Searching for Candy by Tracey J. Morgan

Author:Tracey J. Morgan [Morgan, Tracey J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781999653316
Published: 2019-03-05T05:00:00+00:00

On one of the takes where John was filming on the bridge he went to sit and wait in his trailer, everyone forgot to tell him they were going home. So they had cleared the whole bridge of 200 extras and John was still sitting patiently in his trailer. His driver, Frankie Hernandez, said to him, ‘Everyone has gone’, John thought that was a joke and continued to sit there, as he recalled on a tv interview with David Letterman.

John added to his trusty team whilst on this film by hiring Bob Crane Jr to do some publicity. John and Crane had hit it off well at a previous meeting, and later John would employ Crane to be his personal assistant. John was building a trusted team around him, Hernandez would call them the “Chongos” which means “monkeys”. Other members of the Chongos included Silvio Scarano as John’s personal dresser, Ben Nye Jr for makeup and for a while, Dione Taylor for hair.

Later that year John would also do a cameo in Little Shop of Horrors, a musical film led by Rick Moranis about a giant man-eating plant, John played Wink Winklinson - the crrrraaazzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyyy radio show host.

John loved kids shows, of course he was originally doing a lot of children’s entertainment and was pretty much a big kid himself. At the end of 1985 he briefly featured in the first ever Sesame Street movie, Follow That Bird, he was literally at the end, playing a state trooper arresting Sam and Sid Sleaze (Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty) who had kidnapped Big Bird. That was kind of John’s in on Sesame Street. Caroll Spinney (Bird Big and Oscar the Grouch himself) told me, “we were lucky on Sesame Street, we never really had to approach the big stars, they usually came to us, especially if they had kids and their kids wanted to see them on the programme”. I imagine John adored being on set, he was childlike without being childish - he must have felt like a kid at Christmas.

In 1986 John had a days filming with Spinney in a scene between John’s SCTV character, Yosh Shmenge, Oscar the Grouch and Oscar’s pet worm Slimey. Slimey was learning clarinet by mail, but being the 100th customer Yosh turned up to give a personal lesson and a plaque from the Shemenge Musical Institute! Spinney remembers that John and the makeup department would move the fake mole around on his head, just ever so slightly. In fact one of the puppeteers kept his mole as a souvenir!

After shooting they all went to eat at a little Italian just over the road from the studio. Spinney remembers John ate spaghetti and meatballs and they chatted about all kinds of subjects, including John telling Spinney that he always thought he was going to die young.

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