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Life & Times Transcript

12/25/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

In an era of lawsuits and agents, being Santa Claus takes a lot of training.

Santa Ric Erwin>> I've been an entertainer for thirty years and I've seen fads come and go, but Santa is like disco on steroids with no end game. It is just getting bigger.

Val Zavala>> And then, he was struck down by polio in the middle of the Depression, so how did he manage to start a Christmas tradition?

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Welcome to this special Christmas edition of Life and Times. Tonight we bring you our holiday coverage, everything from a light show to the story of a man who started the house decorating tradition. But we begin with a story that aired a couple of months ago about what it really takes to be a Santa.

You may think it's strange that we're doing a story about Santa Claus this time of year, but what you may not realize is that being Santa these days is serious business and, if you don't know what you're doing, you could get sued. Hena Cuevas takes a look at what Santas have to learn before they go to work.

Hena Cuevas>> There's no snow, reindeer or mistletoe, but for one day, this conference room in San Dimas is Los Angeles's branch of the North Pole. This is Santa Claus University, or SCU, where these men and women come to learn the secrets of being Santa.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> "We're going to cover a lot of things today. Today is like the tip of an iceberg, okay? There's a lot to be learned."

Hena Cuevas>> It's Dave Blau's first class. He came all the way from Sacramento.

Santa Dave Blau>> I've only done it in so much as I'm walking through Costco or the grocery store, that type of thing. Little kids will look at me and they'll say to their sister, "That's Santa Claus". You know, that's how I've done it, but I've never done it professionally.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> "Knowledge of toys. Very, very important. How many of you started watching Saturday morning cartoons? Okay (laughter)."

Hena Cuevas>> Teaching in the class is fifty-eight year old Tim Connaghan, or Santa Tim. He's been playing Santa Claus for almost forty years.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> "You create happiness. That's what our job is. We create happiness."

Hena Cuevas>> He's part of a group proudly calling themselves the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas. There's over a thousand members worldwide who get together at least once a year. They consider themselves Santa's ambassadors, helping the big boss accomplish his Yuletide mission.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> There is a little bit of -- I won't say there's a chip on our shoulder, but a little bit of pride that we've taken the time and the energy to grow a real beard and to carry on this persona year-round.

Hena Cuevas>> For them, Santa is serious business with high earning potential. Top-notch Santas can make as much as a hundred thousand dollars a year, but getting to that level takes time.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> An average Santa will make eight to ten thousand dollars if they're working in a mall, let's say, but it takes a lot of work to get there. They're not just going to hire a guy off the street. They want someone with experience, someone who has credentials, who can pass a background check.

Hena Cuevas>> But playing Santa nowadays has its liabilities and Santa Tim wants to make sure his students avoid any suspicion of child abuse.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> "The other way is, of course, is the parents putting the child on your lap because this eliminates you having to put your hands under their armpits, things like that. Years ago, that was fine, but now people don't want Santa being that touchy-feely with kids with their hands."

Hena Cuevas>> Also, never ask a child for an address or any other question the parents might find objectionable.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> "Same thing is that your hands are always in the photo. Hands are never behind the child. So if you end up having three children in the picture and you've got a little one here and a couple of kids over here, this hand is way over here. If you can't get your hand over here, bring it back in front and put it right here.

This has become a very important thing because liability-wise, some people don't see the hand in the picture and they wonder where is Santa's hand. We don't want to give them any doubt of where Santa's hand is, okay?"

Hena Cuevas>> This is information that Ric Erwin and his wife, Victoria, of Ontario find very useful. They've been working as Mr. and Mrs. Claus for three years.

Santa Ric Erwin>> The touching, I guess, is the evolution that I'm noticing the most. That really wasn't even a part of the business and even quite recently it wasn't even a part of the business, but now we're having to pay a lot more attention to it. That's what I'm paying attention to today.

Hena Cuevas>> Santa Tim also covers insurance issues. What happens if you drop a kid or, even worse --

Santa Tim Connaghan>> "What if you find who's been battered and has come up here? How do you handle things like that? These are things that sometimes you can't be involved with and it's hard."

Hena Cuevas>> The day-long class crams in plenty of information, including a short history of Santa and how the modern day image of the jolly guy in the red suit was spread around the world by Coca-Cola in an ad campaign in the 1930s. Santa Tim also covers those sensitive questions that kids ask. "Does Santa really exist?" "How do reindeer fly?" And --

Santa Tim Connaghan>> "What if you don't have a chimney?" Well, when you don't have a chimney, a lot of Santas have magic keys, okay?"

Hena Cuevas>> One of the main things Santa Tim emphasizes about the business of being Santa Claus is realism because, let's face it, the more realistic Santa looks, the more he can charge. But getting that look isn't cheap and it isn't easy. That's why they get help from specialty shops like this costume store in Hollywood.

Theresa Saidy>> This is the most popular color and the most popular and traditional style of Santa.

Hena Cuevas>> Theresa Saidy is the owner of Adele's of Hollywood. Her store specializes in costumes and it's Santa suit central.

Theresa Saidy>> The Christmas part is more than sixty percent, I would say, because we have all these shopping centers where we make all these huge numbers of suits which they use throughout the year.

Hena Cuevas>> She estimates they make between six to eight hundred Santa outfits a year.

Theresa Saidy>> This one is a special item. It has the long cape with the imitation rabbit fur imported from England. Then you have the vest and the pants and the hat.

Hena Cuevas>> How much would one of these cost?

Theresa Saidy>> Well, one of these costs about eighteen hundred complete because you have a white shirt. Then you have the vest, the pants, the hat, this cape and then there's another cape if you want to wear two capes.

Hena Cuevas>> Her most expensive one? Almost three thousand dollars, and the Santas are demanding more and more details.

Theresa Saidy>> This Santa came from Georgia to bring me these buttons to put on his suits.

Hena Cuevas>> Oh, it has the names of the reindeer.

Theresa Saidy>> Uh-huh. They're fifty dollars each.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> "A lot of it, though, is what you learn in the chair. What you learn when you're sitting in that chair, when you're talking with the children, when you're working with the families or the photographers, all those things. That's where you really get it. It's on the job training."

Hena Cuevas>> Connaghan's first Santa role was decades ago back in 1969 when he was a soldier in Vietnam. He was only twenty-one when he got his first real Santa job in a department store a few years later. He now has one of the most coveted jobs in the Santa business, the official Santa of the Hollywood Parade.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> "Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone at home! Ho, ho, ho!"

Hena Cuevas>> And in case you're wondering, yes, the beards stay on year-round and take a good amount of primping and plenty of bleach.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> I think I have to be more careful sometimes, you know. If somebody cuts me off on the freeway, all I do is wave. I'm a different person. Santa is a different person. He has to be completely different, and you have to be that way all the time.

Hena Cuevas>> Now you may be thinking that Santas can make good money, but it's seasonal work at best. Think again. This year in the middle of a warm and sunny September, the Los Angeles County Fair set up a Winter Wonderland with beach sand and an umbrella for a vacationing Santa Ric.

Santa Ric Erwin>> "Everybody, big Santa smile and say Christmas trees!" It is just unbelievable how this business is growing. I'm in it. I've been an entertainer for thirty years and I've seen fads come and go, but Santa is like disco on steroids with no end game. It is just getting bigger.

Hena Cuevas>> If vacation Santas catch on, Santas could be working summers as well. But all legalities and business aside, these men say the essence of being Santa hasn't changed.

Santa Tim Connaghan>> That's where the memories are built. The kids build their memories on what they've experienced and you have to give them that experience.

Santa Ric Erwin>> When you put those boots on and you start clomping, clomping, clomping, and you've got that big outfit and that fur swishing and you got these big hand movements, people are getting out of your way and traffic is backing up, man, I'll tell you what, it's a good thing they don't let me near tall buildings because I might try to fly. "Have fun. I'll see you at Christmas. Bye-bye."

Hena Cuevas>> I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> Have you ever wondered why we decorate our homes for Christmas? Well, there's a good case to be made that the tradition started right here in Los Angeles in 1936 with the very first Christmas House. What did it look like? A tiny bungalow enveloped in decorations, hundreds of lights, fake snow, pine trees inside and out. It drew thousands of people and lifted thousands of spirits in the middle of the Great Depression.

And who first thought of creating this Christmas wonderland? A young man from Canada named George Skinner who was struck with polio at age twenty-two. Now his daughter, Georja Skinner, is bringing her father's story to life. We met at the historic Perry House, a classic Victorian in Heritage Square where she told me about a most unusual man. Your father, you could make the case, was the first to really start or inspire people to decorate their houses for Christmas because he himself was obsessed.

Georja Skinner>> That's right. He was obsessed, but the guy -- you know, my father had such a great spirit about him and I think that really came from a tough life. I mean, he grew up here in Los Angeles. He absolutely loved it here. He became President of the Optimist Society. He was very outgoing and looking forward to a job in show business only to be struck down by polio in the epidemic here in Los Angeles in 1934.

Val Zavala>> He was only twenty-two?

Georja Skinner>> He was twenty-two years old, just in his prime, you know, looking forward, had a girlfriend, thought he would embark on this great career and polio robbed him of that, as it did so many people. And what happened was, he was paralyzed over ninety percent of his body and told he would never walk again. You can imagine, you know, hearing this.

He really searched in his soul, I think, to find a way to heal and he reached out to an image of what made him the happiest while he was in that iron lung and that was this recalling of going home to Canada and these beautiful Christmases that he missed so much.

Val Zavala>> For two long years, George fought polio. He was in an iron lung, went through painful stretching and pulling therapy and even wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt for help and was able to get hydrotherapy in Los Angeles. Finally in the spring of 1936, George was released from the hospital. He and his father built exercise equipment and George worked out daily to regain his strength. They took a picture of the day he threw away his body brace.

Georja Skinner>> In 1936, out of the hospital in the spring, he was raring to go. In fact, one of the first days that he was home from the hospital, he got up in the middle of the night, sat down at his kitchen table and started drawing these elaborate plans for something that the neighborhood, let alone Los Angeles or anywhere else, had never seen before.

Sort of like Rube Goldberg meets Walt Disney, you know, on a shoestring budget. I mean, it was just an amazing feat. He started creating this fantastic winter wonderland and he started building it with neighbors and friends and people from the American Legion and it wasn't a normal Christmas House. This was something that was over the top.

Val Zavala>> It really was. Describe what kinds of things went into it. How much? How many lights? How much material?

Georja Skinner>> Seven thousand watts of lights. He actually had to get the Department of Water and Power here to donate a separate generator. Seven hundred pounds of cotton, two hundred fifty strung lights, which were kind of new for the day, and big floodlights. It was lit up like a movie set.

You can imagine coming around the corner like from Whittier to Matthews Street and most of the homes were modest and they have little trees in the window and a wreath and there's this giant movie set with a house that's covered in cotton and corn flakes so it looks like a snow storm.

Val Zavala>> Corn flakes?

Georja Skinner>> The corn flakes were mixed with like cotton batting and mica chips and put on the front lawn. Then he had people chipping ice from his freezer and put that all over the lawn as well. Then in the back yard, he had a talking wishing well. You would meander through the house and then come out to the back door where this wishing well would greet you. In 1936, the Los Angeles Times covered it.

Then in 1937, it was even better. They wanted to add all kinds of new things, so they added a huge tower and a big star and they had Christmas carols going all the time. He actually recorded area choirs from Boyle Heights, which I still have the recordings of, and then he blasted this through speakers on his front lawn so you could hear it all the way -- if they had a freeway, I'm sure you might have been able to hear it on the freeway at that time.

Val Zavala>> And, of course, your grandfather, his father, helped as well. I understand that they would often start building this in July? They would live in their garage and start building in July to get ready for December?

Georja Skinner>> That's right. Usually during the summer months, they would live in the garage because they moved all their furniture out to accommodate this wonderful display for people. You saw in the photo that they have, you know, cotton on the floor that resembled snow in the living room, thirty Douglas Fir trees in the living room that go into an infinity diorama of, you know, a forest in the winter. Then in the back yard, they added this thirty-foot waterfall which was off of a glacier mountain. It looked like the Matterhorn, actually. It was just a fantastic kind of thing.

Val Zavala>> In 1938, George and his father and volunteers built the most elaborate Christmas House ever, but two days before its official opening, someone sneaked inside to take a look. They were smoking a cigarette and flicked an ash.

Georja Skinner>> And the whole house went up in flames.

Val Zavala>> Before it was officially opened, but all the work had been done?

Georja Skinner>> Yes. All the work had been done, so the best Christmas House ever was reduced to smoldering ash except for a few of the decorations in the back yard. So what Albert and his son, George, did is they said, look, we can't rob the kids of Los Angeles of a great Christmas anyway. They got an okay from the fire department and opened the house the following day so that people could come through and still enjoy the beauty of Christmas.

Val Zavala>> Still thousands of people came through?

Georja Skinner>> Thousands of people. The newspaper reports eighty thousand the first year and a hundred thousand in 1937 and 1938, so you can imagine in this wonderful community, which was such a great mix and still is today, I mean, there's such a resurgence of Boyle Heights.

Val Zavala>> Yes, there is.

Georja Skinner>> I'm so excited to be working with the Boyle Heights Restoration Society there and Diana Ibarra. They're doing some great things and hopefully we'll bring back Christmas House for that community next year.

Val Zavala>> George Skinner died of lung cancer in 1978. The original Christmas House is now a high school parking lot, but the Skinner family kept a scrapbook and now Georja has put the story in a book called "The Christmas House: How One Man's Dream Changed the Way We Celebrate Christmas". Do you sense that there are fewer and fewer people even putting up Christmas lights? What do you think that's about?

Georja Skinner>> I notice that there are fewer and fewer people. I think that we've lost touch with what this is all about. I think George Skinner really had, you know, a purity of heart when he decorated, as so many other people do, but I think that it's become something of an empty kind of magic and I think that this book, "The Christmas House", and this story rekindles that magic again and shows you about why these things were done.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val Zavala>> You're about to meet a theater group that would make William Shakespeare sit up in his grave. Then again, after the first act, Shakespeare would probably be dying again of laughter. Paul Vercammen takes us to a theater where the classics meets pop culture.

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> Michael Jackson's smash hit song, "Thriller", somehow morphed into "Chiller".

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> This is the Troubadour Theater Company's production, "Jackson Frost".

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> But mainly Michael Jackson.

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> Adoring fans call them the Troubies. They mix popular music with either holiday classics such as "Santa Claus is Coming to Motown" --

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> -- or stir in Shakespeare's plays. Take "The Comedy of Aerosmith".

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> The Troubies' bipolar orbit was launched eleven years ago.

Matt Walker>> Somebody said, "Hey, let's do "Twelfth Night" and we were messing around and said, "Yeah, we should put some music in that. How about Three Dog Night? Yeah, we'll call it "Twelfth Dog Night". We all kind of went, "Ha, Ha -- Hey" (laughter).

Paul Vercammen>> Matt Walker, a graduate of clown school -- no joke -- is ringleader of the Troubies.

Matt Walker>> We're all about sort of, you know, deconstructing the theater as we know it and reminding people that, you know, it should be fun, it should be a good time.

Paul Vercammen>> The Troubies will take their manic road show almost anywhere in southern California, but they are sort of migratory wing-nuts --

Matt Walker>> "Actually, this is modeled after your host, Paul Vercammen."

Paul Vercammen>> -- because, every holiday season, they take their act to the Falcon Theater here in Toluca Lake.

Matt Walker>> "You know what we got to do out there. We got a loud house. We got to be louder. We got to be funnier. We're going to be crisp and clean with no caffeine. On three. One, two, three. Knock 'em dead. Have fun."

Paul Vercammen>> And they sell out shows bringing pagans to the alter of live theater.

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> And the Troubies earn critical praise while shattering theater rules. There's no barrier between you guys and the audience.

Matt Walker>> No. The fourth wall is obliterated. We take a howitzer to that sucker as soon as we can.

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> Walker's partners and onstage crime and punishment include veterans Michelle Johnson with a golden voice --

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> -- and Beth Kennedy with a sharp silver tongue.

[Film Clip]

Beth Kennedy>> I know I knew what you were sending me for.

Paul Vercammen>> You accused me of shaving when I was putting on sunscreen in Ojai.

Beth Kennedy>> You were in Ojai, right. I think you weren’t good at rubbing it in (laughter).

Paul Vercammen>> Johnson played the angel, Clarence, in "It's a Stevie Wonderful Life".

[Film Clip]

Michelle Johnson>> We get no love other than in a Troubies show (laughter). We come for the love. That's what brings us back (laughter).

>> I love them, I love them. I love the show.

Paul Vercammen>> Kennedy, or BK, is a physically gifted comedienne tortured by Walker.

Beth Kennedy>> You know, he's always like, "Hmmm, what can I make BK dress as?"

Paul Vercammen>> Kennedy is Father Winter here and she's cloaked in typical Troubie pop culture references.

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen> I got a secret to tell you. You know the guy on stilts?

>> It's a girl. I know, I know. I just read it.

Paul Vercammen>> Now Walker pays no attention to gender in penalizing a bad performance.

Matt Walker>> We have a device that we call the foul flag which I usually carry around and, if somebody messes up a line or blows an entrance, we blow a whistle, we throw the flag, we call a foul.

[Film Clip]

Matt Walker>> Foul number thirty-two, Paul. Unauthorized adlibbing in an unfunny way. Let's replay from the spot of the foul, first down, and we'll get back to the play.

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> A seasoned group of professional musicians gives the Troubies' wandering performances a melodic direction.

[Film Clip]

Matt Walker>> A couple of our musicians play with people like Morris Day and The Time, sometimes Prince once in a while. We have five or six guys that come and sub out on any given night.

Paul Vercammen>> On the Troubies' skewed horizon, "Much Adoobie Brothers About Nothing".

[Film Clip]

Michelle Johnson>> It's this animal that's just kind of evolved over the years.

>> The company is so funny. It's just hilarious. I can't stop laughing.

[Film Clip]

Matt Walker>> People start showing up to our shows and giving us titles now. People say, "Hey, what about "Queen Lear" or "Why don’t you do --

Paul Vercammen>> -- "Two Gentlemen of My Sharona".

Matt Walker>> (Laughter) That one we haven't had yet.

Paul Vercammen>> A tribute to New Wave music.

Matt Walker>> We've had "Two Gentlemen at Work".

Paul Vercammen>> How about "Led's Labor Lost"?

Matt Walker>> I haven't heard that one.

Paul Vercammen>> But they did have "Fleetwood Macbeth".

[Film Clip]

Matt Walker>> I think as long as there is classic source material and pop music, we won't run out of ideas. You know, we got Shakespeares waiting in the wings. We got everything from "Antony and Cleopatra's Clearwater Revival" to "King Elton John".

[Film Clip]

Matt Walker>> We got "Keith Richards, the Third". We got all kinds of stuff just waiting in the wings. We're thinking about "Rudolph, the Red Hot Chili Peppers-Nosed Reindeer" for next Christmas.

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> You never know with the Troubies.

Matt Walker>> That's how it goes, Paul. You see the magic now.

Paul Vercammen>> After all, this is "Master Piece of Work" theater.

[Film Clip]

Paul Vercammen>> Paul Vercammen for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> When it comes to Christmas lights, who could do a better job than the company that keeps our lights on all year? Well, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is putting on its annual Holiday Light Festival. It draws tens of thousands of visitors and just that many cars. So to save you the traffic hassles, we sent a camera there.

Kim Hughes>> Hi, I'm Kim Hughes. I'm with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. We're here at the Holiday Light Festival. The festival keeps growing every year. We're expecting close to six hundred thousand visitors this year. It gets pretty busy, but we have a lot of options for visitors that want to enjoy the festival.

They can certainly take a car and we would recommend Mondays through Thursdays to try to beat some of those crowded lanes of cars. We also offer free shuttle service every single evening so that visitors can come, park at the Los Angeles Zoo parking lot, take one of the shuttles, be nice and cozy and enjoy it with your family.

Also, a lot of visitors like to come and park at the zoo and walk the festival. In fact, rumor has it that it's a great first date night or a special romantic evening to bring someone and hear the holiday music and stroll. It's just a little, as somebody said, romantic, so that's something else people can enjoy and do.

[Film Clip]

Kim Hughes>> Well, it's certainly become a tradition. We hear every year of families that have brought their children and come every single year. Also, I think it brings the city together. It's an activity that one can enjoy. It's free. One could come many times. Also, I think we are able to, in one spot, celebrate the uniqueness and diversity of Los Angeles.

Many of the displays depict those landmarks that make Los Angeles truly someplace special, whether it's City Hall, the Vincent St. Thomas Bridge, the Hollywood Bowl or Venice Beach. All those things are brought together right here. So even if you tend to stay in your neighborhood, you can come to the festival and get a true flavor of all of Los Angeles.

[Film Clip]

Kim Hughes>> Oh, the best part is to see the smiles. Children just are mesmerized. Again, there's over a million lights. I think, also, the holiday music brings that kind of sparkle and people kind of rekindle the child in all of us.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> This Holiday Light Festival will be up at Griffith Park through December 30. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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