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How Frankenstein and the Easter Bunny Paid My Family’s Mortage — For a While | Op-Docs - YouTube
Channel: The New York Times
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Hi, my name is Mike, and I’d
like to show you some family photos.
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O.K., here is a photo
of me and my mom.
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Now for me, the weirdest
thing about this photo
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is a Tampa Bay Buccaneers hat.
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Maybe I liked the
Pirates, or orange,
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but we actually
lived in Colorado,
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and we had a Polaroid job.
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We owned a giant
Polaroid camera,
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and if you went to the mall
to get your photo with Santa,
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we were the people
who took your photo.
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This is a guy that
lived down the street.
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If it was Halloween, and
you went to a haunted house,
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you got a photo with
the price of admission.
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This is my dad.
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If you went to Gibson’s
Department Store on Easter,
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we took your photo
with the Easter bunny.
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So some back story —
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my parents started dating
as teenagers in upstate New York.
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Here they are on
a trip to Niagara.
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Polaroid side note —
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I figured out I was
conceived at Niagara Falls
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because they used
to print the dates
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on the side of Polaroids.
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May 1969 is nine months
before I was born.
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So despite wearing
full body condoms,
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my parents got pregnant.
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Being 19 with a kid on the
way, my dad needed a job,
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and the government was hiring.
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So fast forward to
1981, and my dad’s
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still working for
the government,
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and my mom is a
manager at Taco Bell.
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A friend of theirs
has the Polaroid job,
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but doesn’t have
enough time to do it,
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so they buy it from him.
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I am thrilled, as all
these masks and costumes
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are suddenly in our basement.
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The first gig that we get
is for a store opening.
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They ask us to bring
a famous person,
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so we brought Spiderman.
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Polaroid had this deal
with Marvel Comics.
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We’d call up our local
Southwestern rep,
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and they would contact Marvel.
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Marvel would hire an actor in
Los Angeles, give him a suit,
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and train him how to do
all his special moves.
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He would fly out for the
day, sign autographs,
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jump around a little,
fake shoot some webs,
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and then go home at night.
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So for this one
gig, we made $1,000,
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so we thought this was “it.”
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This is the future.
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And now the whole family
is going to get involved.
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Why would anyone want to
come to a store opening
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and get a photo with a clown?
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Because small-town America
is a beautiful, simple place.
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So Halloween rolls
around, and we are already
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part of putting on a haunted
house by the Jaycees.
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This was sort of like a
local Elks Club or 4H.
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And all the money would
go towards charity.
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So again, small-town America —
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this is a very
lo-fi haunted house.
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I think it looked
better when there wasn’t
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a flash light going off.
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Girls would usually
scream, but guys always
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try to, like, hand us a beer.
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I’m actually the
mask in the far back.
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We also knew this
guy who was 6 foot 8,
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so he got to be Frankenstein.
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Apparently, our money only
went towards the mask,
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and not the rest of the suit.
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This is my mom when she’s
not an Easter bunny.
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Here’s my mom as a witch.
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And if you can’t tell
from the leather vest,
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this is a local radio DJ.
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Here’s my dad as
Office Werewolf.
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Pretty sure that’s what
he wore to work everyday.
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And this woman is someone
else that worked for us.
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Her name was Nia.
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She actually worked for
the Denver Playboy Club
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as a waitress.
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And then when she moved to
small-town Grand Junction,
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she actually made her
own version of the suit.
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And so we’d also do these
store openings with her
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as a Playboy Bunny.
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And then we knew
this local guy
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who was a bodybuilder, which
was a little more unique back then.
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So, for some
reason, I couldn’t
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find any of the Polaroids
with her as a Playboy Bunny,
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but I did find some Super 8
footage of Barry working out.
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So then after Halloween,
Christmas came,
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and we were busy
for two more months.
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Here I am with an
appropriate Colorado T-shirt.
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We were just raking the money
in, but then a bad thing happened.
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January.
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There’s no holidays
in January, February —
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Valentine’s Day
doesn’t really work.
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By the time Easter
rolled around,
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we were actually
hurting pretty bad.
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Even robots and
clowns couldn’t really
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save the business.
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My parents got down to
their last mortgage payment,
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and we had to sell
the Polaroid job.
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My dad went back to
work for the government.
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My mom started working
as a secretary,
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and later got a
government job, too.
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But they kept
some of the masks,
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and I recently dug
them out of the closet.
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Here’s a Frankenstein
mask, looking
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10 times more terrifying now.
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Homemade witch mask.
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Office Werewolf’s
holding up pretty good.
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Here’s some monster feet —
sort of like a clown
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shoe, sort of thing.
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So I decided to
restart the business.
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My friend Dan has
an art gallery
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and some old Polaroids,
and so we bought some film.
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And Dan’s actually — took
on the job of Kmart manager
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really well — only gave me
10 minutes in between shifts.
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Since this a Los
Angeles, a friend
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of a friend in West Hollywood
had a full size Easter bunny
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costume, so I borrowed it.
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I was pretty excited.
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Here’s a stranger that just
came in off the street.
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A friend of mine who’s
a costume designer
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help me get a robot
suit from 1980.
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Office Werewolf
made a comeback,
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scared a lot of people.
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Moby showed up.
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I was with my friend
Abby, who had the best
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reaction, because
she’s just a child
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and has no reference point.
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So she came in, there
was a giant rabbit.
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So she’s just really shocked.
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And then when I
said, oh, hi Abby,
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she just totally
blew her mind.
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However, my friend
Katie’s child
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didn’t have such a
good time, so there
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might be a — age requirement
when you bring kids
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to see giant talking animals.
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And then later
in the night, we
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combined Office
Werewolf with the robot.
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Things got pretty crazy.
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After all was said
and done, though
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it was a pretty long night.
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We didn’t really make
that much money, but —
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so we decided to close down
the Polaroid job again,
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but we had a good time.
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My parents are still
together today,
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still married, and happy,
and now they’re retired.
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I found this on the inside
of one of the masks.
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It says, “Be Something Studio.”
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That’s the company
that made it,
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but it’s such a nice,
easy, poetic metaphor.
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It’s about the mask —
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be Frankenstein, be a giant
rabbit, be Santa Claus —
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and it’s about the
American dream.
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My parents took
a big risk trying
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to make a living with
the Polaroid job,
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and I think it was worth it.
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I learned that making
people happy was valuable.
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