Who’s the leader of the gang?

This post is dedicated to Rickey Freeman.  Hep cat, good guy, fellow devotee of fifties television, Groucho Marx, Louis Armstrong, Al Hirschfeld.  Because he knows what matters- and why.

I saw it myself.  The Sunday New York Times obituary that announced the recent passing of Harry Carey, Jr. at age ninety-one in Santa Barbara.  “An actor who made his mark as a boyish sidekick to John Wayne in John Ford westerns like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Wagon Master and The Searchers” said the article.  The obit writer took note that Mr. Carey had been one of the last surviving members of a Ford stock company that included stars like Ward Bond, Henry Fonda and Victor McLaglen.  And he also mentioned that Mr. Carey had appeared in over one hundred movies and scores of appearances in television westerns like “Bonanza” and “Have Gun Will Travel.”

But all those impressive show biz credentials pale in comparison with this one: From 1955 to 1957 Harry Carey, Jr. was Bill Burnett on “The Adventures of Spin and Marty.”

For those of you born too soon or too late to know what I’m talking about, “Spin and Marty” was a serial that ran on Walt Disney’s “The Mickey Mouse Club.”  I would race home from school to catch the latest installment. To me, it was the greatest thing on tv- ever.

First a little deep background on “The Mickey Mouse Club.”  Every weekday afternoon from 1955 until 1959 I was in the basement glued in front of our Sentinel television set watching, no, worshipping the Mouseketeers as they sang, danced, and acted their way into my preteen heart.  These uber-talented kids had been plucked out of obscurity and made stars.  Bobby, Lonnie, Darlene, Sharon, Doreen, Cheryl, Dennis, Jay Jay, Cubby, Karen.  And the most famous, glamorous Mouse of them all- Annette.  (The last to be chosen and reputed to be the only Mouseketeer hand-picked by Uncle Walt himself.) Annette was a phenom.

Ask any guy of a certain fity-sixty age range and he will tell you that he was in love with her.  And her chest.

And if you were a big fan too, you still remember that each day of the week had a special theme and music to start off each show.  Monday was “Fun with Music.”  Tuesday was “Guest Star Day.”  Wednesday was “Anything Can Happen Day.” Thursday was “Circus Day.”  And Friday was my favorite, “Talent Rodeo.”  And the kids would sing, tap, and clown and play thousands of musical instruments.  They were all little Wayne Newtons.

But child labor laws forbade these show biz whiz kids from performing all the time. Uncle Walt and the gang had to vamp when the kid stars couldn’t be on camera.  Hence the cartoons starring Mickey, Donald, Pluto and Goofy.  (I would patiently sit through the “Meeska Mooska Mouseketeer, Mouse Cartoon Time Now Is Here” chant that preceded the cartoons but I wanted to get back to Bobby Burgess.)  There were live-action nature docs, and oh, yeah, that other thing.

That other thing was the fact that the entire show was conceived as a marketing strategy- an infomercial- for Disneyland.  For four years, I- along with millions of kids throughout the USA- was bombarded with images of Uncle Walt’s new brainchild.  Every afternoon, visions of the Monorail, the junge boat ride (remember the hippo who rose out of the water wiggling his ears?) the paddlewheel boat, and best of all, the little cars in Tomorrow Land that a kid got to drive himself- I think it was called Autopia- filled our tv screens.  And our hearts and minds.

Naturally all this brainwashing worked.  It instilled in me- along with every other impressionable tot in the viewing audience- an insatiable desire to make a pilgrimage to Anaheim.  Later, it would take three visits to the Holy Land to satisfy my cravings for all things Disney. But I never realized that I was being Manchurian Candidated.  Every afternoon I would innocently race home and hope that it was time for “Spin and Marty.”

“Spin and Marty” was the saga of life at a boys’ summer ranch camp, the Triple R.  (Which stood for ridin’, ropin’ and ranchin’, I reckon.)  It was owned by Mr. Logan and run by Bill Burnett.  Sam the cook headed up the chow line while Ollie the wrangler tended the stable.

Spin, played by the teen idol heartthrob Tim Considine, (swoon) was the All–American hero.  He was the ablest kid of the bunch- good at everything- and the natural leader of the gang.  His friends, Ambitious, Joe, Speckle, Russel the Muscle, even little Moochie, thought he was the coolest.  And so did we stuck in television land and not lucky enough to be home on the range.

Marty (David Stollery for the record.  But nobody cared.) was a creep. A spoiled brat who had unwillingly come to the Triple R. equipped with a retinue- a butler names Perkins.  Marty had been forced to go to camp- a concept that was beyond six year old me.  I would have given anything to be there with all the guys. And Marty was so lame that he was afraid of horses.  Another character flaw that astounded me.  I adored all animals- dogs and horses in particular.  Ollie had to take pity on the poor little rich kid and secretly teach him how to ride Skyrocket. (Trivia question:  Name Spin’s two horses.  And no, Rickey, you are disqualified. I know you’ve got this.)

The Triple R was the scene of many summer adventures.  Rodeos and runaways.  Rivalries with North Fork- the other boys’ camp.  Boxing matches and sing-alongs around the campfire.  And when we all got older, Uncle Walt thought the boys should meet the girls and Annette and Darlene from the camp across the lake triggered enough hormones to send a whole generation of boys into puberty.

I loved this serial- and everybody in it- with a passion.  And even though I’m all grown up now, I’ve never gotten rid of my burning desire to spend the summer at the Triple R under the caring eye of Bill Burnett. With a song and a smile and some good old-fashioned horse sense, he made me feel that everything was going to be okay.  Bill Burnett was a hero to the guys at the Triple R.  And that’s how he’ll always remain in my memory.

Happy trails, Harry Carey, Jr.  God speed.  Why?  Because…