Sybil Bruncheon's "Hysterical Hollywood Histories"... the Creamsicle Trio...

(photo of happier times courtesy of Paul Norman)

... ah, yes! The famous Creamsicle Trio! Known for their occasional appearances on the Lawrence Welk Show, Arthur Murray's TV Party Time, and at various county fairs and 4H Club Jamborees, the Creamsicle Trio had an "on-again-off-again" career from 1954 to 1959.

Originally from Pumpa-Pootah, Iowa, the Nesselroth sisters (Brenda Marie, Fiona Fay, and Gert) started singing in the cradle. Their large extended family marveled at their caterwauling, always on key and in three part harmony right around breast-feeding time. It wasn't long before farmhands, mill workers, and traveling salesmen came a-calling to see the triplets, and they soon became the stars of more than one Sunday church service. The Baptists, Methodists, Adventists, and Lutherans all shared the triplets, booking them at staggered hours from 7:30am to late afternoon year after year, Sunday after Sunday... and finally, at 18 years of age, they were auditioned for the Ted Mack Amateur Hour... and, of course, they won! $811.35!!

They put the money towards a publicist, an agent, three prom gowns in their favorite color (bright sunny orange!), and bus tickets to Duluth to premiere at the Yip 'n' Yodel National Songster Championships! They came in 3rd, but out of fifty-eight entries it wasn't too disappointing, and they won $1162.72 (after fees and taxes) and a contract to tour on the Myron Moskowitz Melody Circuit. Within a month, the manufacturers of Creamsicle brand ice cream offered to sponsor them and buy out their contract from the Moskowitz circuit.

The girls continued to tour the country, but added USO shows with Bob Hope, and appearances on various TV series; Perry Mason (as a three-girl ponzi scheme), Alfred Hitchcock (as a three-girl Siamese triplet), and on the Twilight Zone (as a three-girl ventriloquist act that is eventually killed and partially eaten by their dummies). Soon, orange had become the new favorite color for everything... from fashion to food to interior design and convertibles!

Everything seemed to be going oh-so-well, until the beginning of the free-love 1960s. While touring through Berkeley, California, they were introduced to a world of hippies, love beads, fringe-vests, suede mini-skirts, and marijuana laced with hashish and paprika. Brenda Marie started showing up late for rehearsals and sound checks. Fiona Fay would laugh uncontrollably during scheduling meetings (and even drool). And Gert was found to be secretly dating a boy named Chuck or Charlie Manson who claimed he wanted to be "farmer for Jesus".

It all came to a head on the Ed Sullivan Show when the girls were heard backstage through an open mic to laugh that the public "wouldn't touch those damn Creamsicles if they knew they were made from horses' hooves and old cottage cheese." The studio audience was aghast, and between the screaming caught on-air and the network switchboard lighting up, the girls were snatched from their dressing room and spirited away from a gathering mob on West 54th Street. The news was broken to them on the grey Monday morning... they were finished. Everywhere. FINISHED!... even at the 4H Jamborees. Even in the Jams & Jellies tents...

Whenever and wherever they showed up, people pointed and laughed... or told them that "the Prince of Darkness would swallow them for his diabolical delights"! Their poor parents now became pariahs in their own farm community. And radio ministers preached on Sundays that this was "the wages of sin". Creamsicle even sponsored one national Sunday show called Jolly Bob's Hour of Salvation where Robert "Chuckles" Thumbkin harangued the worshippers in his Cathedral of Cheer and the radio audience at home to reject "preverts and dirty Communists" who made up "false lies about wholesome and nutritious American foods like Creamsicles"...

By 1963, the girls had become nearly homeless. Brenda Marie was working long hours at a lady's lingerie sweatshop attached to the Wayward Women's Shelter on the Bowery. Fiona Fay was occasionally seen in an alleyway nearby on Great Jones Street with a bottle of Muscatel or Woolite... and a sailor. And Gert joined the lower end country fair and carnival circuit as a barker at the Guess Your Weight/Guess Your Age tent... her alto voice and her six pack-a-day Chesterfield habit allowed her to disguise herself as a man. Sad. Very sad.

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A Christmas Special on PBS!!!...

...it's the famous Christmas Special, EBENEEZER & DRACULA MEET FROSTY THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN & THE HANUKKAH GHOUL (1962). A holiday screwball comedy-horror romp starring Rathbone, Price, Lorre, Karloff, and featuring Christopher Lee as Prancer, Peter Cushing as Mr. Potter, Lon Chaney, Jr. as Hermey the Misfit Elf, and Sabu as Tiny Tim.... with Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Santa Claus, Yvette Mimieux as Little Dorrit, Linda Hunt as the Mistletoe Monster, and Herve Villechaize as a plum pudding...ON FIRE!!. (This program is made possible by the George and Mary Bailey Very Charitable Trust… and by contributions to your PBS station from Viewers .....Like YOU! Thank You!)

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Sybil Bruncheon's “A Few of My Favorite Things”… The Good Wife and Archie Punjabi...

Apropos of my advice every week on being "present, mindful, and grateful", I'm starting a new series called Sybil Bruncheon's My Favorite Things! In this world of so much angst and anguish, and "calling out" all those things and people we DON'T approve of or value, I want to make a point of saying what DOES give me pleasure, lights up my world, and fills all my senses, my heart, and my head with joy. These are a few of my favorite things; people, objects, works of art, food, animals, wonders of Nature… you get the idea! Stay tuned...

I watched THE GOOD WIFE when it was aired originally from 2009 to 2016, and then, thanks to technology, I binge watched it again and again as the years passed. It remains one of my very favorite TV shows ever, and, more than being just another TV show, I think it may become an iconic piece of art over the next decades and an artifact representative of American urban life at the opening of the 21st century. Rarely do actors get cast in roles that "no one else could play" so to speak, but this show, season after season, used both its core cast and all of its guest and cameo actors brilliantly. Although we've seen all its stars in many other great projects (Julianna Margulies on ER, Christopher Noth in LAW & ORDER and SEX AND THE CITY, Christine Baranski, Nathan Lane, and Alan Cumming in theatre and films, etc.), their roles on THE GOOD WIFE have become their individual touchstones; something that they can be particularly proud of. And I admire and celebrate them all.

But for me, it’s Archie Punjabi as the enigmatic Kalinda Sharma who dazzles! Throughout the entire series, she never raises her voice, never erupts, never explodes or loses control. Indeed, even when she kicks, punches, or shoots, she does so almost placidly, as if breaking a thug's nose or kneeing him in the crotch is a matter of course. She has none of the fireworks or emotional pyrotechnics that every other character gets. As an actress, she has only her personal beauty (stunning!) and an equally stunning wardrobe a la a 21st century Emma Peel to embellish her character. But the writers capitalized on Punjabi's imploded method-acting style of mumbles, shrugs, and askance-glances to create something rare in all fiction; a soft-spoken, gentle-mannered, highly sophisticated but implacable force of Nature… as a woman! It's Kalinda who becomes the weekly fixer of everyone's dilemmas, tip-toeing her way into homes and psyches to find the weak point, the missed detail, the subtle clue, and often the ultimate solution.

After five seasons of close calls, narrow escapes, and happy hour cocktails with Cary, Alicia, and unwitting adversaries, including her violent and psychotic ex-husband Nick, Kalinda finally had to solve a life-and-death situation by turning in an infamous drug dealer to save her coworkers. And in an unrelated situation in that same episode, she had to dispose of Nick, once and for all. She arranges for the drug dealer and his cohorts to be caught by the Feds, and she confronts her ex in a scene that ends vaguely, leaving the resolution up to the audience's imagination. But when I see her reactions and interactions with Nick, and when I think of all that she's seen and gone through throughout the whole series, there's nothing vague about it to me. I'm convinced that she settled on the "final solution" to her violent and uncontrollable ex. It explains her rye farewell to Alicia. Somehow or other, she managed to kill Nick and dispose of him without a trace. She ends up being her own fixer, solving her own dilemma as she strolls out of the show that final time. Nick is "gone... permanently"! And it explains that wonderful enigmatic smile in the last shot. For me, she will always be one of the most beautiful, mysterious, and alluring characters in ALL fiction... and additionally one of the most perfectly written and inhabited by one of the most wonderful actors... ever. Thank you for being one of my favorite things, Archie Punjabi.

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Sybil Bruncheon’s 30 Days of Thanksgiving: LAW & ORDER... The Thanksgiving Episodes!...

Well, it’s happened again, and I’m so honored! The LAW & ORDER producers have acknowledged my contribution to all the various franchises of the series and the fact that I have appeared more than any other actress in their opening dead-body sequences for their Thanksgiving episodes. Among them are the following:

1) Macy’s fine lingerie buyer found stuffed into the giant “Tom The Turkey” float on Thanksgiving morning during the parade set-up. She had been strangled with a pair of footie-jammies with Scooby Doo on them.

2) Starbucks barista in elf costume found face down in a vat of pumpkin-spice-mint-choclate-nutmeg-cinnamon-holly-pine-needle-mistletoe decaf cappuccino… with red, white, and green sprinkles… but no whipped cream!... an important clue in the final scene.

3) Lady pilgrim in the Radio City Rockettes tribute to the Mayflower. As the full scale facsimile of the good ship sailed onstage in Act II to the Rockettes dancing to “Over The River And Through The Woods”, I could be clearly seen being keelhauled underneath the prow… the entire theatre descended into a 1000 children shrieking in terror as we cut to the first commercial.

4) Notorious pole-dancer painted and hung as a candy-cane in the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and discovered on live television in front of millions of viewers by Al Roker as he goofs around with Hota Kotb over spiked cider and puns about “his North Pole”.

5) Prominent New York brain surgeon found in the Teuscher Chocolate window display as one of eight reindeer dragging Santa’s sleigh. I had been killed by having antlers driven into each of my temples… and then sprinkled with glitter… and draped with garlands

6) High-society dame discovered face-down inside the wedding rings case in Tiffany’s, stabbed to death with a silver-plate letter opener from Zales…

7) Carvel Ice Cream Store owner found dead in her frozen dairy case having been smothered with three Pudgy The Punkin’ cakes shoved down her throat and into her nose. Her eyes and teeth had been replaced with raisins.

8) Pleasant house wife from Sunnyside, "belovéd by everybody", found brined beyond recognition and full of Stove Top stuffing and celery... unchopped! And you know what that means!

I can’t begin to tell you how proud and humbled I am by my career as a corpse in such a record-breaking and respected television serious. The Screen Actors Guild has now proposed having my hand and footprints put into a large tray of sweet potato casserole out in front of Sardi’s during their Thanksgiving dinner special… BOTH seatings! ($89.00 per guest. Reservations recommended)

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Sybil Bruncheon's "THANKSGIVINGS PAST!"... you are what you eat... “TV Dinner”…

...Sadly, this was the episode where the Waltons were trapped for 4 months in the winter on Walton Mountain. They were forced to make their supplies last by dining on some of their own relatives.... here the traditional Thanksgiving dinner has been ...um... prepared: the Jedediah/Sweet Potato Casserole with "bacon bits", the Betty Mae/Waldorf salad with "fritters", the Enoch/"Pigs"-in-a-blanket, the Clementine/Cranberry sauce with "sausage-ettes", the Fiona/ Artichokes and "Sweetbreads", and the Little Biff/S'mores avec "médaillons d'imitation de veau"....

Despite their ...um, "discomfort", the remaining family managed to celebrate the Holiday season happily, and the ratings for this episode broke all records up to that point... even surpassing The Bing Crosby Christmas-Cannibal Special... starring the King Family …as an entire smörgåsbord table. 

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Sybil Bruncheon’s “Christmas time!!! ..... Janet Leigh!”

...and so the studio executives told Hitchcock that making PSYCHO a Christmas special was out of the question!!!!.... he never forgave them!

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