The Wisdom of Big Bird (And the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch): Lessons From a Life in Feathers by Caroll Spinney & Jason Milligan

Author:Caroll Spinney & Jason Milligan [Spinney, Caroll & Milligan, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Self-Help, Motivational, Inspirational, Personal Growth, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780307417541
Google: qC0a3NGHYQ4C
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

13

GO TO CHINA

The humor of the Chinese people is seen in inventing gun-

powder and finding the best use in making fireworks

for their grandfathers’ birthdays. —LIN YUTANG

When I was twelve, my best friend Ellen Day’s mother gave fifty thousand dollars to Dr. and Mrs. Saunders, Methodist missionaries living in China. They used the money to support their mission and to start a magazine in Nanking. I became the magazine cartoonist, drawing “Lu Lee the Chinese Dragon” for them until Mao chased them out of the country. Working on my strips, I became quite fascinated with China. I’d do research at my local library and try to imagine what it was like on the other side of the world. Thanks to Bob Hope, I would finally get to see China for myself.

Nixon had just visited China, and Bob had managed to get permission to shoot the first western TV special there in 1979, with a little help from his friend Henry Kissinger. He called it On the Road to China, like all his road movies with Bing Crosby (The Road to Bali and so on). It was to be a three-hour variety show for NBC, and we were going all over China filming it. Bob’s people put together an incredible bunch of performers, presenting the Chinese with a broad cross section of American culture—Crystal Gayle, mimes Shields and Yarnell, Mikhail Baryshnikov, who danced a soft-shoe number with Bob—it was a fun and talented group of people.

Peaches and Herb were also on the trip, but they turned out to be a poor selection as cultural ambassadors to China. They sang marvelously, but the problem was that their bit was to appear to make love to each other while singing. While they sang a very sensual song, she went down in front of him on her knees, facing him, and, well, the entire audience cringed and hid their eyes. It was complete culture shock, a pornographic show by Chinese standards.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.