January 7, 2002
Hello hello, America and welcome to a very special Entertainment Police with which to ring in the New Year! The time has come for the first ever “Ask Roland Special Edition,” and if that doesn’t put exciting lumps in your oatmeal, I don’t know what will. As I’m sure you all know, your old friend Roland gets all kinds of letters, faxes and emails here at the commune and under the windshield wipers of my car and I do my best to answer them in the semi-regular feature that you’ve come to know and love as… “Ask Roland!” But sometimes due to space considerations, I just can’t get to every last letter and they start to pile up around here. When that happens, I sort them into different piles based on the kind of question being asked and whether or not any naked pictures came in the envelope with the letter. Seeing as there’s squat in the theaters right now that’s interesting to write about, I figured this was a perfect time to address my biggest pile, which is all letters asking about famous Hollywood legends and rumors. So sit back, relax, and drink in the “Ask Roland Hollywood Legends Special Edition!”

Q. Yo, Roland, I was hangin’ over at my buddy Steve’s house and we were, like watching some TV and the Wizard of Oz comes on and Steve says to me, he says “Dude, you know if you play some Floyd or some shit while you’re watching this movie, it’ll like totally fuck up your life, right?” and I said no way Steve, and I pissed in his aquarium. But anyway, I asked this other dude down at the head shop about it and he says it’s totally true, that if you watch the Wizard of Oz at the same time as you’re playing Dark Side, you’ll trip into some alternate dimension or some shit. No way! So what’s the deal Roland, are they totally yanking my shank or what?
Chuck Meadley, Hangrow, Vermont

A. It’s totally true, Chuck. Except your drug-addled friends seem to have mixed up a few basic details in that what you actually have to do is listen to Nick Drake’s 1972 classic “Pink Moon” while you’re watching The Wizard of Oz, preferably on Betamax. The album is like a perfect soundtrack to the film, even though you have to restart it four times during the course of the movie and there’s no dialogue so you never know quite what the hell is going on. But you’ll be shocked out of your socks when “Which Will” plays right when the wicked witch is shaking her broom at Dorothy and again when “Things Behind the Sun” plays during the scene when Dorothy gives the Wizard a knob-job behind that big fake sun prop.

Also, if you play the album backwards, while fast-forwarding through the film, a small elf will come out of your television set and give you a kiss on the nose. You heard it here first. And this isn’t the only album-movie synchronicity that you should check out. Hip listeners have known for years that Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” forms a perfect counterpoint to the 1980 classic “Herbie Goes Bananas,” and some folks say “The Graduate” is pretty cool if you watch it while listening to some Simon & Garfunkel, too.

Q. Hey Roland, is it true that a bunch of hicks were watching “Twister” at the Drive-In when the Drive-In itself was hit by a tornado? Man, talk about your special effects!
Meryl Dunkle, Pitchwater, VA

A. Don’t quit your day job, Meryl. This is another example of a true story that gets blown way out of proportion in the telling. What really happened was that some out-of-work fish-hook bender in Alabama was watching Twister on video in his trailer home when a tornado hit the trailer park, picked up his trailer, and dumped it right in front of the drive-thru of a nearby Rax. The guy didn’t realize there’d been a tornado, even though a live pig was blown in his bedroom window and had sex with his sleeping wife. He just thought someone had built a Rax on his property, so he went nuts and shot a bunch of kids or something. Business as usual in Alabama, I’m afraid. So even though it would be really cool if your Drive-In story was true, Meryl, real life just isn’t that strange.

Q. Roland. Is true Three Men Baby? Nastenk tell dead boy of movie. In window! Tell of apartment boy dead of shotgun. I do not of belief. You drunking, Nastenk! You get out from my window! Roland, you think? Is true?
Marfushka Khvylya, Bronx, New York

A. Well Marfushka, I’m going to run with the idea that you’re asking about the infamous “Three Men and a Baby” suicide rumor, because otherwise I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about. Ever since the video release of “Three Men and a Baby,” people have been saying that they see the ghostly image of a boy with a shotgun standing in a window in the background of one of the apartment scenes. Rumor has it that the boy committed suicide with a shotgun in that very apartment, which was later rented by the studio for use in the film. Pretty creepy, huh? Even creepier is the true story!

In fact, the ghostly figure is not a boy at all, but rather the infamous suicidal munchkin who hanged himself on-camera during the filming of The Wizard of Oz. “Three Men and a Baby” wasn’t filmed in a real apartment, but rather on a Hollywood soundstage, and one known to be haunted by the munchkin’s ghost, no less. It’s been known around Hollywood for years that the munchkin’s ghost has been sneaking into dozens of films and hamming it up for the camera, appearing in the background of such diverse movies as “Breakin’ 2,” “Cannonball Run,” and “Young Einstein.” Creepier still is the fact that when you watch the Wizard of Oz while listening to Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon,” during the Tin Woodsman scene, the munchkin suicide coincides perfectly with Drake singing the line “I’m hung up on little things,” no fooling!

Q. Greetings, Roland. I’m curious as to your take on the old Hollywood legend of James Dean’s Death Car, and the rumors that several of the car’s subsequent owners met with untimely ends as well, like in that one episode of Alf. Should we place any stock in these stories of “Little Bastard” and it’s legacy of woe?
Sterling Bosnich, Santa Fe, New Mexico

A. Interesting question, Sterling. For years people seem to have been intoxicated by the lore surrounding James Dean’s car. And although Dean himself considered his car to be cursed, the rumors that have surfaced in the years since his death have been totally unfounded. Few doubt that Dean’s car was remarkable: a remarkable piece of shit. Many have understandably turned to the supernatural to explain the behavior of this rusted-out shitbox El Camino that wouldn’t roll down a hill unless the parking brake was on. No one knows how great Dean’s film legacy could have been if he’d had more reliable transportation. He was considered a shoe-in to play the starring role in “Gone with the Wind,” but the car’s air conditioner exploded on the way to the audition, spraying mosquito-egg infested water all over the interior of the car. When Dean pulled over to inspect the damage, the engine caught on fire and this shitty Herb Albert 8-track that he was only borrowing to appease a pushy buddy of his melted permanently into the radio. The knobs even melted solid but the radio continued to work, blasting Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass at full volume every time he started the car from then on. Even after this incident, the car continued to run, though just enough to piss Dean off and to keep him from buying a newer car. The windshield leaked, the entire front end was held on by a bungee cord, there was a spring that poked up through the driver’s seat and the windshield wipers only worked when it was warm out, at which time they ran constantly and couldn’t be turned off.

The car didn’t earn the nickname “Little Bastard,” however, until the night of Dean’s infamous arrest when he ran over an aluminum can while driving behind a police car. Little Bastard, as if on cue, simultaneously lost it’s muffler and the horn began to blare constantly, which it continued to do for two whole days until someone took an axe to the hood of the car in a police impound lot. Dean was arrested for embarrassing the police officers, who thought they had driven onto the railroad tracks and bailed out of their squad car in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard. However, remarkable as this car may have been, the rumors of its subsequent owners meeting with suspicious ends are untrue. After Dean owned the car, it was sold to a Puerto Rican man named Henry, and it spent the better part of the next two years up on blocks on his front lawn. Never able to get it to run, Henry opted to have the car towed away, only to have his plan foiled when the rear axle broke during the attempted towing. Henry later pushed the car off a cliff in desperation, but it got caught up in some trees halfway down the cliff face and Henry was arrested for endangering a nest of baby condors. No one is quite sure where the car went to after that, but the consensus is that wherever it is now, it’s most likely pissing somebody off.

And that’s a wrap! I hope it was informative, enlightening, and deadline-fulfilling for you, too. Be sure to check back in two more weeks for a return to your favorite movie, video and electronic game reviews, and keep those letters waltzing in!