THE MODERN STONE AGE FAMILY AT 50

The products of 21st-century prime-time television animation tend to shock more than entertain. People who watch South Park and The Family Guy have to endure them more often than laugh at them. This situation is a far cry from the first prime time animated series, which premiered on ABC TV fifty years ago today, 30 September 1960. It was a high concept cultural satire of Jackie Gleason’s “The Honeymooners” set in Stone Age suburbia. Even in its last years when it jumped the shark and lived off its own fat, it could still be very funny.

In its trial pilot animations, producers-creators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera called the proposed series “The Flagstones.” By 1959, Hanna-Barbera had more than 25 years of animation experience, first in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation unit, where under the guidance of Fred Quimby they created “Tom and Jerry Cartoons” – winning Oscars for best short animated films in 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1948, 1951, and 1952.

Hanna-Barbera also had at least five years of experience in television animation, creating Saturday morning cartoon series for Yogi Bear, Bobo, Huckleberry Hound, and Deputy Dawg, among others characters. No animation producers until them in 1959 willingly took on the rigors of a night-time, weekly cartoon series, which meant in practice that the product would have to appeal both to youngsters and to adults.

That product evolved in a 6 season series entitled The Flintstones – a modern stone age family.

The Flintstones was an entirely brilliant concept. The drawings themselves were just adequate enough by the standards of TV cartooning, inked in color, but not broadcast in color until the middle years of the run. It featured a two blue collar working men – its “Kramden” character named "Fred" worked in a rock quarry; the “Norton” character named "Barney" worked at a job not quite definite in the series. They both had wives who, at least in the first season, were abusive. They later mellowed into basically jovial but short tempered wife-mother characters.

Hanna-Barbera hired maybe the most high-voltage voice cast in the history of prime time animation – each actor had years of experience in radio comedy, each enjoyed long runs in hit radio series:

Alan Reed, who co-starred in Life with Luigi, portrayed "Fred Flintstone. "

Jean Vanderpyl, who portrayed "Margaret Anderson" for years in Father Knows Best, portrayed "Wilma Flintstone," and later her mother.

Legendary "man of a thousand voices" Mel Blanc, a fixture of the Warner Brothers cartoon unit, The Jack Benny Program, and The Mel Blanc Show, portrayed "Barney Rubble" and also Fred's boss at the quarry.

Bea Benederet, who with June Foray worked as female voices in the Warner Brothers cartoon unit, in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Program, and The Jack Benny Program. portrayed "Betty Rubble" for four seasons.

On 24 January 1961, Mel Blanc nearly died in an auto accident. As related by Wikipedia

Hit head-on on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood , Blanc suffered a triple skull fracture that left him in a coma for three weeks, along with fractures of both legs and the pelvis.

Blanc reported in TV interviews, and later in his autobiography, that a clever doctor had helped him to come out of his coma by talking to him as Bugs Bunny, after futile efforts to talk directly to Blanc. Although he had no actual recollection of this, Blanc's wife and son swore to him that when the doctor was inspired to ask him, "How are you today, Bugs Bunny?", Blanc answered in Bugs' voice. Blanc thus credited Bugs with saving his life.

Blanc returned home from the UCLA Medical Center on March 17 to the cheers of more than 150 friends and neighbors.

The 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 9th episodes of the second season employed Hanna-Barbera regular Daws Butler to perform as Barney, while Blanc was incapacitated by his near-fatal car accident. Blanc was able to return to the series much sooner than expected, by virtue of a temporary recording studio for the entire cast set up at Blanc's bedside. It should be noted, however, that Blanc's portrayal of Barney Rubble had changed considerably after the accident. In the earliest episodes, Blanc had used a much higher pitch. After his recovery from the accident, Blanc used a deeper voice.

For a few early episodes, the Flintstone’s pet dinosaur named "Dino" {dee- no} spoke to the audience in a voice very close to that of Phil Silvers.

The Flintstones animation was adequate, but the writing was first rate. At least in its first two seasons, it was great social satire. It took shots at all sorts of sacred American cows – corporate culture, show business, fraternities, suburban family life, American product worship, television culture. It featured a list of funny prehistoric gadgetry – including small dinosaurs that functioned as garbage disposals.

In 1963, Wilma was involved in one of the three or four most famous pregnancies in all TV history – alongside Lucy Ricardo and Little Ricky ( I Love Lucy 1953), Samantha and Tabatha (Bewitched 1966) and Roseanne and Jerry (Roseanne 1995). It was the first time I had ever heard of pregnancy and maternity clothes. Wilma’s pregnancy lasted only a few weeks and required a complete redraw of her costume. (Aside from some dress up gags, all of the characters wore only one costume from first episode to last.)

As I recall, the producers sponsored a contest gimmick to name the new baby before it was born, sponsored by Welch’s Grape Juice. I remember distinctly the birth of daughter "Pebbles Flintstone" on 22 February 1963 produced a rare on screen appearance by the producers to announce contest winners.

Certain aspects of The Flintstones have become notorious.

Its sense of geologic history was completely preposterous. No dinosaurs lived in the Stone Age.

Home town Bedrock kept shifting around in size and features.

The first sponsor of the first season was none other than Winston Cigarettes: Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon advertisements with the characters smoking. Obviously they intended to brain wash the kiddies young about the pleasures of tobacco.

Another early sponsor was Bristol-Meyers pharmaceuticals. Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon advertisements featuring the characters taking drugs, so they intended to brainwash the kiddies young on the joys of solving problems with pill popping.

Eventually, Welch and Company sponsored the program. Hanna Barbera managed to work into the plots references to grape jelly and grape juice, which Pebbles referred to as "Woo Woo gape jew."


Unfortunately, The Flintstones as a series jumped the shark early. I still remember the advertising hoopla surrounding a guest star appearance of bombshell singer-actress Ann-Margret, who performed two musical numbers, including a knock-out lullaby written for the broadcast. Unfortunately the effect of the lullaby, in the Utah broadcast market at least, got undercut during that September 1963 premiere broadcast night by a audio accident that caused a second sound track from heaven only knows what to come on during the lullaby.

"Ann-Margrock Presents," broadcast on 19 September 1963, was the first episode of that new season.

In October 1963, the Rubbles adopted a baby son they named "Bamm-Bamm Rubble." He was not just a boy, he was the strongest boy in the world, which was pretty far fetched even for a cartoon gimmick. He spoke only two words, did nothing but strength gags, and became a very tiresome character very quickly.

The series tied into other ABC sitcoms with varying results of corny. Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York appeared in a 1966 episode as stone age cartoon versions of "Darrin and Samantha." A next door family by the name of Grusom appeared in the last season as stone age versions of the Addams Family. The premiere episode of 1965 -66 season was an episode entitled “No biz like show biz.” It did a musical satire of American rock and roll complete with Pebbles and Bamm Bamm singing “Let the Sunshine In.” Harvey Korman got a gig in 1965-66 as "Kazoo," a visitor from Outer Space. He might have been cute on Hanna-Barbera’s 21st Century cartoon satire, The Jetsons but seemed rather out of place in Bedrock.

The Flintstones was my favorite TV show as a little kid, eclipsed only by Bewitched and Lost in Space later in the decade.

The Flintstones evolved into a number of Saturday morning incarnations from 1971 to 1988, and in a few made for TV animated movies. These by and large were designed for children and had less depth of satire than the original. They were unusual to the extent that the children age. Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm suddenly were 11 years of age, then became teenagers, then married, became twenty-somethings with twins.

The 1994 live action production of The Flintstones Movie can best be passed over in silence, except to say, you would think that a production with Elizabeth Taylor, Rosie O'Donnell, John Goodman, and Rick Moranis would have some life to it. It most certainly did not.


The best elements of the best seasons have come down through the years in some elements of The Simpsons. Happy 50th anniversary to Bedrock and its most famous families.

OBAMA AND THE HISTORY OF PRESIDENTIAL VACATIONS

My loyalist Republican conservative neighbors try to outdo each other with complaints of just how awful our President Obama performs as compared to recent "real" presidents. Last month, they complained about the President’s vacations, as if he were taking too many vacations at the public expense and as if a man in a presidential office always in session should always be home to take care of business.

I should have reminded them that his is, after all, the 21st century. Modern federal technology can keep a president in touch with the executive branch and all its resources no matter where he happens to stay at any particular day.

Here are facts of presidential vacation down time, as reported in three articles on the subject, for the readers to compare contrast.


Article One:

George W. Bush's vacation time (grand total)

http://jonox.livejournal.com/25625.html


487 days at Camp David
490 days at Crawford Ranch
43 days at Kennebunkport Compound

Total: 1020 days, more than 1/3rd of his presidency. Bush set the record for most vacation time taken by president.

Carter took 79 days in 4 years.
Clinton took 152 days in 8 years.

Reagan took 335 days in 8 years.
Bush Sr. took 543 days in 4 years!


So much for the mythological Republican hard worth ethic.


Article two:

487 Days At Camp David For Bush

CBS News
Political Hotsheet
January 16, 2009 4:11 PM


George W. Bush is today making his final visit to Camp David as president.

He will likely miss the place: According to CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, today's trip marks Mr. Bush's 149th visit to the presidential retreat. The planned three-day stay, during which the president is being joined by family and former and current aides, will bring his total time spent at Camp David to all or part of 487 days.

Yes, that's 487 days. And Camp David is not even where the president has spent the most time when not at the White House: Knoller reports that Mr. Bush has made 77 visits to his ranch in Crawford during his presidency, and spent all or part of 490 days there.


Article Three:

Like Every Administration,
White House Defends Obama "Vacation"

CBS News
August 19, 2010 2:35 PM
Posted by Mark Knoller

Every White House is a bit defensive about presidential vacations and President Obama's staff is no exception.

"Whenever you talk about a presidential vacation you ought to put the word "vacation" in quotes because you can bet that there will still be work that he's doing every day," deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters yesterday on Air Force One.

Mr. Obama and family are today beginning a 10 day "vacation" on Martha's Vineyard. (Okay, Bill, those quotation marks are for you.")

Burton is right in that a president is never really on vacation. The job follows him wherever he goes as does a sizeable contingent of aides, secret service and communications personnel as well as the military officers who carry the "football," the nickname for the briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes. Some vacation...

Burton made a point of saying that Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan is among those accompanying Mr. Obama to Martha's Vineyard and will give him a national security and intelligence briefing every day.

Like its predecessors, the Obama White House is unapologetic about the president getting away for some rest and recreation. Last summer, Mr. Obama played golf on 4 of his eight days on Martha's Vineyard. It's also billed as time for him to spend with his family before his daughters go back to school in September.

"I don't think there's an American person who doesn't know that the president is working hard to do everything possible to get this economy back on the right track," said Burton to emphasize the point that the president deserves some time away from the White House grind, even if some of the grind goes with him.

This is Mr. Obama's 9th vacation since taking office. As of today, he has spent all or part of 38 days on "vacation" away from the White House. He has also made 14 visits to Camp David spanning all or part of 32 days. It brings his total time away to all or part of 70 days.

It's less than the "vacation" time taken during the same period by his immediate predecessor. (Former President George W. Bush gets the quotation marks too.)

As of this point in his 1st term, Mr. Bush had made 14 visits to his Texas ranch spanning all or part of 102 days. He also made 40 visits to Camp David spanning all or part of 123 days. His "vacation" total at this point in his presidency was all or part of 225 days away.

To show that even as he heads on vacation he's on the job, the White House announced that Mr. Obama would make a statement on the economy before getting on Marine One to begin his trip to the Vineyard.

Burton also said yesterday that Mr. Obama would be getting "constant updates on what's happening in the economy and other issues" while on Martha's Vineyard, where he has rented a house for his time there.

"Like a lot of American people, the president is taking a little time with his family to recharge his batteries," Burton said. But when asked if Mr. Obama really needed a vacation, Burton stopped short of making that assertion.

BECK AND RECLAIM HONOR: WE VERSUS THEM

“We [should] reclaim the civil rights movement,” Glenn Beck said, with a straight face no less, three months ago on his radio broadcast. “We are on the right side of history, individual freedoms, and liberties. We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place.”

We? Who is we?

Marian Anderson on the Lincoln Memorial Steps, Easter Sunday 1939.

Emmett Till.

Rosa Parks.

Medger Evers.

Michael Schwerner.

Jimmie Jackson.

James Reeb.

Viola Liuzzo.

Cynthia Wesley.

Andrew Goodman.

Denise McNair.

James Chaney.

Addie Mae Collins.

Little Rock 7.

Charlene Hunter.

James Meredith.

Robert Kennedy.

Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Martin Luther King.on the Lincoln Memorial steps -- and in Memphis.

Where was Glenn Beck?

The “we” to which Glenn Beck belongs is the “we” that said no.

The “we” he belonged to cried out for ---

“States Rights” IE white rights to enslave the black population

“Local Control” IE white rights to keep the black population uneducated and the white population in power

“Socialism!” IE decrying the Congress passing equal rights laws and the executive enforcing equal rights laws

“Communism!” IE White supremacists branding their equal rights opponents with a Russian system when the equal rights proponents insisted that black and whites get equal opportunities to the best jobs.

“Tyranny!” IE white supremacists complaining when their civil rights opponents insisted that blacks vote free in all the elections, too.

Where was Beck any way in the 1950s and 1960s whenever black people and their allies cried, “freedom” ?

I find Glenn Beck’s fatuous, dishonorable effrontery utterly monumental.

RIGHT ASCENSION'S MARRIAGE EDITORIAL IN ITS ENTIRETY

On Friday, 13 August, the Deseret News editorial page published a letter to the editor that I wrote.

I do not like the way the editorial page editor edited my original letter. I reproduce the published version and, after that, my original unedited letter for your consideration.

First the edited version:

A father and a mother

Deseret News
letter to the editor
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700056325/A-father-and-a-mother.html
Published: Friday, Aug. 13, 2010 12:00 a.m. MDT

Marriage is not an arrangement between two people; it is a covenant between four entities: a man, a woman, God and/or the culture in which the couple live, and children — whose interests always get lost amid the legalistic smoke generated by same-gender marriage controversies.

Heterosexuals damaged marriage more than any other group. They, after all, created marriage definitions, traditions and laws to include polygamy, mistresses, dowries, la casa grande and la casa bonita, quick divorces, and institutional acceptance of violence against women and children. Their liberalized marriage laws made a successful marriage harder to achieve. After we accept many of these bogus assumptions, marriage between same-gender couples is just another small leap. Backward.

We should allow and accept the companionship legalities and domestic arrangements that consenting adults want. The law should accept both gay and straight domestic partnerships with unblinking legal equality and objectivity. A child, however, deserves both a father and a mother in a family. A father is not an afterthought.


Now my original letter, with the crucial cut highlighted:

Marriage is not an arrangement between 2 people; it is a covenant between 4 entities: a man, a woman, God and/or the culture in which the couple live, and children – whose interests always get lost amid the legalistic smoke generated by same-gender marriage controversies.

Heterosexuals damaged marriage more than any other group. They, after all, created marriage definitions / traditions / laws to include polygamy, mistresses, doweries, la casa grande and la casa bonita, quick divorces, institutional acceptance of violence against women and children. Their liberalized marriage laws allowing people of different cultures, classes, nations, and races to marry in fact made successful marriages harder to achieve. After we accept many of these bogus assumptions, marriage between same-gender couples is just another small leap. Backwards.

We should allow and accept the companionship legalities and domestic arrangements that consenting adults want. The law should accept both gay and straight domestic partnerships with unblinking legal equality and objectivity. A child, however, deserves both a father and a mother in a family. A father is not an afterthought.


RIGHT ASCENSION AFTERTHOUGHT

Men and women of different cultures, classes, nations, and races do have a moral and legal right to marry each other. It does not follow, though, that they have created marriage that will be inherently more successful,

Inspired by the Walker ruling on Proposition 8, AN EDITORIAL ON THE DEFINITIONS OF MODERN MARRIAGE

On 4 August, Judge Walker ruled unconstitutional California Proposition 8 defining marriage in California as a domestic arrangement between one man and one woman. His logic, such as it was, seems along the lines of what’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, and in the 21st century we cannot go around following the foolish old traditions of our fathers.

Some bigots will probably try to make an issue of Judge Walker’s sexual preferences, but few associated with the case cared to do so. American culture for year has allowed heterosexual married judges make rulings about marriages.

Heterosexuals ruined the concept of marriage ages ago. They saw nothing wrong in defining heterosexual marriage in polygamist terms, in terms of la casa grande and la casa bonita, and in terms of man-woman companionship of various types and stripes. Heterosexuals for ages allowed violence to become part of marriage traditions and laws. Heterosexuals made divorce more prevalent and easier to obtain.

Meanwhile in Salt Lake City, the public communications department of the Church of Jesus Christ issued a statement expressing regrets at the judge’s decision. We would hope the Brethren and their department could come up with a line more sophisticated than [paraphrase here] God ordained marriage between a man and a woman and that’s the way it has always been and that is the way it just has to be sort of stuff. The P C department does a fine job making God look like some sort of bigot.

For Mormons with parents or children who prefer same gender relationships, this current situation resolves itself by whom do they list best – the Brethren or their gay relatives and their gay friends. If the gay crowd has more charming people, then there goes the Church’s influence.

Marriage is not a domestic arrangement between two people. Marriage is a covenant among four entities, not two:

one man

one woman

children of the culture

the culture in which the covenant takes place.

Children have a personal stake in the definitions of marriage. Children’s interest always gets lost in heterosexual – homosexual marriage controversies.

A child has a right to the love, respect, nurturing, and care of both a mother and a father. Fathers are not just a biological act or an afterthought.

Companionship and domestic arrangements are one's own business between Consenting Adults. A child has a right to the loving influence of both a man and a woman.

RIGHT ASCENSION CALL TO ACTION

Politicians in California, Utah, and elsewhere mouth platitudes about protecting the sanctity of marriage, but most of them possess vague notions and definitions of marriage. Congress and the states should spell out the covenant relationship of marriage among the four entities of a man, a woman, American culture and American children in a black-letter law Constitutional amendment. Politicians should not banter marriage about for electioneering points.

TIME FOR ELECTION REFORM IN UTAH AND USA

The Utah Republican Senatorial candidate, Michael Shumway Lee, lives in Alpine and was reared in Provo and McLean, VA. He will become the fourth U.S. Senator with close ties to Utah County: Senators Reed Smoot (R-Provo), George Sutherland (R-Provo, later Supreme Court associate justice, the only justice with ties to Provo), Arthur Watkins (R-Orem), and now Lee.

Lee is 39 years old, which means I have undershirts older than he. Neither Lee nor Senator Hatch were born in Utah.

The recent primary election show how much electoral reform we need both locally and nationally.

A CALL TO ACTION -- Utah should abolish the caucus and convention system and select candidates strictly by a primary vote.

On the national level, we should not hold elections on a workday almost in the middle of the week. The Constitution set up Tuesday election days, because in 1787 the framers took into consideration when outlying farmers would typically come into the local village for church and shopping.

ANOTHER CALL TO ACTION — We should change 21st century election days to Saturdays and Sundays, to encourage more people to vote.

The minimum age for federal elected office needs reforming as well. Young minimum ages for representative, senator, and president were necessary back in days when people did not live long and did not need vast experience to serve in government. Now cultural conditions are different. We live much longer. The world around us has grown more complex.


ANOTHER CALL TO ACTION — Therefore we should by Constitutional Amendment raise the minimum age

– for a representative to 40 years of age.

– for a senator to 45.

– for a President of the United States to 50.

Lee, I believe, lacks the contemplation, maturity, creativity, vision, experience, and knowledge necessary in a good senator. The campaign shows he knows the cliches cold.

THE CALL TO ACTION – Who of experience can we encourage to run for senator in 2012 and in 2016? Unfortunately, we will find politics in 2010 painful.

Ricky visits the Parade of Homes -- A COMMENTARY ABOUT THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF HOME DESIGN

Richard and I visited show homes of this year’s Utah Valley Parade of Homes Friday and Saturday afternoon / evening. We saw all but four of the homes in Northwest Utah County.


REVELATIONS ON THE ROAD

One of the most startling experiences of the Parade of Homes had nothing to do with the home show: the experience of driving through the agricultural areas of South Utah County and through a beautiful peach orchard between Payson and Elk Ridge. It serves as a reminder of how little agricultural lands remain in this county.

Another startling realization I got after two days of traveling about Utah County involves landscape. Utah County has far too much land invested in lawn. We should not be wasting millions of gallons of water on a plant that does not have sex, that does not mature, that we do not eat. We should not be wasting that much water on such a plant in the desert west.


POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS

I find some home design developments hopeful for the future of modern homes.

Of the 21 showhomes, 7 contained 2000 - 3000 square feet, 3 contained 3000 to 4000 square feet. I find the modest size of these homes a major step in the right direction. 5 contained 4000 plus square feet. President Warner’s home contains three floors and 5400 square feet. 2 other homes contained 5000 - 6000 square feet. Only 2 houses contained more than 10,000 square feet. I will state without equivocation for the record that is a step in the right direction.

For starters the homes have lots of insulation, insulated windows, and energy-wise appliances.

Unfortunately, the jack and jill bathroom with two doors to two different bedrooms have seemed to lose popularity.

This year’s show featured two homes created by the Rural Housing Development Corporation. This organization emphasizes homes in the small communities. Both had less than 3000 square feet and modest sized rooms.

My favorite modest home, located in northwest Orem at 1490 North, was a right cute bungalow with a two-car garage toward the back and a front porch along the entire south facade. The main floor contained an open upstairs with a combination parlor, dining area and kitchen, a master bedroom suite, a bedroom and bathroom, and minimal hall space. Downstairs had three bedrooms, bathroom, minimal hall space and living room. The back of the house contained an air lock with doors to the main level, the garage and the outside.

Two town home developments featured garages in the back of the house lining an alleyway. More homes have lovely deep porches and patios. Unfortunately garages still get bigger, not smaller, and mostly they take up space that could go to either porches or gardens.

This year’s parade featured two duplexes with small yards. I believe modern homes should have less front yard to plant into lawn but enough space in the back to plant in garden.

Three homes contained not only theaters but stages for live presentations by kids and grandkids.

Jan Joyce did beautiful work decorating the walls of Villa le Bigne, in a large development of three story townhouses done after the Tuscan design. Tuscan remains a popular design cliche in Utah County: never mind that this is the desert southwest with its own architectural traditions.

This year, we found a lot of wood flooring in the show homes.


WILL ARCHITECTS EVER LEARN? MAYBE NOT.

This year we found a few kitchens that architects designed for cooking food instead of impressing guests. Unfortunately, too many architects still design kitchens that are backwards to the work flow from refrigerator to dining room. It should be obvious to architects that the refrigerator should lead to the sink then to a preparation counter, then to the range, then to the plating and serving counter, then to the dining room table. Few architects seem to under that basic principle.

Speaking of kitchens, the downstairs kitchen is still a popular feature in big houses.

Many show homes featured exercise rooms. This should help curtail the widening American waistline. Unfortunately, too many of these show homes featured big open kitchens designed not as work spaces but as living spaces and featured pantries. The trouble with having a pantry in an open kitchen is that one has to fill it with stuff and then eat it.

When I put a home theater in my home’s addition back in 1992, my friends thought it was utterly revolutionary. This year, most homes have theaters; it seems to be almost a standard feature nowadays. Most have equipment packages way WAY overpriced and oversized for the space.

Architects still, in the main, do not know how to design a bathroom arranged to get the maximum number of people in to do their various businesses and then out ready for the day’s activities. Several bathrooms have toilet rooms too tight for fat people to occupy. It is obvious from the lack of home urinals and bidets that most architects do not understand that boys have different plumbing needs than girls. One architect designed a bathroom with the toilet on the same wall as the door. This means that if one walks in accidentally on a boy, one will get a full frontal view of that boy.


REMODELING THE PAST TO IMPRESS THE PRESENT

The real estate collapse gave the directors of the Utah Valley Parade of Homes a Road to Damascus experience. Before the crisis, the Parade displayed new homes only, and usually big new homes. This year’s show featured three homes remodeled instead of built from scratch.

One home at 460 East Provo contained 5500 square feet. The remodel included a new dining room, kitchen, and big sunny laundry room / craft room. Its major addition featured upstairs the most space wasting amateur connection between original upstairs hall and new addition upstairs hall. It also featured some obnoxious color combinations and a pergola terrace that Richard noted had all drawbacks – too much sun on good days and not enough shade, too little protection from rain on stormy days.

The next remodeled show home, located on 500 South in southeast Orem, I visited twice – once by myself on Friday 11 and again with Richard on Friday 19. Actually, I visited it three times total: BMA Construction built it as a showhome for the 2005 Parade of Homes. When I visited it on 11 June, I thought that I had seen it before. I remembered its location surrounded by big gardens, orchards and a pasture. I remember its main floor east wing music room / musical instrument display room. I remembered the Upstairs bedroom suites, one for girls and one for boys – with a loft play area and a tree mural. The big new feature of this home was its completed basement that featured a big exercise room instead of a big theater. One bedroom featured a private bathroom with a half-frosted window, overlooking the family room. (?!?) That window fit in the wall above the toilet, so the whole arrangement seemed somewhat voyeuristic to me.


REMODELING THE PAST BUT IS THIS THE FUTURE?

On Carterville Road stood the most starkly memorable remodeled house. The thing started as a 1960s long-low California ranch home that the designer / owner had acquired as an abandoned property. The rebuilt house had an interior fashioned after warehouses and factories – exposed wiring conduits, exposed ducts, cement countertop surfaces, industrial toilets, porcelain bulb holders with bare light bulbs illuminating bedrooms, a dining room chandelier that looked as if it might consist of those halogen arms used to light surgery slabs. The master bed and tables were in fact three slabs of concrete.

The staircase fit into a glass box and glass ceiling on the east side of the home. This means it might help heat the place in winter, but in summer it could be insufferable.

The house had a slide from the main floor bedroom hallway to the playroom in the basement.

The basement featured a family room with a cave grotto made of black Styrofoam. Many rooms had porcelain bulb holders and one bare bulb. A storage room near the back yard swimming pool had recessed spotlights. Go figure.


NO HOUSE IS A COMPLETE FAILURE. WE CAN HOLD IT UP AS A BAD EXAMPLE.

This year’s Parade featured a 15,000 square foot monstrosity that contained all the excesses of the Parade of Homes before the real estate crash. Matt McEwan has apparently learned nothing in the real estate crisis. He built the thing on Normandy Way in Highland in a development given over to French architectural pretensions. The mansion looked like an ancient French country house but bore the name of “Perthshire Manor,” which has all the Frenchness of Yorkshire Pudding.

When one invests millions of dollars into a house that features six garages, that means one has to fill the garages with six cars. When one invests in an indoor pool, one has to swim at least five days a week to justify the investment. When one invests in a weight room, one should spend at least five days a week lifting weights to get value for money. When one has a theater, one feels obligated to have people in to watch movies at least once a month at least. When one invests in a billiard room, one has to play billiards at least three times a week — if not more.

This house had a wood-burning pizza oven. This is the first wood-burning appliance in the Parade for ages. The difference between the Italian peasant women baking in those wood burning beehive ovens in the backyard and the modern suburban housewife installing a wood burning pizza oven in her basement kitchen is that the Italian peasant women used those ovens seriously and not to impress people.

The master suite defined pretentious in this show. It had two doors, and suits of armor stood on either side of the main door. I do not find the symbolism of suits of armor as fitting a master bedroom. Nothing quite as romantic as armor – in a kinky sort of way. The doors provided one entrance and one exit. The tub resembled a roman temple; the bathroom featured two toilets in separate rooms, the shower had both an entrance and an exit into the master closet.


A MEMORABLE TRIUMPH

In stark contrast to this monstrosity in Highland was another large home in Elk Ridge. I have seen many mansions in the Parade of Homes over the years, but this one I will remember as one of the best designed, ever.

It sat on 3 and a half acres of rolling foothills surrounding by small neighborhoods and agriculture. It contained three floors and a little over 10000 square feet. From the looks of the photos in the house, it will house a big extended family.

with a huge basketball court in the basement

a movie theater, downstairs kitchen, game rooms, exercise room, and live entertainment stage.

A beautiful home office with a door off the front porch on the main floor, which also featured a family room, a gathering room, a huge gorgeous well-designed logically-arranged kitchen, a beautiful, sunny, big laundry room with big windows and generous counter space. The northeast corner of the house featured an eight-sided gazebo patio terrace with gorgeous views of the mountains in all direction and Utah Valley to the north. The southwest corner of the main floor is a separate apartment with great room, kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom.

The upstairs had five bedrooms and three bathrooms and all the rooms were in the shape of rectangles or squares.


DECOR

Among the more memorable decorating triumphs at this year’s Parade of Homes:

Very few homes had really neon colored paint jobs in any of the rooms. Only one room stands out this year as exhibiting the decorator’s truly bad taste – a bedroom with brown walls and a big accent wall of neon teal. Be still my lunch.

The downstairs kitchen in the Elk Ridge mansion sat to the right of the home theater featured a decor resembling a 1950s malt shoppe.

A show home at 475 South Orem just off the eighth hole of the Sleepy Hollow Golf Course featured golf decor touches throughout the place. Actually, I do not think I would want a home close to a golf course. Golf balls could come raining down on the yard at irregular intervals and the bad language of unhappy golfers would waft over the children and women of the household.

Thank heaven the shows homes contained less of stenciling profound phrases on walls. The last thing I want is a house that lectures me on how I should live and thinking.

a boy’s bedroom decorated with Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, including the famous one with Calvin resorting to peeing out a bed room window because he has monsters under the bed. “The plants don’t seem to grow very well on this side of the house,” Father observes.

A Chinese bedroom and a two-story den decorated a 18th century ship cabin in that French chateau