CBC podcast connects with indelible 70s child star Mason Reese
March 26, 2015 8:54 AM   Subscribe

Whatever happened to that quirky-looking "borgasmord" moppet? After stumbling across this Youtube video of 70s child star Mason Reese crying on the Mike Douglas show, Canadian broadcaster Jonathan Goldstein follows the trail all the way to Reese's modest Manhattan apartment.
posted by MACTdaddy (21 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
This was also released as an episode of Reply All. Fanfare discussion is here.
posted by sparklemotion at 9:16 AM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


I used to love underwood deviled ham.
posted by jonmc at 9:23 AM on March 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


The high point of the episode is also its nadir, when they keep trying to squeeze some meaning out of the sobbing fit Mason Reese had during an on-air live performance of Harry Chapin's "Cats In the Cradle" and Reese keeps telling them that it's not rocket science, it's a sad song and he was a sensitive kid.
posted by maxsparber at 9:34 AM on March 26, 2015 [9 favorites]


I have Plaid Stallions to thank for my knowledge of Mason Reese. The related commercial is so good.
posted by SharkParty at 9:40 AM on March 26, 2015


I want to add that this reminds me of how much the 1970s and early 80s seemed to be a celebration of the freak. And not in a mocking way. I grew up with a Johnny Carson who was genuinely fascinated by 90 year old women from Sheboygan who collected toast in the shape of celebrities, with television that included Wayland Flowers and Madame, Ray J. Johnson, Rod Hull and Emu, and Mason Reese. There were television shows like Real People and That's Incredible that showcased, and celebrated, fascinating eccentricity.

I miss that time. The world seemed a lot more interesting then, and people seemed to be perfectly willing to be delightfully unique, instead of this endless collection of baseball cap and khaki short-wearing clones that seem to have taken over the world.
posted by maxsparber at 9:41 AM on March 26, 2015 [22 favorites]


jonmc: "I used to love underwood deviled ham."

I still do. But the wife disapproves. Strongly.
posted by Splunge at 9:49 AM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


I miss that time. The world seemed a lot more interesting then, and people seemed to be perfectly willing to be delightfully unique, instead of this endless collection of baseball cap and khaki short-wearing clones that seem to have taken over the world.

I think pop culture focused on eccentricity is alive and thriving. There are entire channels dedicated to shows scrambling to find outlandish people eating / hoarding / making love to outlandish things. I mean the world continues to allow those Duck Dynasty idiots to keep earning money no matter what they do just because their dumb ideas happen to be falling out of zz top starter kit faces.
posted by SharkParty at 10:01 AM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


I want to add that this reminds me of how much the 1970s and early 80s seemed to be a celebration of the freak.

Speaking as a child of the 70s, I kind of flinch at the loaded term "freak" -- I think there used to be more acceptance of people being individuals and doing their own thing rather than needing to be recognizable adopters of some corporate brand. And everything wasn't balkanized into niche programming / content -- you could see a crazy variety of guests on talk shows and hear music of all sorts on the same AM channel. Unironically. The world is much shinier and Photoshop-sharpened and more calculated than it once was. (Or maybe that's just my bifocals overcorrecting.)
posted by aught at 10:08 AM on March 26, 2015 [8 favorites]


I can't listen to the podcast until I get home, but I didn't see this linked in that Mason Reese YouTube channel.

Whatever Happened to Mason Reese?

Some context.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 10:14 AM on March 26, 2015


I actually think the nadir was when Jonathan decided he needed to comment on the "additional flesh" around Reese's face.
posted by lucasks at 10:18 AM on March 26, 2015




Mason Reese, as a child, looks almost exactly how I pictured Baby Igor (from the Crying of Lot 49) in my head.

So, I guess what I'm saying is: Holy shit, it's Baby Igor!
posted by I-baLL at 12:36 PM on March 26, 2015


I think pop culture focused on eccentricity is alive and thriving.

I dunno, SharkParty. It's different now. Yes, TV still searches out the eccentrics and oddballs but now they're shown with this point-of-view of "see, you're a decent person because these idiots are allowed to walk the earth. Look at how stupid they all are."

Maybe 70's TV just wasn't mature enough to do it that way. Maybe decorum kept us from doing it. Maybe this should have been discussed in the RIP Gene Gene the Dancing Machine thread.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:53 PM on March 26, 2015


I want to add that this reminds me of how much the 1970s and early 80s seemed to be a celebration of the freak.

I love the US culture of 'the 70s and the '80s. I think of it as "my" time. But I'm skeptical of a proposition that the period was friendlier to eccentricities than 2015 is. (Skeptical, tho I imagine it would be hard to prove conclusively either way.) I think it may seem that way in retrospect precisely because there was such a monoculture. When hundreds of millions of people watched the same TV channels, went to the same movies, listened to the same radio, bought the same records, and read the same magazines, it was easy for deviations from that monoculture, even if they were slight and harmless, to stand out in higher contrast. And even better if they were harmless, à la Real People, since that made them easy to celebrate and hard to fear.

That's the difference I see between then and now. On average, probably, the US is vastly more tolerant of stranger eccentricities now than the '70s imagined, yet culturally, the disintegration of the monoculture has tended to make people ignorant or fearful or contemptuous of eccentricities which they don't share and, maybe, to cling more tightly to those they do. To a large degree, we're all freaks to somebody else now.

(Also also, I think that in some cases, those "eccentricities" were just camp. They masked sexual- or gender-variations of which the culture at once wouldn't admit and yet couldn't resist putting on display.)

As far as Mason Reese goes, didn't he die of mixing pop rocks and soda?
posted by octobersurprise at 1:06 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


octobersurprise:
"As far as Mason Reese goes, didn't he die of mixing pop rocks and soda?"

You're thinking of Disco.
posted by Splunge at 1:59 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Oh I used to love listening to Jonathan and Wiretap. Glad to know it's still on the air, though the format seems rather different as presented here from what I remember it being.. a sort of semi-fictional radio call-in show that often veered into sketch comedy territory. What is it typically like these days?
posted by wats at 3:02 PM on March 26, 2015


@ wats

What you describe is exactly how Wiretap is today.

What we have here is a one off.
posted by Snuffman at 3:13 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I want to add that this reminds me of how much the 1970s and early 80s seemed to be a celebration of the freak. And not in a mocking way. I grew up with a Johnny Carson who was genuinely fascinated by 90 year old women from Sheboygan who collected toast in the shape of celebrities, with television that included Wayland Flowers and Madame, Ray J. Johnson, Rod Hull and Emu, and Mason Reese. There were television shows like Real People and That's Incredible that showcased, and celebrated, fascinating eccentricity.
I miss that time. The world seemed a lot more interesting then, and people seemed to be perfectly willing to be delightfully unique, instead of this endless collection of baseball cap and khaki short-wearing clones that seem to have taken over the world.


Get your ass to England.
posted by srboisvert at 4:07 PM on March 26, 2015


Also worth noting, from the Mike Douglas Show: Reese meets Leonard Nimoy, who is wearing the best suit ever made.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:25 PM on March 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mason comes by his charisma honestly. Here's mama, sassing Philip Marlowe.
posted by Scram at 9:29 PM on March 27, 2015


Weirdly, I lived in England in the 70s, when I was a boy. And, in retrospect, that may have helped influence my feelings. It was a deeply weird place; glad to hear it may still be.
posted by maxsparber at 5:00 AM on March 28, 2015


« Older ♫•*¨*•.¸¸♪   |   The Rise and Fall of the Borscht Belt Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments