Allee Willis Blog » Susan Olsen

09Jan 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – All Aboard THE WIENERMOBILE!!! – Part 2

09Jan 2012

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – All Aboard THE WIENERMOBILE!!! – Part 2

If you’re just jumping aboard The Wienermobile, please exit through the rear and check out Part 1 of my adventure with Susan Olsen,a.k.a. Cindy Brady, and Charles Phoenix, without which Part 2 lacks context. Wagging the tail without the (hot) dog as it were.

Now, assuming you’ve fully digested part 1, join us aboard the Wienermobile as we head east from the Brady Bunch house…

…to another iconic wiener in the neighborhood, Larry’s.

The Wienermobile ate up quite a lot of real estate in this four- table parking lot eatery.

So we turned the vehicular wiener towards another vintage hot dog-related gem a few blocks away:

Isn’t this where you would go if you were a hot dog?

We knew Chili John’s has very early hours but we jumped out anyway, praying the chili palace still might be open:

If you haven’t been to this place, spit out your food and head there now. It’s as authentic as the day it was born in 1941:

The counter is (perfectly and beautifully) makes up the entire restaurant.

You can see the handpainted mural that runs the length of the restaurant better in this shot with Charles:

Up close it’s apparent that the artist, Mr. Chili John himself, captured each and every crevice of the exploding Vesuvius terrain as possible. Perhaps this was to illustrate the constant lava-like flow of chili that runs through his namesake establishment daily.

While we were there, there was an incredible photo opp for The Wienermobile:

With hot dogs and chili under our belts, it was time to move on to burgers. Very few food symbols are as iconic as The Wienermobile, but surely the Big Boy at Bob’s a few blocks away on Riverside has an equal place on the mountaintop.

The sheer magnitude of these two sculptural icons together was overwhelming for kitsch lovers such as ourselves.

So we took lots of photos:

But, alas, the sun was starting to set and there was one place we knew we had to hit while The Wienermobile was still under our control:

The Circus Liquor neon clown, on Burbank Blvd. just west of Chili John’s, has been in countless movies and tv shows, not to mention I’ve dropped coin in there every time I need a bottle of anything, just so I can visit the clown.

The height of the Wienermobile was an INSANELY perfect fit. If only the clown were permanently mounted on top of it.

With the evening approaching fast we headed back to Willis Wonderland,…

…already upset that our Wienermobile afternoon would soon be but a memory, albeit one grilled into our braincells forever.

When we dislodged from The Wienermobile we got some parting gifts:

Some Wienermobile whistles, some of which were glow-in-the-dark, a plush toy Wienermobile, as well as this larger plastic one:

It was like we had all been dropped out of a time capsule. I’m someone who likes to have a good time but once I’m done with an activity I gotta clear the house and get back to work. But it was as if we all knew that when we separated we would somehow have to settle back into reality, hopefully just little bitty pieces at a time, that’s how strong the magnetic pull of the Wienermobile was for all of us. So was only natural we sat down to a hot dog dinner to extend the wiener coma we were all in.

The dogs were cooked, as I said in part 1, on my newly acquired 1958 golf ball barbecue:

It was comforting to have such statuary in the yard, softening the blow of the departed Wienermobile as it disappeared into the night.

Thank you, Hot Doggers Traci and Yoli. You drove the Wienermobile like it was a delicate little Smart Car and put up with three drooling adults for longer than anyone deserves to be in ecstasy.

And thank you, Mark Blackwell, for documenting the trip, and I mean Trip.

Susan, Charles and myself are forever grateful to have such a childhood and adult dream fulfilled, especially one that provided such insanely magnificent photo opps.

And we are grateful for the joy of celebrating a junk food that was a building block of nutrition throughout most of our lifetimes. Truth be told, although it has killed me, the foolishness of subsisting exclusively on such foodstuffs is starting to be rectified in my old age. But even Martha Stewart enjoys munching on a good wiener every now and then.

The Wienermobile experience was pretty heavy.

But alas, all things must end.

We love you, Wienermobile. Until we meet again…

20Dec 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – All Aboard THE WIENERMOBILE!!! – Part 1

20Dec 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – All Aboard THE WIENERMOBILE!!! – Part 1

I’ve only waited a lifetime for a ride in the famed Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and last Wednesday, December 14, my dream came true!! Susan Olsen, a.k.a. Cindy Brady, the youngest of the B. Bunch, Charles Phoenix, Mark Blackwell and I hopped aboard and rode the wiener to some of our favorite kitsch spots in the San Fernando Valley. When one is onboard such a vehicle, photo opps are not to be missed!

It’s hard to look bad in a photo with The Wienermobile. So there’s going to be A LOT of them in this post, probably enough to serialize the adventure so check back later in the week or beginning of next for more. With that in mind I’ll start slowly, like how we all color-coordinated to look as fabulous against the backdrop of the transportational hot dog as possible. I threw my outfit together last minute but was happy with my choices, picking up all the essential colors of hot dogs, mustard, relish and mayo.

Here’s a closer look at my vintage Legionnaires shirt, made from that kind of expensive 1950’s satin that feels like you’re going down a cashmere slide:

I know there’s no Oscar Mayer at KFC but it was the closest thematically of any shoulder bag I had. My T-shirt was much more on the nose…

… as were my shoes:

The first thing I did once I was dressed was to roast some wienies. It gave me a perfect excuse to test out my recently acquired 1958 golfball barbecue:

I cooked up sixteen dogs so we could stuff ourselves throughout the day. Here’s the first one, literally, on the grill:

First to arrive at Willis Wonderland for our big wiener ride was Mark, who documented us throughout the wiener day:

Next was Susan, appropriately dressed in wiener red:

And then Charles arrived, dressed in a dead-ringer Wienermobile matching suit and carrying a banner bearing our favorite brand’s namesake.

This also doubled as a fashionable cape.

It’s obvious we all passed the color test:

We took many such proof-of-concept photos:

There are so many obvious ways one wants to pose against such a stunning background:

When the Wienermobile first pulled up I wept with joy. I had forever envisioned it in my driveway. Alas, the wiener was too plump to actually fit so it rested nicely in front until we boarded.

Before stepping into the vehicular hot dog we ran inside for a quick wiener ingestion:

They don’t actually serve food in the Wienermobile so we brought the leftovers with us. But we were so excited to finally board the hot dog we had all been dreaming about since we were born that we forgot and left them on top of my car:

Our Hotdoggers, college interns who serve a full year driving the wiener wondermobile, were Yoli Bologna and Tailgatin’ Traci:

You could literally hear an audible gasp from each of us as we entered the Wienermobile for the first time.

It’s got six seats, a mustard floor,…

… an appropriate floor mat…

… and a sky roof.

The seats were LITERALLY the most comfy car seat any of us had ever sat in. Plush yet solid, with armrests that made you feel like you were waiting in a highchair for a jar of hot dog baby food. We didn’t stop yapping about them the entire afternoon.

We especially loved the embroidered Wienermobile on the back of each seat.

None of us could figure out if the hot dogs on the dash had any purpose other than an as an exceptional decorative touch.

We thought we only had a half hour in the Wienermobile so we headed to Ventura Blvd., the street where we thought there’d be the most foot traffic so we could wave to the masses like beauty queens on a float. Charles mentioned that the real Brady Bunch house, the one used for the exterior shot that pops up in every episode, was probably only blocks away. Not only did I have no idea it was in the hood but Susan – an actual Brady – said she had never even seen it herself! How could this be??! Cindy-I-mean-Susan explained that as a wee star she couldn’t compute that a house that was clearly two stories…

…was in reality only one.

So the Wienermobile, a deceptibly agile vehicle, whipped a U-ie and headed east toward Dillon St. As the top of the A-frame house poked into sight we started going nuts.

And we SO weren’t the only ones. There were already some sightseers there, dying that not only were they at the Brady house but now the Wienermobile had entered the picture AND a real Brady emerged out of it! Only God could have put a blessed tourist here at this moment.

Needless to say, we took a lot of photos.

With Susan’s 35 year identity crisis rectified, our Hotdoggers, Yoli and Tracy, told us we could drive around for as long as we wanted.

Elated, we immediately discussed iconic snack food related establishments in the immediate area to best frame us and the Wienermobile. First we headed to a hot dog,:

followed by some chili,…

… a hamburger,…

…and a little something to wash it all down with.

But, alas… I have Christmas shopping to do, three song deadlines to hit, an outline overdue for my new live show, a contract to read, a cat scratcher turntable to assemble, a portrait commission to paint, a bunch of publishing crap to get together, not to mention that I’m supposed to be on vacation in sunny Monterey. So Part 2 of our Wienermobile adventures will appear in a few days.

Until then, eat lots of hot dogs as you kick off the holiday season!

Proceed to Part 2

26Sep 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch ‘O The Day – Slighty Fluffy

26Sep 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch ‘O The Day – Slighty Fluffy

In view of the fact that I’m racing around my hotel room throwing things in my suitcases – impossible for me to travel with just one – trying not to muss or crush my most most Fluffy of wardrobe…

… I must do abridged version of my Fluff report today, as if I stop to compose in my usual festidious, over-stimulated style of reportage I will not only miss my plane but my upcoming live show will end at intermission as I won’t have finished writing it. I have several drafts complete but I’m pretty sure I’ve written the Nicholas Nickleby twelve hour version and the task of taking out a cleaver and chopping it down still remains. With only 3 weeks to go, completing this mission, not to mention finishing the set, the prizes, the souvenirs, the food, and all the other things that go into any event Allee Willis, I realize that I must put my time into scriptwriting as opposed to going over the 700 or so photots that aKitschionado Mark Blackwell, or Daddy as I call him, took as he followed me around through the weekend of shenanigans.

But three aKitschionados made it into the Boston Globe again today with a very cute photo:.

And I will show you Susan and I announcing this year’s Pharaoh of Fluff winner, Brian whose last name I unfortunately don’t know but can vouch that he’s a nice guy and a very good dancer as he boogied to his version of my “September”, which all contestants were required to change the lyrics of to an homage about Fluff.

And here I am with aKitschinados Rusty and Scarlett (I have a horrible memory for names so I hope I have the wee one’s right) displaying the beautiful trophies about to be handed out to the Fluff cooking contest winners:

I’m not sure what shape I’ll be in tomorrow as my plane doesn’t arrive in LA until 11 PM tonight, which means I won’t get home before 1 AM and tomorrow is an insanely packed day, making up for my four days of absence. But I will do my best to post more Flun photos of the fest.

In the meantime, don’t forget to eat your Fluff today.

25Sep 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch ‘O The Day – A L’il Fluff’ll Do Ya

25Sep 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch ‘O The Day – A L’il Fluff’ll Do Ya

So yesterday was the big Fluff Festival in Sommerville, MA. If I wasn’t still out of town and so far behind getting my upcoming Soup To Nuts Party Mix live show on October 18 written I would sit here and post a zillion photos that I took over the last 36 hours. But I couldn’t get a plane out of Boston with an aisle seat so I vowed to lock myself in my hotel room for the next 36 hours until my flight and write, write and write in hopes of having something significant to say and do on stage. But I’ll be posting a bunch of Fluffified photos every day this week. That is if I can get all the marshmallow out of my hair and off my fingers so they don’t stick to the keys as they’re doing now. So for now I’ll just leave you with a couple photos from Friday night at the Fluff VIP party with two fellow VIPs, the Brady girls, Cindy and Jan #2, Susan Olsen and Geri Reischl, photo #1 of our first dip into the Fluff and photo #2, post dining on the foodstuff we flew thousands of miles to honor.

Long love Fluff. Stay tuned for more…

10Aug 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Being Even More Fluff – Part 2

10Aug 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Being Even More Fluff – Part 2

So as I was saying yesterday, this last weekend at Willis Wonderland we aKitschionados from The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch saw the light of Fluff!

For a quick recap if you were too lazy to click on that link, many of us are converging on Somerville, MA. September 24th to attend the fifth annual Fluff Festival to celebrate the marshmallow food topping in the city it was invented in. aKitschionado Rusty suggested that we first convene at Willis Wonderland in LA, the physical arm of AWMOK.com, and spend a day cooking with Fluff. Bear in mind that many of the aKitschionados in attendance had never met before and only knew each other by commenting on the kitsch they’d submitted to AWMOK. So everything served had to be a real icebreaker. As such, the first course was Fluff inspired sandwiches…:

… accompanied by Goldfish in sea foam dip vegetables:

All of which was washed down with Flufftinis…:

…an original recipe by aKitschionado iamfluff, a.k.a. Susan Olsen, a.k.a. Cindy Brady of the Bunch:

Extra points were earned for color-coordinated food, dishware and clothing:

Even more points racked up for color-coordinated lamps and other sugary Fluff alternatives:

aKitschionado Mark Blackwell scored even more bonus points for coordinating his jellybean tribute to The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch with the aforementioned lamp and M&Ms.

I hope anyone reading this appreciates the importance of color-coordinated meals and accoutrements. If there’s any question at all about the importance of food and furnishings color-coordination, please refer here.

The main course was delicious and nutritious Fluffernutter cake. I know this photo’s blurry but so was my vision after the day’s 21-gun sugar salute.

If you think that cake is gooey, let me tell you that as the party hostess who had to clean up – actually I didn’t clean up at all as the aKitschionados are a very conscious and esthetically tidy breed – there were vestiges of Fluff everywhere. Like on Mark’s pants:

Slightly less lava-flowish-of-Fluff were the fried S’Mores made by akitschionado Snappy P.

Technically, there’s no Fluff in this recipe but as its fraternal twin, marshmallows, are a key ingredient the Willis Wonderland stove did not discriminate.

Many aKitschionados came bearing gifts. Doug Wood, for example, brought me a lovely kitsch-filled basket:.

One of the gifts was a practical Hostess Twinkie holder:

Many aKitschionados were jealous of my acquisition:

Just as important as protecting your Twinkies is protecting your Pringles. Thank you, aKitschionado Windupkitty, for the lovely Pringles protective case.

By the way, a practical party hint: name tags are essential. Even if your guests know each other for a hundred years it gives them an opportunity to express what they’re feeling in name, which acts as much of an icebreaker at a party as food no one has eaten since they were 11 years old.

It also saves the host or hostess time in making introductions.

As I said, the bulk of the day’s festivities centered around cooking and eating. But aKitschionados were free to wander around Willis Wonderland to enjoy the artifacts they’ve been seeing in my posts since I first launched AWMOK.com in 2009. Many of them also enjoyed the fine reading materials scattered around.

and

That book deserves a close up:

In fact, my whole Soul kitsch collection deserves a close-up. Here’s but a few of the shelves of it:

I think Fluff is a soulful food. It recalls one’s childhood and brings feelings of peace to the mind if not the blood vessels, as aKitschionado John Zenone experiences here:

Off in my recording studio, I was showing some of the aKitschionados some more of my Soul kitsch collection:

You might want to see the front of that picture frame:

As much as I covet my James Brown autograph, I covet this bit of Soul kitsch almost as much, Sammy Davis Jr’s last stash of marijuana:

Slightly easier to see than the cannabis in that last photo are the edges of the round circle rugs that cover the floor in my recording studio. They’re there to protect the plastic that’s actually the floor surface that scratches as soon as you breathe on it. Here’s what the floor looks like in real life:

Despite signs posted all over begging aKitschionados to carefully step on the rugs, several of them found it necessary to defy their leader’s command. Bad girl, kookykitsch!

And Meshuggah Mel!

And Rusty!

And Ken!

Although it was close to 100° and muggy, we also spent time outside. That’s where my over 200 pieces of bamboo dinnerware are.

And for anyone who missed the sugar inside, there was plenty of cotton candy floating in the pool.

Food that floats is something every party chef should consider when throwing summer parties.

So all in all, a good and Fluffy time was had by all! Come back again soon, aKitschionados. See you all in Somerville in “September” one way or the other.

Photos: Allee Willis, Prudence Fenton, Mark Blackwell, Rusty Blasenhoff, Ken Dashner.

09Aug 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Being Even More Fluff – Part 1

09Aug 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Being Even More Fluff – Part 1

So the Fluff gang, most of whom flew down from the Oakland/Palo Alto area, have all boarded planes and taken their Fluff-filled tummies home after an extraordinary weekend of sugar highs and flea marketing. As I said on Sunday when I documented some of the fluff-tweaked tasty treats that filled our gullets, between everyone’s cameras there are literally thousands of shots to go through. This is also a huge music deadline week for me and one during which I should be working on my live show, Allee Willis’ Soup To Nuts Party Mix, my first live performance since walking off stage in the middle of my own show in 1974. So I’m going to do this most fluffy Fluff post in pieces, one for each day it takes for my sugar levels to return to normal. So please tune in tomorrow to get the full picture of the marshmallow madness that took place at Willis Wonderland this weekend and from which I am still pulling Fluff off the walls and my clothes.

This whole Fluff thing came about because aKitschionado Rusty Blazenhoff, who threw me a party without even knowing me when I drove up to Alameda for Meshuggah Mel and Kookykitsch’s Clean House garage sale in May, suggested that members of The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch take a field trip to the annual Fluff Festival in Somerville, MA. this September. She also suggested a preliminary field trip to Willis Wonderland for a day of cooking with Fluff so we were all up-to-speed on the foodstuff.

Guests were slated to arrive here last Saturday at 12:02 PM, a time mutually voted on by the attending aKitschionados. First to hit the deck was Windupkitty.

To put the attendees in the proper brain-frame, Windup assisted me in making a lovely and nutritious lunch of Cheez Whiz, peanut butter and jelly, egg salad, and fluffernutter sandwiches.

The vegetable portion of the meal was Goldfish in Blue Seafoam Dip.

A good party hostess always thinks about theme-appropriate serving pieces, in this case a dead-on match for the Goldfish.

Appropriate glassware is equally important. Although Disco has absolutely nothing to do with Fluff, Disco anything is appropriate for absolutely everything in a kitsch universe.

The cup goes well with many of the other Disco accoutrements at Willis Wonderland.

It’s really too bad you can’t see aKitschionado John Zenone’s glass better in that photo with my Disco cup. Here it is:

If only Helen Reddy had been in attendance on Saturday it would have been an even Fluffier day! But Disco and Helen Reddy aside, our real purpose was to glorify Fluff, the marshmallow food topping that most of us are flying to Somerville to celebrate and where I, along with Susan Olsen, a.k.a. Cindy Brady, the youngest of The B Bunch, will be riding atop a Fluff float. So obsessed with Fluff is Susan that she glorifies it in her art. Here’s “Fluffaganesh”:

As such, Susan started off the afternoon serving her signature Flufftinis, Fluff and cotton candy rimmed glasses holding enough whipped cream vodka to anesthetize a horse.

Here’s akitschionado Meshuggah Mel enjoying a delicious Fluffitini:

.

Most of the Fluff-glued cotton candy was still standing tall on Mel’s glass but you can see the effect the vodka has on such foodstuffs in aKitschionado John Z’s drink as it liquefies the sugary stuff and all kinds of colors start globbing down into the liquor and Fluff-filled glass.

You might also notice the beautiful pendant that John is wearing. I hand-made souvenir Fluff baubles for all the attendees.

Here’s a closer look:

But before the Flufftinis were even stirred, Susan arrived with a beautiful vegetable plate. I’m not a lover of vegetables so I wasn’t upset by the paucity of them as I pried the Saran Wrap, stuck to the glue-like dip, off.

Turns out that the the dip Susan made was pure Fluff and the vegetables were pure candy. As to why she arrived with so few as to make guests share the miniature carrots and such, she admitted that these were all that were left after her dog gummed the rest of them. Here aKitschionado Prudence Fenton admires the candy buds on the canine saliva-smeared broccoli:

Had we not stopped aKitschionado Jesse Greene from eating the healthy vegetables we may have had to take him to the vet.

As members of The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch always arrive fully prepared, many guests carried their Fluff in appropriately vintage suitcases.

Rusty’s suitcase was also filled with tee-shirts for the mommies in attendance. Akitchionado Kookykitsch, the first member to sign up when The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch launched in 2009, joins Susan and Rusty as the third Fluff mommy.

aKitschionado Ken Dashner, made the girls’ tee-shirts.

Since she first mentioned the Fluff Festival a few months ago, Rusty talked about making a Fluffernutter cake. She e-mailed so much about this I took it for granted that this was a tried and true recipe she had long perfected. But when she arrived we learned that not only had she never made the recipe before but, by her own admission, she was a really lousy cook. To a junk food lover of kitsch this makes for very exciting prospects!

Indeed, the cake took over 3 hours to make. I swear to God, this was all that happened after 15 minutes of Rusty wielding the electric mixer:

The other side of my hair could’ve grown in faster. Perhaps it was due to Rusty’s beverage choice, which goes excellent with Fluff btw:

Though the cakemaking process was exhausting….

…the end result did not disappoint!!

Though you might think that it was the Colt 45 that gave the cake it’s Niagara Falls effect, it was aKitschionado Charles Phoenix, a test kitchen expert, who encouraged Rusty to use a full jar of Skippy, more than the recipe called for.

Charles has excellent cakebaking skills as evidenced by his prizewinning/ front-page-of-the-Wall-St.-Journal Cherpumpumple cake.

In fact, the overflow of Fluff-spiked Skippy made the Fluffernutter cake taste even better.

Though the volcanic goo flow made it almost impossible to appreciate the giant sandwich shape it was intended to retain.

I’ve eaten messy sandwiches before but this took the cake.

More fluffied treats and goings-on tomorrow…. In the meantime, may we offer you a Flufftini?

17Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – A Real Brady In The Bunch

17Jan 2011

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – A Real Brady In The Bunch

As a collector of kitsch for decades now with a particular love for popular television shows, there’s nothing better than having the real thing who made the real thing in your presence. Such was the case when Susan Olsen, a.k.a. Cindy Brady, the youngest, cutest, blondest Brady in the Bunch, walked into Willis Wonderland last Friday afternoon. And she came bearing one of her signature Christmas cakes, which is how we came to know each other in the first place as she posted her kulinary kitsch koncoction in The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch over Christmas.

Susan spent over a month (extra kitsch point #1) making these rum soaked (extra kitsch point #2) fruit cakes (extra kitsch point #3). And her description of them was hysterical too. It was an even better sign when I saw the way she prepped her photos. In the land of kitsch, detail insets are most impressive:

I got especially excited when I saw all the snowy peach fuzz that surrounded Susan’s elves:

But the elves on the cake she brought me needed no such extra set decoration as they got down to enough business on their own:

I was actually introduced to Susan by my Facebook friend and most dedicated aKitschionado at The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch, Denny McClain. We made sure to give him his props before we did anything else:

Our hooking up was also facilitated by another Facebook friend, Steven Wishnoff, who accompanied Susan to Willis Wonderland. I immediately offered them a snack as I had something amazingly fitting for this most kitschous of occasions:

Any of you smart and dedicated enough to subscribe to my blog will recognize that we’re holding a piece of King’s Hawaiian Bakery Rainbow Bread that I bought a loaf of last weekend on my Sunday drive with Charles Phoenix. This is possibly my favorite food discovery of the century so far.

It was perfect as Susan actually came dressed matching the bread:

We were all most anxious to see what happened to the color swirls when the bread was toasted, hoping they would get even brighter with a little bit of heat. We were sorely disappointed:

But that didn’t stop us from slopping on some peanut butter and jelly and enjoying a delicious grill stripped rainbow mini meal.

We spent a lot of time walking around Willis Wonderland as Susan and Steven had an excellent sense of kitsch.

I had much Brady Bunch memorabilia out…

…but I stupidly forgot to ask Susan to autograph anything. Luckily, before we met she mailed me a copy of a book she co-wrote about the making of one of the most exquisitely cheesy television specials ever made, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.