, 1971 |
Hawaii
"...I LIKE ALL GREAT INNER-TUBE SPECIALISTS, HE FINALLY MADE THE CLASSIC MISTAKE"
What happens when you let a guy like Jean Shepherd loose in a place like Hawaii? He has a luau, watches the surfers and talks about his father, of course.
Watch when JEAN SHEPHERD'S AM ERICA annexes the 50th state, on PBS, Public Television.
About Jean Shepherd's father - he was only the All Time Inner-Tube Specialist of America. Furthermore, he knew that the only decent inner-tubes made for floating were Firestone's. So while you watch surfers skimming in on the Hawaiian waves, Jean Shepherd will be telling you about how his father, this great master of the inner-tube, got carried out of l sight in the fierce currents of Lake Michigan.
And that's not all. You haven't lived until you've seen a luau like the one Jean Shepherd runs into. Keep your eye on the man playing the mean washtub bass. It's our hero, Jean Shepherd himself.
The visit ends as it should, with Shepherd relaxed on a deserted beach, welcoming all true beach-cuckoos into JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
|
|
13 |
July 4, 1971 |
Make School or Die - Wyoming
In "Make School or Die ," airing Tuesday, June 18 , a snowbound Shepherd in search of the Old West of Saturday-matinee fame discovers that the motel is to Americans as the oasis is to desert nomads . But a motel so big it has its own zip code?
|
|
| Season: 2 |
| |
Ep # |
Date |
Episode Title |
|
1 |
April 16, 1985 |
Mosquitoes and Moon Pies - Okefenokee Swamp
"MOSQUITOES AND MOON PIES"
In "Mosquitoes and Moon Pies ," the season premiere, Shepherd travels to Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp in search of his roots. He encounters the ghost of Tom Slade, Eagle Scout, among the mangroves, and pays homage to Walt Kelly and the Pogo gang. Floating on the murky waters of the Cambrian fen, Shepherd snares a pickerel "so big you don't dare look it in the eye" - all in a day's work for Swamp Man.
|
|
2 |
April 23, 1985 |
Beer (Repeat from Season 1)
"...FROM ITS GOLDEN, ICE-COOL DEPTHS COME THE ECHOS OF LOST BATTLES, THE
SOUND OF ANCIENT VICTORIES, THE NOISE OF A MILLION BALL GAMES"
Beer is on the job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And Americans are not quite sure if they want to know why.
Jean Shepherd has always known about Americans and their love affair with beer. And
he welcomes the golden brew on JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
Shepherd treats beer with a respect approaching reverence, calling it a phenomenon more universal than sex. At any given moment, thousands of Americans everywhere are imbibing the nectar-of-the-hops.
Running down the "beer mystique" takes Jean Shepherd to many places. One of them is Mary Vnuk's Tavern, on Packard ,lIvenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The late-night shift from the factory across the street, piles in there at 7:00 every morning for some serious drinking. And Jean Shepherd comes away from this visit with his share of foamy realism.
But beer is not just some innocent beverage that makes us happy. Jean Shepherd shows us the whole story - beer art, beer bottle ballet and beer shampoos.
Beer becomes a first-class citizen of JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA only after Shepherd rips off the pop-top and lets go with one of his fabled beer stories. And Jean finally }inds the answer to that vital question, "Which comes first, paternal love, or that first long pull on a can of Canadian Ace after a long day's work ? "
|
|
3 |
April 30, 1985 |
Filthy Rich at Last
"FILTHY RICH AT LAST"
What do the very, very wealthy have that you and I don't? When Shepherd infiltrates the ranks of the super-rich in "Filthy Rich at Last," we join that exclusive and elusive monied society. Members only.
|
|
4 |
May 7, 1985 |
Bourbon and Major Wilkes' Rocking Chair - the Old South
"BOURBON AND MAJOR WILKES' ROCKING CHAIR"
The lore and lure of the Old South are celebrated in "Bourbon and Major Wilkes' Rocking Chair," as Colonel Beauregard Shepherd sips a mint julep and muses on the graciousness and grandeur of days gone by: expansive fields of cotton bordered by crisp white fences , golden honey ham and beaten biscuits and a Southern libation with "the kick of six mules . ''
|
|
5 |
May 14, 1985 |
Alaska (Repeat from Season 1)
"...A BUNCH OF THE BOYS WERE WHOOPING IT UP AT THE MALAMUTE SALOON"
There's still a bunch of the boys whooping it up at the Malamute Saloon. But the chances are the shooting isn't coming from gunfighters. It's coming from TV cameramen, capturing the mood of Alaska for JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA.
Robert Service fans, and everyone else interested in that frozen hunk of land that makes
Texas the second largest state, JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA is on PBS.
Shepherd's jaunt to Alaska leads off with this piece of fantastic information: "Alaska, it just isn't like Cleveland."
One of the reasons that no one could confuse the two is immediately apparent. Shepherd is cracking his jokes directly in front of an enormous glacier. Now glaciers are not the sort of thing that appear on television every day. But when Jean Shepherd threatens to hurl his body against it to stop its further progress, you know you're seeing a television first.
Shepherd's Alaskan venture is full of strikingly original camera shots, and, of course, the inimitible Shepherd wit.
His technique is really a whole new approach to television, call it video-verite. The
point is spontaneous conversations, unplanned occurrences.
One such unrehearsed moment finds Shepherd questioning a leathery old gentleman from Nome. The man dwells on the romance of Alaska's bars, and you can't help loving it.
JEAN SHEPHERD'S AMERICA is another sensual essay with the camera's eye view the next best thing to being there.
|
|
6 |
May 21, 1985 |
The Great American Tourist Trap - Vacations
"THE GREAT AMERICAN TOURIST TRAP"
By way of contrast, "The Great American Tourist Trap" takes viewers to slightly more accessible sites: consider the Parrot Jungle, the Television Stars' Hall of Fame, go-karts and tantalizing souvenir stands. From purple mountains' majesty to stuffed pandas, wish you were here!
|
|
7 |
May 28, 1985 |
Cha-Cha Lessons On C Deck at 9am - Cruise Ship
"CHA-CHA LESSONS ON C DECK AT 9am"
True love can be hard to find--but on a cruise, there's always t he hope that "Cha-Cha Lessons on C Deck at 9am" will provide a chance to meet That
Certain Someone. Romance reigns as Shepherd sails into the sunset. Bring your handkerchiefs .
|
|
8 |
June 4, 1985 |
Down in Death Valley
"DOWN IN DEATH VALLEY"
Flower, the burro, shares center stage with Ol' Prospector Shepherd as he wanders along the trail of the 49ers and encounters mirages (is that the Sheik of Araby?) and cacti .
|
|
9 |
June 11, 1985 |
The Devil on the Bayou - New Orleans
"THE DEVIL ON THE BAYOU"
Where does Old Nick go when he has the weekend off? To New Orleans , to indulge in the delights of the Bayou - some of them legal. "The Devil on the Bayou," fits right in as he passes some time at the Old Absinthe Cafe , enjoys succulent oysters and a bottle of crisp white wine on a wrought-iron laced balcony in the French Quarter , and plays kazoo obligato with the Olympia Brass Marching Band.
|
|
10 |
June 18, 1985 |
Make School or Die - Wyoming (Repeat from Season 1)
In "Make School or Die ," airing Tuesday, June 18 , a snowbound Shepherd in search of the Old West of Saturday-matinee fame discovers that the motel is to Americans as the oasis is to desert nomads . But a motel so big it has its own zip code?
|
|
11 |
June 25, 1985 |
I Love Cars - So There, Ralph Nader!
"I LOVE CARS, SO THERE, RALPH NADER!"
It' s fantasy-fulfillment time as Shepherd supervises the assembly line where his Ford Mustang is taking form and climbs behind the driver's wheel of a 1924 Dusenberg to race none other than the legendary "Duke" Nalon in his 1929 Packard Touring Car at the Indy 500. "I Love Cars - So There, Ralph Nader!" is Shepherd's definitive statement on America's love of four-wheeled motion .
|
|
12 |
July 2, 1985 |
Chicago , Chicago, That Toddlin ' Town
"CHICAGO, CHICAGO THAT TODDLIN' TOWN"
Chicago boasts such native sons as Dave Garroway, Al Capone , Kukla, Fran and Ollie and Studs Terkel, who joins Shepherd in "Chicago , Chicago,
That Toddlin ' Town." But oh, the conti nuing heartbreak of those White Sox! Shepherd roots, roots , roots for the home team at Comiskey Park--the place where hope springs eternal .
|
|
|
|
