This image tells the story of the mid-to-late-70s Marvel Bullpen perfectly. Alas, one does need to know some people involved for more than the surface humor to be revealed. Let me introduce our cast– Morrie Kuramoto, The Ancient One, he was a Production Worker, with decades of experience getting all manner of inadequate gray junk to print. Mike “Later” Higgins (he always said goodbye that way, even if he was just strolling down the hall) was also a Production Worker but a letterer too. In fact both Morrie and Mike just about did the same job—you can make out in all the pix that their desks face each other. A testament to their friendship. Me? I worked in the stat room, Brown is the same and stats is the game. Photostats. Sometimes a picture or two.
Morrie had been in the Bullpen for a long time. Because he had, indeed, seen and heard it all, it was no surprise for him to tell us to, “Shut Up!” A lot.
As you, casual reader, might assume, there is a lot more to tell about Morrie—but I’m letting this image say a few things. Happily, when I re-discovered this image I found two others.
The first image, at top, was a mystery made so because of the format of a 35mm slide. You see, the “slide” was a cardboard frame that held an individual frame of film. What that frame wound up doing was to cover up a sliver of the “full frame.” Where did the name “slide” come from? All I can hazard was that the slide would slide down into a slide projector. Such a contraption would allow many people to see the image.
But who was that hairy fellow? What was visible was the tip of a nose and a large hank of hair. Elvis sized. Threw me off for years. I had “lost” this sequence of pictures because of the penny-wise manner in which I used film in those days. I have to shake my buggy whip at you kids out there with 9 cameras in every phone—but back then, film came in rolls of … uh… film. And it cost plenty! So there were two other “events” that I attended all on one 36-shot roll of film. My first scan of the above was even more cut off than this version was. Morrie’s desk was the subject and I didn’t hardly note there was a person to one side. I was determined to see if there was more under the frame. Well, there was. Here is the “first” picture of the series, wherein I captured the perpetrator of this act.
One Mike Higgins, admiring his handiwork! For no known reason, Mike had become synonymous with rather long hair.
Then, I jumped into the shot. Rather rare for me was the use of a tripod—the use of which contributed to my lack of attention to what was going on in the picture.
Now! We take the image at the top of the page and claw and tear at the cardboard frame to reveal:
With the frame removed, enough of Head of Production Danny Crespi can be seen. That giant bouffant on Danny’s head was the perfect alignment of Mike’s own furry mass with the camera lens.
Further analysis:
That really looks like Danny had a towering pile of hair!
It was Mike Higgins who spotted that the source of “SHUT UP.” In Danny’s hand was a blur that I took to be merely a crumpled, left-over xerox copy. Turns out, it was a headline from The New York Daily News! And that was what was in Danny’s hands. Perfect—as if the Saints who watched over the media and those who watched over comic workers got together to tell Mike to use this headline!
One technical note: Morrie had a beautiful speaking voice and the very slightest of Japanese accent. When he intoned, shut up—he added a mildly guttural syllable just after. Shut up-uh. These images were taken in September of 1979 and every since then and quite some time after Morrie passed, I do tell anyone who needs it, to shut up-uh.
Of course no one knows what I am trying to do.
Morrie insisted that drinking carrot juice would compensate for his chain smoking.
I left Marvel shortly before these pix were taken, I think. My recollection of Morrie’s drawing board is a different setting — the office of Marschall and Macchio, Inc., looked out of a wide glass window to the whole bullpen in an open space: Nel Yomtov; Ron Zalme; Morrie; Higgins; some spare drawing boards for freelancers who came in and needed work space. Stan Aaron? Or was he shut off in his own dungeon? The elegant Davida Lichter-Dale? Was Nora the Rooshian in the far corner outside Marie Severin’s own little office?
Further to your recreation of Morrie’s inevitable tag-line: His nickname for Ralph Macchio was KOD — meaning Kiss of Death, because a succession of Ralph’s bosses got canned. Strangely prescient. Ralph, in turn, but unrelated, really, would decorate Morrie’s area with ersatz bunting and mementos on Pearl Harbor Day. Morrie would also, in a patented sort of bonhomie, say (loudly) to anyone who approached him, “There he is!” Or, to be precise and following your prompt, “There he is – ah!” which Ralph and I, being fair mimics, would reproduce everywhere, every corner of the office, on every phone message, etc.
Further memories of sayings and greetings, this singular bullpen troll, Stan Aaron — I am sure he was isolated from normal people, but I forget what his “duties” were. Was he in a little closet similar to Dave Cockrum and Paty’s? or Stu Schwartzberg’s? but where?
Anyway, you remember Stan, always in crumpled white shirt and tie (never a jacket), perpetually sweating even in mid-winter, tousled hair or what was left of it, and half-glasses forever down at the tip of his nose… would greet everyone with a foghorn-like “Hi there!” Sometimes he took off the glasses and thrust them forward like a charging knight’s lance. “Hi there!” Always with a car salesman’s exaggerated grin. I think he never realized why Ralph and I — all of us — would double over in laughter at every Aaronism, because he would smile even broader, and repeat the greeting. Of course the whole office took it up, eventually unconsciously; the start of every conversation or meeting. “Hi there!”
Eliot, you took a photo once — I hope you have it — of six or eight of us lined up in the editorial bullpen, all stepping forward, holding our glasses toward the camera (even Al Milgrom, who had just returned to a desk job, joined in, and we were sure he didn’t know what the hell the ritual meant).
That photo was classic — we were posed with a choreographed precision that would have made the Rockettes jealous.
Don’t worry, Marschall– you’re coming up soon!
Stan’s office was to the rear of the office– on the way toward Robbie’s and my area. Stan used an obscure IBM Compositing typewriter that generated columns of type with the left and right sides justified. It was mechanical! My Stan memory was of him playing martial and marching music with his door closed. Still loud! This helped him type! The Compositor needed every line of type to be physically typed twice!
I have a photo of three people doing the Stan Aaron Salute– Grue, Linda Florio and Roger Stern. Now that you’ve revealed this foundation– I’ll run it soon.
Shut-up-uh.
There he is–