The Geology of Cleveland

The earth underneath the Cleveland metropolitan area isn’t something that people think about very often, if at all. Of course, if you live in one of the areas surrounding the city that has been hit with mild tremors over the last few years, maybe it has crossed your mind once or twice.

I’ve always been interested in geology. Not seriously, though.  As a kid I liked to pick up all kinds of rocks, much to my mother’s dismay. When I was in my first few years at grade school in Brooklyn, Ohio, we lived right across from the steep cliffs of Big Creek. In fact, we used to play in the creek all the time and picked up quite a few small fossils in the shale there. Unfortunately for us,  in 1964 when the State of Ohio decided that they were going to put I-71 right through our living room, our family had to quickly relocate. But it seems that our misfortune meant a boon for paleontologists, who also found lots of fossils in the area as the area was reconstructed for the freeway. From I-71 near Ridge Road, one can still see the remainder of the street, and the shale filled cliff of the area where Big Creek travels.

When the Cleveland Plain Dealer recently did an article about paleontologists hunting for fossils again in the Cleveland area by Big Creek, it made me want to “dig” a little more into the overall geology of the area.

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History has a very comprehensive summary of what lies underneath the Cleveland area. An excerpt:

The major event shaping the modern local drainage systems began when ice melted northward from the Akron region, leaving a boundary ridge of drift called the Wabash End Moraine ca. 16,000 years ago, which stood for 10,000 years as a drainage divide between the southward-flowing upper Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie. An ancient Lake Cuyahoga was ponded between the Wabash Moraine and retreating Hiram-age ice. During a subsequent readvance of the Hiram ice ca. 14,800 years ago, the Defiance Moraine was deposited just north of Peninsula. When this ice began retreating ca. 14,300 years ago, short-lived Lake Independence was formed. The major fill of the Cuyahoga Valley between Cleveland and Akron consists of deposits from these two lakes. Even after the northward retreat of the ice, minor climatic fluctuations resulted in changing water levels of the Great Lakes, resulting alternately in erosion or deposition in the river valleys.

From ca. 14,000-12,500 years ago, the Lake Erie basin was occupied by a gradually falling series of large lakes, all higher than modern Lake Erie. Erosion and deposition along their southern shores formed wave-cut terraces and beach ridges which generally parallel the modern lakeshore. Lakes Maumee I-III (14,500-14,100 years ago), were from 780' to 764' above sea level; Lakes Whittlesey I and II (ca. 13,800), between 740' and 730' above sea level; Lakes Arkona I-III (13,600-13,300 years ago), 711' to 690' above sea level; and Lakes Warren I-III (13,000-12,900 years ago), 686' to 670' above sea level. Between 12,900-12,600 years ago, the opening of the Niagara Falls outlet resulted in a rapidly lowering series of lakes (Wayne, Grasmere, and Lundy). By 12,200 years ago, the inflow of water from the upper Great Lakes had been diverted northeast, and the level of early Lake Erie fell 40 meters below its modern level of 571' above sea level. There was a slow rise to 565' between ca. 4,500-2,500 B.C., when erosion to the lowered lake levels downcut the old southern divide, enabling the upper Cuyahoga to join the flow northward into Lake Erie, the last major geological event to affect this area. Beyond shaping the topography, these geological events were responsible for the materials of economic significance to Cleveland's future development.

(The entire article is quite lengthy and detailed; it can be found here if you wish to read it in its entirety.)

The video below from the Cleveland Plain Dealer speaks to how the geology of the area has made it ideal for the formation of fossils. The article that accompanied the video, which speaks a bit of the geology in the area is also interesting; it can be found here.

Some other web sites that my be of interest:

The Natural History Museum Cleveland Geological Society

Friends of Big Creek

The Ohio Geological Survey GeoFacts

Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Geological Survey

Ohio Seismic Network


Plain Dealer Video Hunt for Cleveland Area Fossils

Fossil hunt

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Cleveland’s Favorite “Haunts”

Franklin Castle

With Halloween coming up, it makes me think of all the places in Cleveland that are reported to be haunted.

I’ve already written here before about what is probably Cleveland’s most famous haunted house, Franklin Castle, located on Franklin Boulevard at the intersection of West 44th Street. The Gothic-style house was built in 1865 for grocer and banking executive, Hannes Tiedemann and his wife Luise.

But, there are plenty of other places in Cleveland where “ghosts” supposedly reside, such as the Steamship William G. Mather, the USS COD, Grays Armory, Playhouse Square, Whiskey Island, Cleveland Police Museum, Lakeview Cemetery, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

The Mather
Lakeview Cemetery seems like an obvious place for haunting, since it is, after all, a cemetery. At Grays Armory, there are reports of hearing footsteps when no one else was present, and seeing Civil War era apparitions. Franklin Castle has a history of mysterious deaths, reported murders, and strange noises and happenings. On Whiskey Island, there are reports of some ghosts at the Sunset Grille.

For me, since I live in a 1950’s home outside of Cleveland (in Lake County) where we’ve had quite a few unexplained happenings over the years (some rather scary to say the least), I have no desire to walk into any other haunted places. I may write out the story of my own home on one of my other blogs one of these days, but sometimes it rattles me just thinking about it. Thankfully, our house has been quiet and apparition free for several years…and I want to keep it that way!

If you are interested in seeing some of these places and hearing the full story behind the hauntings, a company called Haunted Cleveland provides tours, some private, for some of these locations.


Here’s a link to a short video from WKYC Channel 3 about “Haunted Cleveland”:
Haunted Cleveland

Whiskey Island Clip & Haunted Cleveland (Link), also from WKYC:
Whiskey Island Hauntings




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The Cleveland Browns

Cleveland’s NFL football team, The Cleveland Browns , incites all kinds of passion in people, some of it the good kind, some of it bad. Long time Clevelanders have a love-hate relationship with the team. It comes from many years of having fans’ hopes raised when teams reached the playoffs, only to have fans’ hopes dashed when the team just can’t quite reach the top rung. Of course, just this past Monday (October 13), the team temporarily redeemed itself with a 35-14 crushing of Superbowl champions New York Giants, handing them their first loss of the season.

The team and fans have garnered some interesting nicknames over the years. For example, they called the 1980 team the “Kardiac Kids” because of many heart-stopping games that were won or lost in the last few minutes or seconds of the game. The area near the goal line near the bleacher section is now called the “Dawg Pound” because of the dog costumes and dog paraphernalia the fans bring to the game. The moniker was reportedly first conceived by Hanford Dixon (cornerback) who initially gave his defensive teammates the name "Dawgs" to inspire them before the 1985 season. The defense would bark upon certain successful plays, behavior that was soon parroted by the fans. (Thankfully, they didn’t call them the Parrot Pound.)

Despite fans having to endure some crushing defeats – like the one at the hands of the infamous “Red Right 88” play – they still remain loyal to the team. However, an almost fatal blow to the team came when Art Modell announced in late 1995 that he would be moving the team to Baltimore. Fans were outraged, and it clearly had an effect on the team, who finished that season 5-11. Luckily, a legal settlement allowed the Browns name to stay with the city. With a new stadium completed, the Browns had a new team for Cleveland in 1999.

Rather than recap the extensive history of the team here, there are already many places where a complete history of the team can be found. Details going as far back as the team’s founding in 1946 can be found on Wikipedia. There is also current and historical information on the team’s official web site, clevelandbrowns.com , which also includes a great multimedia section . If you’d like a quick video history of the Browns in pictures, take a look at the video below.


Cleveland Browns History


Of course, let’s not forget the old 1950’s-60’s Cleveland Brown’s Fight Song .






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A Tour of Cleveland in Vintage Postcards

Here is a short video tour of the city of Cleveland, using vintage postcards from the 1930s-1950s. There are quite a few places of interest represented: the Terminal Tower, Public Square, Euclid Avenue, University Circle, some beautiful public parks, and a few of the city’s most notable bridges, monuments, and structures such as Public Auditorium and the Cuyahoga County Courthouse. It’s easy to see why the city attracted so many people to come live and work here.

A Tour of Cleveland in Vintage Postcards


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Cleveland’s Innerbelt Bridge: In Trouble?

Last December, I wrote here about Cleveland’s many bridges (“Cleveland:City of Bridges”). One of the bridges mentioned was the I-90 Innerbelt Bridge, and at the time, there was much concern over the deterioration of the span.

Months later, things haven’t improved. The West 14th Street ramp in Tremont was closed several months ago due to concerns about the bridge structure in that area. This week, commuters were surprised with multiple lane closures and more ramp closures on the I-90 Innerbelt Bridge as the bridge is undergoing extensive inspections. You can read about the current state of the bridge in the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s article, “How serious are the Inner Belt Bridge's problems? Span's future in question”.

While the traffic problems that the inspection is causing is an aggravation, the inspection is a necessity to make sure the bridge is safe - or to determine that it's not. As this bridge is a main artery for those coming into, and passing through the city of Cleveland, it will create major problems if the safety of the bridge forces its closure.

Here’s a short video of the Innerbelt Bridge, taken from the Tremont area of Cleveland, in June of 2007, which gives a good idea of the size, and length of the span.




Also, if you’d rather see the bridge from bridge level, check out this video that shows the drive through the Innerbelt and over the bridge, but the video is sped up so the drive lasts less than a minute. Maybe that’s the best way to go over it right now… very fast!




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Cleveland’s Bygone Millionaire’s Row

There is a stretch of Cleveland’s Euclid Avenue (US Route 20) that was once known as the most beautiful street in America. It was also known as “Millionaire’s Row”, because in the late 1800s to the early 1900s the street contained the homes of some of the richest and influential people in the city and the county. Some of the names of the families who lived on "Millionaire's Row" included those of industrialist and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller; banker and industrial distributor George Worthington; arc light inventor Charles F. Brush; mining magnate Samuel Mather; industrialist and politician Marcus Hanna; John Hay, personal secretary to Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State under William McKinley; and Jeptha Wade, founder of Western Union Telegraph.

Samuel Andrews Mansion

The homes were representative of the then booming Cleveland economy and its growth and prominence in industry. Sadly, only a small number of these houses remain today, the others being overtaken by either the industrialization that brought the money here, to neglect, disrepair, and a growing urbanization of the area. Both Charles F. Brush and John D. Rockefeller had ordered their houses be razed after their deaths, as it was reported they preferred the destruction of their homes to inevitable deterioration.

A list of the locations of the homes that remain, either all or in part, is below, from the Ohio Traveler web site. (The list, however, is undated.)

Luther Allen House (7609 Euclid Avenue)
Morris Bradley Carriage House (7217 Euclid Avenue)
John Henry Devereaux (3226 Euclid Avenue)
Francis Drury House (8625 Euclid Avenue)
Hall-Sullivan House (7218 Euclid Avenue)
Howe Residence (2248 Euclid Avenue)
Samuel Mather Residence (2605 Euclid Avenue)
Stager-Beckwith House (3813 Euclid Avenue)
Lyman Treadway House (8917 Euclid Avenue)
H.W. White Residence (8937 Euclid Avenue)

Stager-Beckwith
Some of these homes are viewable by car, but for those that don't want to drive through the area, some can be best viewed using Google Maps Street View. Or, if you’d like to take a tour of the bygone era from your chair, here are links to some pictures of some of the homes (many no longer standing) in their golden years:

Samuel Mather mansion

Mather home sunken gardens

Charles Brush mansion

Francis Drury mansion, rumored to be haunted.

Sylvester Everett mansion

Tom L. Johnson mansion

Stager-Beckwith mansion, restored

Samuel Andrews mansion

View of the Bingham, Devereaux, Mather, and Hanna mansions

Daniel P. Eels mansion


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The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Integrity and Security

Money and the economy are on everyone’s mind lately. So, I thought this would be a good time to cover the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Cleveland serves as headquarters for the Fourth Federal Reserve District, an area which comprises Ohio, western Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky, and the northern panhandle of West Virginia. It is located on East 6th Street and Superior Avenue, and the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings.

Established in 1914, it is one of twelve regional reserve banks that comprise the Federal Reserve System. As we are all painfully aware of right now, the task of The Federal Reserve as a whole is to ensure the stability of the American financial system by the regulation and oversight of the country’s banking institutions.

According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History:


In 1914, a well-organized campaign by a group of Cleveland businessmen, financiers, and politicians was instrumental in the decision to locate the Fourth District headquarters in Cleveland. The bank, headed by Elvadore R. Fancher, opened on November 16, 1914 in the Williamson Building with twenty-three employees…. in August 1923, the bank's Cleveland headquarters moved into the $8 million Federal Reserve Bank Building, designed by the architectural firm of Walker and Weeks, at the corner of Superior Avenue and East 6th Street.

The 12-story building was constructed in the Italian Renaissance style, the design said to convey the bank’s strength and its power. It was part of the City Beautiful movement and the Group Plan of 1903; the purpose being to form a harmonized group of structures with similar design features (such as masonry, scale, architectural style), and eliminate unstructured, unplanned industrial growth.

There is an excellent article by Builders Exchange Magazine published in 2003 that covers just about everything there is to know about The Cleveland Federal Reserve, and you can find it here. This is just an excerpt, about the bank vault:

“The most important feature of any bank is its vault-and the two-story, 12,000-ton, 3,560-sf Cleveland Fed main vault is second to none in the world. The door alone weighs 300 tons. The 100-ton swinging section is precision balanced to allow a single person to close it. When closed, the door is held by 16 steel bolts, each 6 inches in diameter and weighing 246 lbs. The 47-ton hinge casting is almost 19 feet long and reported to be the largest hinge ever manufactured. The vault actually occupies a "building within a building" constructed before, and separately from, the remainder of the facility. The concrete walls of the vault "building" are 6.5 feet thick and reinforced with interlaced fabricated steel. It would take an ambitious safecracker indeed to take on this formidable opponent.”

Energy in Repose
(Now, don’t get any ideas, you won’t be able to break in, despite the fact that movies and TV shows make breaking into bank vaults look so easy.)

The sculptures, titled ”Integrity” and”Security” at the 1455 East 6th St entrance are by sculptor Henry Hering. Hering also did the sculpture “Energy in Repose” on the Superior Avenue side of the building.

There are tours available to the public;information is available on the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s web site.


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Severance Hall, Home of the Cleveland Orchestra

Photos from clevelandorch.com

Severance Hall, in the University Circle area, is the beautiful home of the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra. The Cleveland Orchestra was formed in 1918, and it was decided in 1928 that a permanent home for them was in order. Severance Hall construction took place from December 1929 through early 1931. It was a gift from John L. Severance, in memory of his wife, Elizabeth DeWitt Severance. Her father had been treasurer of Rockefeller's Standard Oil and he was also the current president of the Orchestra's board of trustees

Severance Hall was designed by the firm Walker and Weeks , who also designed several other notable Cleveland structures such as the Public Auditorium, the Cleveland Public Library, and the original Cleveland Stadium.

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History says that when first constructed, the hall

“contained a concert hall seating 1,844, a chamber-music hall on the ground floor seating 400, and a radio-broadcasting studio. On either side of the auditorium were triangular wings that contained circulation areas, a green room, a lounge, offices, and a library. Onstage were an elevator for the orchestra, a cyclorama, and a skydome for operatic productions, as well as a large E. M. Skinner pipe organ. The hall had a unique system of colored spotlights operated by a clavilux or "color organ" for constantly changing lighting effects. In 1958, the stage was completely rebuilt, with a new acoustical shell to improve the projection of the orchestra's sound.

The architecture of Severance Hall was transitional between the Georgian/Neo-Classical style represented by the Cleveland Museum of Art across the Wade Park Lagoon and the Art Deco or Art Moderne style that had developed in the late 1920s. The main entrance is a Renaissance portico. The interior, however, is an eclectic mix of styles. The elliptical 2-story grand foyer is transitional in function with a Neo-Egyptian design, while the auditorium is both modern and traditional in its stylized ornament and color, featuring classical and Art Deco touches. The Reinberger Chamber is 18th century in design. An unusual feature of the building was an internal automobile driveway, beneath the entrance, which was closed in 1970 and converted into a restaurant in 1971.


A major renovation project, designed by David M. Schwarz Architectural Services of Washington D.C, took place between 1998-2000 (reopening in January of 2000). It restored the hall to its original grandeur, upgraded its acoustics, and also expanded and improved on the services and amenities. The changes also included restoring and relocating the E.M. Skinner pipe organ. Overall, the renovation provided The Cleveland Orchestra with the best home possible, worthy of its global status.

A very detailed history of Severance Hall can be found on the web site for the Cleveland Orchestra (here), along with a fantastic group of photographs.



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Cleveland’s Hanna Theatre Re-Opens

Images from GLTF

Back in January, I wrote about the history and renovation of the Hanna Theatre in Playhouse Square (“Imagine a Re-Imagined Hanna Theatre”).

The Hanna renovation is now complete, and The Great Lakes Theatre Festival will be calling the Hanna their new home. The theater will have a grand re-opening with the GLTF annual benefit this Saturday, September 20.

Here are the details from The Great Lakes Theatre Festival on their new home and on their new season:

Great Lakes Theater Festival Announces Ambitious 2008-09 Season in New Home at the Hanna Theatre

The Festival’s 47th season features a dynamic line-up of theater offerings, an expanded performance calendar and A Christmas Carol’s twentieth anniversary.

CLEVELAND, OH – Charles Fee, Producing Artistic Director of Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF), announced plans for the classic theater company's forty-seventh season today. The Festival's four regular season offerings in 2008-09 will take place in GLTF's new home at Playhouse Square 's Hanna Theatre while A Christmas Carol will remain in its traditional Ohio Theatre setting .

“The design of our new home is truly remarkable,” said Fee. “The creative opportunities that the ‘re-imagined' Hanna Theatre will afford our artists, our audiences and our community are absolutely extraordinary. What is particularly exciting for us as a company is that the design of our new home is really a metaphor for the kind of work that we do on stage each season… re-imagining classics. We can't wait to share this new experience with our audience. Working together with our amazing resident company of artists, our loyal and adventurous audience, our region's educators and students and with our great community partners like Playhouse Square, we look forward with optimism to the future. And this bright future begins today with the announcement of our forty-seventh season of classic theater - one that exemplifies the bold, ambitious artistic vision and dynamic, entrepreneurial spirit that has made this company great.”

Great Lakes Theater Festival's new 550-seat home at the Hanna Theatre will feature a flexible thrust stage and afford its audiences an exciting and uniquely intimate theater experience. The Hanna's new “Great Room” inspired design concept will create a single unified environment that integrates the artist and audience experience into one realm and dissolve the formal separation between the social experience of the lobby and the artistic experience of the stage. The new Hanna will offer patrons a variety of seating options including traditional theater seats , club chairs , banquettes , private boxes and lounge / bar seating . This variety of options will enable each visitor to self-define their experience at the theater.

Great Lakes Theater Festival's 2008-09 season will run from September through May and will feature a Fall Repertory, the Festival's annual holiday classic A Christmas Carol and a Spring Repertory. In the fall (September 24-November 8, 2008) , GLTF will present William Shakespeare's towering tragedy Macbeth , directed by GLTF Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee , in rotating repertory with Stephen Sondheim's enchanting musical, Into the Woods , directed by Victoria Bussert . GLTF's annual production of Charles Dickens' holiday classic, A Christmas Carol (November 28-December 23, 2008) , adapted and directed by Gerald Freedman, will mark the midpoint of the Festival's forty-seventh year. GLTF will continue its 2008-09 season with a Spring Repertory (March 25-May 3, 2009) pairing William Shakespeare's fantastic farce The Comedy of Errors with Anton Chekhov's soaring classic, The Seagull. The directors of The Comedy of Errors, The Seagull and A Christmas Carol will be announced at a later date.

The season sponsor of Great Lakes Theater Festival's inaugural year at the Hanna Theatre is National City . The season will be presented with additional generous support from The Cleveland Foundation, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the Ohio Arts Council and SCK Design.

The Festival will expand its Fall and Spring Repertory performance calendars in 2008-09 to satisfy increased audience demand for public performances and to accommodate GLTF's significant student matinee audience. The company's Fall Repertory will expand its run from five weeks in 2007 to seven weeks in 2008. Similarly, the Festival's Spring Repertory run will expand from five weeks in 2008 to six weeks in 2009. The performance calendar for A Christmas Carol will remain consistent with past seasons.

Great Lakes Theater Festival's unique rotating repertory format has played a key role in the theater company's success with audiences over the past several seasons. The Festival returned to a rotating repertory format in 2003 with alternating productions of Hamlet and Tartuffe.

“Presenting a pair of classic plays in rotating repertory is a great challenge for artists and great fun for audiences,” said Charles Fee. "The opportunity to see a single resident company of actors perform two plays on the same stage, alternating shows every few nights, makes the Great Lakes Theater Festival experience unique in northern Ohio . Producing plays in repertory enables audience members to ‘get to know' the actors in our company on a much deeper level while simultaneously allowing us the opportunity to showcase the company members' considerable talents. It is amazing to witness the actors' transformation each night as they take the stage.”

Great Lakes Theater Festival's annual production of A Christmas Carol will celebrate its twentieth anniversary in 2008. Originally adapted and directed by former GLTF Artistic Director Gerald Freedman in 1989, A Christmas Carol has entertained over 450,000 adults and students over the course of its history. The production will remain in its traditional home at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square.

Great Lakes Theater Festival's expanded 2008-09 performance calendar includes two new features: 1) a pair of additional Preview performances and 2) a new Friday evening Press/Media Opening performance for each of the company's regular season offerings. The remainder of the 2008-09 season schedule remains consistent with historic Festival offerings. Opening Night performances of Macbeth, Into the Woods, The Comedy of Errors and The Seagull have been scheduled for Saturday evenings, while A Christmas Carol 's Opening Night is slated for a Friday night. Curtain times for all evening performances will remain at 7:30 p.m., with a 1:30 p.m. curtain time for Saturday matinees and a 3:00 p.m. curtain time for Sunday matinees. All five productions in the Festival's forty-seventh season will continue to offer sign interpreted and audio described performances as well as the popular Director's Night and Playnotes pre-show discussion series.

Subscriptions to Great Lakes Theater Festival's 2008-09 season will go on sale to the general public beginning April 1, 2008 and subscription renewals for 2007-08 season subscribers will begin on February 11, 2008. An adult subscription to Great Lakes Theater Festival starts as low as $93. Student subscriptions begin at $36. For more information about becoming a Festival subscriber, patrons should contact the Great Lakes Theater Festival subscription office at (216) 664-6064 or online.

Single tickets will be available beginning in July. Regular priced adult single tickets will range from $15 - $69. Regular priced student/youth tickets for the Hanna Theatre are $13 ($28 for A Christmas Carol in the Ohio Theatre) and will be available for all performances. Additional handling fees may apply and may vary depending on point of purchase. Further details and pricing specifics will be announced in July. Single tickets will be available by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online and by visiting the Playhouse Square Ticket office. Groups of ten or more receive discounts as do educators.

The first resident company of Playhouse Square , Great Lakes Theater Festival will celebrate twenty-five years in the Theatre District this season. Since 1962, the Festival has brought the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in northern Ohio.


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The (Animated) Cleveland Brown

No, this isn’t about that certain Cleveland NFL football team that Clevelanders either love, or love to hate. (Sometimes both.)

This is about the fictional, animated character Cleveland Brown, from the Fox series “The Family Guy.” He is a recurring character on the show, playing one of Peter Griffin's neighbors and friends. He also owns a delicatessen, named fittingly, "Cleveland's Deli". He is voiced by the real life Mike Henry.

Cleveland Brown will get center stage when his own series premiers on Fox in March of 2009, called ‘The Cleveland Show.” But alas, the Cleveland show won’t be centered in Cleveland; that would make too much sense. The show will have Cleveland (the character, not the city) move from Rhode Island to a new home in Virginia. Here’s the back story from the Fox Broadcasting web site:

Image from Fox

Many years ago, CLEVELAND BROWN (voiced by Mike Henry) was a high school student madly in love with a beautiful girl named DONNA. Much to his dismay, his love went unrequited, and Donna wound up marrying another man. Cleveland once told Donna he would always love her, and if this man ever done her wrong, he’d be there when she called.

Well, this man done her wrong.

Donna’s husband skipped town with another woman, leaving Donna with a daughter and a baby. Now she’s come to Cleveland and offered him another chance at love. Unattached after the Loretta-Quagmire debacle and true to his word, Cleveland joyously accepts and he and CLEVELAND JR. move to Stoolbend, VA, to join their new family.

Once in Stoolbend, Cleveland has a few surprises in store for him, including a flirtatious new stepdaughter, a 5-year-old stepson who loves the ladies, as well as a collection of neighbors that includes a loudmouth redneck couple, a British family seemingly stuck in the Victorian era and a family of bears living at the end of the block.


OK, I don't get the bears living at the end of the block, but that's just me. I suppose anything can happen in an animated universe.










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The Cleveland Cultural Gardens

Stretching from I-90, which runs by the shore of Lake Erie, to the University Circle area, are the Cleveland Cultural Gardens. It is a collection of gardens with statuary, decorative ironwork, and fountains,  serving as a living monument representing the diversity of the varying ethnic groups of the Greater Cleveland area. It is an approximately 50 acres section of the much larger 254-acre Rockefeller Park that was created in 1896 on land donated to the city by industrialist John D. Rockefeller. It follows the paths of both East and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevards.

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History provides some background:

The CLEVELAND CULTURAL GARDEN FEDERATION oversees the Cultural Gardens, landscaped gardens with statuary honoring various ethnic groups in Cleveland situated along East Blvd. and Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd.

The CCGF was founded in 1925 as the Civic Progress League by Leo Weidenthal, who, during the dedication of the Shakespeare Garden in Rockefeller Park in 1916, felt that similar sites should be prepared for each of the city's nationality communities. In 1926 the organization became the Cultural Garden League, and a Hebrew garden was established. On 9 May 1927 the city set aside areas of Rockefeller Park for future gardens. The Italian, German, Lithuanian, Slovak, and Ukrainian gardens were established in 1930; the Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and Yugoslav gardens in 1934; and the American, Rusin, Irish, Greek, and Syrian gardens in 1938. Romanian, Estonian, Afro-American, Chinese, Finnish, and Indian gardens have since been created. Planning and fundraising for each garden was undertaken within the various ethnic communities, while the Cleveland Cultural Garden Fed. (the name adopted in 1952) oversaw overall planning and coordinated various joint programs, including the 2nd UNESCO Conference (1949) and the annual One World Day (begun in 1945). During the 1960s and 1970s, many gardens suffered vandalism and statuary was removed for safekeeping. In 1985-86 a major restructuring of the area was undertaken and plans discussed for rehabilitating the gardens by the federation, including 40 members from the affiliated nationalities.

The gardens had faced some periods of neglect, theft of some of the greenery,  and vandalism of some of the stone and metal works. Frankly, the last time I drove through the area (only a few months ago) I found myself somewhat saddened to see no one walking though the park. While it doesn’t look neglected, it is clear that the city has not capitalized as much as it should on what can be a stunning green space. It certainly makes for a nice drive through, but is not welcoming to just stopping your car to admire the area. Parking is impossible along MLK Blvd., so if you plan to visit, you may have to park at the Rockefeller Park Greenhouse at the north end of the park and walk, or, in other locations in the neighborhood on East Blvd. near Sam Miller Park. There may be other parking locations that are available of which I am not aware.

The park really is one of the gems of the city, one that may need a little clean and polish to get is back to its original, intended state, and to make it more welcoming to Greater Cleveland residents and visitors to the city.

Admission to the Gardens is free, as well as to the Rockefeller Greenhouse.

A new web site for the Cleveland Cultural Gardens can be found at this link. And, if you’d like to sneak a peak before going there, a very nice collection of photographs can be found here.

An interesting web site covering the state and the preservation of the Gardens can be found at the Cultural Landscape Foundation, here.

There are also many photos of the early days of the Gardens which can be found at the Cleveland Press Memory Project, here.



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Cleveland, Birthplace of Superman

One famous person who was born in Cleveland is fictional. It’s Superman. But he wasn’t born the old fashioned way, it was with the merging of the creative minds and hands of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Joe Shuster (July 10, 1914 - July 30, 1992) was born in Canada, but his family moved to the Cleveland area in the mid-1920s, when Shuster was 10 years old. Jerry Siegel (October 17, 1914 – January 28, 1996) was born in Cleveland. Both attended Glenville High School.

Siegel and Shuster were fans of science fiction, movies, and comics. They published a “fanzine” in the mid-1920s. Inspired by Philip Wylie's book, "Gladiator", about a mysterious character with superpowers and invulnerability, they created a strip for their fanzine (Shuster the artist, Siegel the writer) that featured a super-powered villain, but they later made him in a hero.

Here’s an interesting history of Siegel, Shuster, and Superman:

Metropolis Marvels

Superman came from two Cleveland teenagers with nothing but a shared dream and the ambition to tell a great story. Great Superman stories are the best of the bunch, and among the hardest to tell. Join us as we pay our respects to the folks who created, continued, shaped and reshaped the legend of Superman.

Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster
AKA: Two Boys From Cleveland

Who They Are:
Superman was the brainchild of two Depression-era Cleveland teenagers, Jerome Siegel (1914-1996) and Joseph Shuster (1914-1992). Jerry was born in Cleveland; Joe was born in Toronto. They met when they both attended Glenville High School, where Jerry worked on the student newspaper, The Torch. (Joe had worked as a newsboy for the Toronto Daily Star, so they could both claim a journalistic background.)

Jerry and Joe had a lot in common. They were both the children of Jewish immigrants. They were both shy and retiring young men, with perhaps more than their share of insecurity and hang-ups when it came to the opposite sex. They both loved science fiction and the fantastic stories of the pulps. They were not strangers to mortality, or to life's difficulties, or to the whips and scorns that led many to share their fantastic dream of a being with powers "far beyond those of mortal men." Jerry's father, Mitchell, a sign painter and haberdasher, had been murdered by a thief when Jerry was still in middle school. Joe would suffer from debilitating vision problems - making his work as a comic book artist extremely difficult - all his life. Cornered by an all-pervasive reality, Siegel and Shuster did not fear the impossible.

Jerry would write the stories, and Joe would draw them. Between the two of them they would create one of the most beloved fictional characters of the 20th century and inspire a new industry. That industry, in its turn, would populate American mythology with a rich pantheon of legendary figures that would cross the boundaries of the medium in which they were born, into the worlds of radio, television, film - and beyond. Before all that, however, they were two struggling creators who spent their share of lean years looking for a publisher.

Before the last son of Krypton ever appeared in a comic book or took a form we would recognize today, Siegel and Shuster introduced his precursor in "Reign of the Superman," a short tale they published in their early fanzine, the appropriately titled Science Fiction. This story, which features a brilliant scientist whose machinations grant awesome mental powers to derelict Bill Dunn, has few of the features fans would come to associate with the Man of Steel. The 'Superman' of the title is no hero, but a power-mad villain bent on world conquest. Dunn's power eventually fades, and he becomes a nonentity again (in a kind of 'Super-Powers for Algernon' twist). Yet there are bits and pieces of unearthed Superman arcana lying within this tale: the incredible power of science, super-powers and awesome feats, and a strange meteor rock from outer space (it is this substance which allows the scientist, Smalley, to give Dunn his powers).

Though the derelict Superman didn't fly, the character continued to germinate in Jerry's mind. No doubt influenced by many of the pulps, including Doc Savage ('Man of Bronze') and The Shadow (who had a secret identity and a girlfriend named 'Lane'), Jerry and Joe were also inspired by E. C. Segar's Thimble Theatre superhero, Popeye, whose adventures in a series of animated cartoons produced by Max Fleischer brought the hero's boisterous, energetic power to vivid life. Popeye had super-strength (albeit for a short, spinach-fueled duration), seeming invulnerability, and he moved like a dynamo across the screen. (Serendipity would bring Siegel's Superman to Fleischer Studios just a few short years after his first appearance in Action Comics #1.)

Superman's colorful costume may have been inspired by the outlandish outfits pulp artists usually drew on their adventurous spacefarers; or by the garb of circus performers, accustomed to perpetrating super-feats; or it may have come from Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, popular in the mid-'30s; or it may be a combination of all of these. Superman's guise of Clark Kent was likely inspired (like the later Batman's guise of Bruce Wayne) by Douglas Fairbanks' Don Diego de la Vega in The Mark of Zorro, based on Johnston McCulley's great pulp character. Whatever their inspirations, Jerry's stories, drawn by Joe, were gradually taking the shape that would launch an industry. Yet the two young Clevelanders couldn't find a home for their Kryptonian.

Originally envisioning Superman as a newspaper strip - this was the heyday of the strips, after all, a fecund era for such legends as Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, and Popeye, among many others - Siegel and Shuster sent their hero to any syndicate or potential publisher they could find. In those days it was rejection, and not Kryptonite, that thwarted the Man of Steel more often than not. Eventually, of course, the pair hit on a bit of luck - they found a publisher in the person of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson.

Wheeler-Nicholson was trying to compete in the budding comic book industry. At that time, comics generally consisted of reprints of newspaper strips, compounded into book form and sold on the newsstand as an ersatz collection. Wheeler-Nicholson was publishing original material - not so much because he was trying to inaugurate a new industry as because he couldn't afford the syndicate material. Jerry and Joe's first work for Wheeler-Nicholson appeared in New Fun Comics, an adventure strip featuring 'Henry Duval, Soldier of France,' a foppish dandy in the tradition of Percy Blakeney. (Other early Siegel and Shuster creations who would find their way into the pages of the nascent DC comics included Dr. Occult and Slam Bradley, both of whom are still around today.)

Finally, Superman was slated to appear as the cover feature in Action Comics #1 (June 1938). The issue was a huge success, and it took National (the future DC) a while to figure out why. Minions were dispatched to the newsstands, and word came back that "the book with Superman in it" was flying off the stands. In short order, Superman would appear on every Action cover and by 1939 in a second title, Superman. A veritable slew of imitators would emerge (most notably, DC's Batman, Timely's Captain America, and Fawcett's Captain Marvel), and the rest would be history.

Jerry and Joe had hit the jackpot - or had they? Unlike the canny Bob Kane (Batman's co-creator), Siegel and Shuster had, in their eagerness to find a publisher, sold the bulk of their rights to the character to National. Both creators would fight their own 'never-ending battle' to garner a piece of the Superman pie. In 1946, Jerry and Joe sued National for the rights to the character, gaining only Superboy (which had been, in its earliest form, Jerry's idea), after a two-year fight. They sold the Boy of Steel to the company for $100,000 and were kicked out of the Fortress for a full decade. An attempt to recreate their success with a new character - the uniquely unamusing Funnyman - met with failure. Joe's vision would fade, limiting his ability to get work, and Jerry frequently wrote under pseudonyms - though he did return to DC in the late '50s and in the early '60s wrote some of the best Silver Age Superman stories ever penned.

In 1975, with Superman set to fly on the big screen and earn DC's parent company, Warner Communications, even more incredible revenues, Jerry launched a public relations campaign to draw attention to the short shrift he and Joe had been given. Ultimately, Jerry and Joe would regain their credit (missing for years from comics, film and TV appearances) and a small stipend of $35,000 a year for the rest of their lives. Yet Siegel and Shuster's troubled relationship with DC Comics remains a black mark on the company's history and serves as a cautionary tale for young, up-and-coming comics creators.

Joe passed away in 1992 and Jerry in 1996. Behind them they left a legacy - a character who inspires, and who will continue to inspire, billions of people. They also labored over a cornerstone of what would become the AOL Time Warner Empire. Superman, 'champion of the oppressed,' destroyer of slums and challenger of the status quo, is the property of a massive corporation.

See Superman Returns. When those extremely important words come up - "Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster" - do your part for the cause of truth, justice, and the American way. Remember the boys from Cleveland.




While I don’t have an address for the Shuster house, the Siegel House is easy to find. The address of the Siegel home where Superman was “conceived” is 10622 Kimberly Avenue, and is currently listed as a Cleveland Landmark. Sadly, though, it’s not quite getting the attention it deserves from the city of Cleveland, as you’ll read in the following article.



Superman was created in Cleveland, but you might need X-ray vision to see the evidence


James A. Finley/Associated Press
Superman towers over the town square in Metropolis, Ill., where residents have claimed the DC Comics hero as their own. (In spite of his roots here in Cleveland.)

It's another Summer of Superman in Metropolis, Ill., a sleepy Ohio River town of 6,500 whose main link to the Man of Steel -- OK, whose only link -- is the name of his fictional city. They make the most of it. DC Comics and the Illinois legislature declared it the "Hometown of Superman," and the local paper was renamed the Metropolis Planet. There's a 15-foot-tall bronze Superman statue. And this year, marking the 70th anniversary of Superman's debut on the cover of Action Comics No. 1, they also tried to set a world's record for the most people dressed in Superman outfits.

But in Cleveland -- where a couple of Glenville teenagers actually created Superman 75 years ago -- the comparatively muted observances have been more Smallville than Metropolis.

Some highlights:

-- Superman memorabilia was featured at the North Coast Comic Con in May.

-- "Last Son," Brad Ricca's documentary film about Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, was screened last weekend at IngenuityFest.

-- The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage will present the traveling exhibition "Zap! Pow! Bam! The Superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938-1950" from Tuesday, Sept. 16, through Sunday, Jan. 4.

-- And Northeast Ohio cartoonist Tom Batiuk will begin a three-week Superman-themed story in his "Funky Winkerbean" strip starting Monday, Aug. 11.

Positively Cleveland, the area's convention and visitors bureau, staged a meeting of civic leaders in January to plot a celebration, spurred by a commentary in The Plain Dealer by comics columnist Michael Sangiacomo lamenting Superman's neglect. They dismissed talk of a Superman statue -- an idea first raised in a Plain Dealer column in 1978 -- or museum.

But organizers squabbled, and a longer lead time was needed to get permissions for sanctioned events from DC Comics parent Time Warner.

"We just couldn't get it done this summer," said Terry Stewart, president and chief executive officer of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and a former head of DC's rival Marvel Entertainment. "People are looking to the future. Hopefully, it does move forward."

"There are people who won't settle for anything less than a big statue in a prominent place, as though that makes it all official," said Dennis Dooley, co-author of the book "Superman at Fifty: The Persistence of a Legend."

"But there ought to be some recognition, and there is. Superman probably is the most famous character to come out of here. If you went to China and showed them pictures of Strawberry Shortcake or Chef Boyardee, they'd have no idea. If you showed them Superman, they'd know. It's a universal figure. It's natural for places to want to claim their share of their glory."

Cleveland once did, especially when its ties to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were stronger and fresher. The two were celebrities in the early 1940s, when they still lived in town -- both had moved from Glenville to University Heights -- and when newspapers called Superman "the now famous Man of Steel." They produced Superman with a staff of five artists in a one-room office in Cleveland.

Siegel, the writer who ran to pal Shuster's house one dawn after coming up with Superman -- "I am lying in bed counting sheep when all of a sudden it hits me" -- was sworn into the Army in 1943 as part of the July 4th Festival of Freedom at Cleveland Stadium. When he divorced and remarried in 1948, he asked the license bureau to keep it quiet until columnist Walter Winchell could break the story.

Siegel and Shuster had sold the rights to Superman for $130 in 1938, after trying unsuccessfully to market the comic on their own, but they still were writing and drawing under contract.

In 1947, before their contract expired, they sued to regain the rights and a share of profits. They won a limited settlement, but their claim was rejected. They lost their jobs, and their bylines were dropped. Years of bitterness and frustration followed.

They were living in New York by then, though Siegel later went to Los Angeles. Cleveland was left with few tangible links to Superman, if any, beyond the guessing game of which Glenville High School students might have been the models for Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Or how much of their own Depression-era experience, as the bespectacled and nerdy sons of immigrants, influenced their creation of a "strange visitor from another planet."

Shuster said the model for Metropolis was not Cleveland, where his family moved when he was 10, but his native Toronto. The Daily Planet, he said, came from the Toronto Daily Star.

Los Angeles was the recognizable stand-in for Metropolis on "The Adventures of Superman" on TV through the 1950s.

Superman himself was being eclipsed by other comics superheroes until "Superman: The Movie" went into development in 1974, with a supersized budget and A-list stars.

Siegel came out of seclusion to put a curse on the movie, and launched a campaign with the nearly blind Shuster to protest their treatment by DC. A settlement gave them "created by" credit on all Superman properties, and paid each a $20,000 annual "pension."

And just as Superman helped create the modern comic-book business more than a generation earlier, the movie's release in 1978 paved the way for a new type of superhero film.

But while the movie revived Cleveland's interest and pride in a fictional native son, its unbilled co-star was New York City.

Metropolis, Ill., had only recently staked its claim as Superman's "hometown." When the editor of its Planet was asked what place Siegel and Shuster would have there, he said, "I don't believe I've ever heard of them."

Being second with the claim, like someone who found an old deed in the attic, didn't boost Cleveland's super-status. Neither did the fact that the city was entering hard and fractious times politically and economically when the idea of a Superman monument was first raised.

A nonprofit group formed in the 1980s to build a statue tied to Superman's 50th anniversary and the release of "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace," the last and cheapest of the series. Comics sales were sagging, the movie bombed, and the group went bust.

An aide to one prominent local officeholder said any smart politician would support efforts to recognize Superman, but taking the lead would be difficult "when we've got problems of poverty, schools, crime and employment."

"The city is challenged to raise money for so many things," Terry Stewart said.

But the effort hasn't died. Dooley thinks it shouldn't, no more than Superman has.

"A lot of characters bite the dust," he said, noting the fading of heroes like Straight Arrow, Green Arrow and Aquaman. "Superman and Batman are always riveting. The stories get reappropriated and reworked by another generation.

"Popular culture embodies things we believe in or yearn for."

Or the things that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster believed in and yearned for. In Cleveland. Which remembers.

Read more:
• Cleveland let statue fly away

• Superman, on-screen and off.


Added Note: I had already been writing my blog on Superman and had it scheduled for publication before the following piece cropped up in today’s Plain Dealer. I thought I'd include it.

Novel's Superman lore a bit weak on the facts


Posted by Patrick O'Donnell and Michael Sangiacomo August 27, 2008 01:00AM

James A. Finley/Associated Press
Superman's 15-foot statue looks over the town of Metropolis, Ill. An upcoming book by Brad Metzler suggests a new set of circumstances surrounding the orgin of th iconic character.

It's a tale worthy of ... well, a comic book.

A shopkeeper is gunned down in a robbery of his store. His son, while not going on a vigilante rampage himself, seeks justice in a more symbolic way: He invents the ultimate crime-fighting superhero ever, Superman, to be his instrument of vengeance.

If true, it would be a blockbuster.

But is it?

The buzz circulating in the comic world this week, and highlighted Tuesday in USA Today, is that Superman was inspired by the death of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel's father during a 1932 robbery of his store.


Novelist Brad Meltzer found some details around that robbery too eerie to be coincidence. And he's milking them for all they're worth as he promotes his upcoming book, which uses the Siegel family and its home on Kimberly Avenue here in Cleveland for a conspiracy tale.

"I still believe the world got Superman because this kid lost his father," Meltzer said. "Is it just a coincidence that Michel died and within a short time, his son creates the world's greatest superhero?"

After all, superheroes like Spiderman and Batman started fighting crime after relatives were murdered. The story behind the Superman stories would make a great comic book itself.

But though it is true that Michel Siegel, 59, died during a robbery, there is no evidence beyond confused family legend that he was shot. The man, sometimes referred to as Mitchell, actually died of a heart attack.

Jerry Siegel also never connected his father's death to Superman before he himself died in 1996. And his widow Joanne, doesn't think the robbery made Siegel or his co-creating friend Joe Shuster invent Superman to fight such crimes.

"Jerry said his father had a heart attack after the robbery," she said Tuesday. "I don't think that it inspired him (to create Superman]. How many people whose fathers have died have inspired them to do anything at all?"

There are conflicting accounts about exactly how Siegel came up with the notion of Superman while a student at Glenville High School. Late in his life, he said it came to him one hot July night as he lay in bed unable to sleep.

Though Superman was not published until 1938, he and Shuster started work on the idea in either 1932 or 1933.

In that period -- the night of June 2, 1932 -- police were called to his father's second-hand clothing store at 3560 Central Ave. According to the police report, three men came into the shop and walked out with a suit without paying.

Michel Siegel, 59, collapsed in the store and died.

"At no time were any blows struck or any weapons used," the report states.

The death certificate says Siegel had chronic myocarditis and died of heart failure. It reports no bullet wounds.

Marlene Goodman and Irving Siegel, both cousins of Jerry Siegel, said most family members knew the truth, but some thought Michel was shot.

"I remember an aunt telling me there was a shooting and I think I passed that on to a writer," Irving Siegel said.

Michel Siegel's death in the robbery was part of a previous book, "Men of Tomorrow," published in 2004.

Meltzer, however, uses the shooting legend in his new novel, "Book of Lies." The killing is a plot point for the murder/espionage novel, which comes out Sept. 2.

Meltzer said he believes the death was pivotal to the creation of Superman. He points to an unpublished comic book cover from 1933 showing Superman stopping a robbery of a merchant, who Meltzer says looks like Michel Siegel.

"This would have been written soon, perhaps even weeks, after his dad's death," he said. "It had to be related."

Then in scanning through microfiche copies of The Plain Dealer from 1932, Meltzer found a letter to the editor the day after Michel Siegel's death signed by an A.L. Luther.

"Is this where he came up with Lex Luthor?" he asked.

The villain from the comics, however, was spelled Luthor, not Luther. The name Lex did not appear until the 1960s.

Though titled "Vigilantes Not Needed," the letter has nothing to do with Siegel's death or any particular crimes. It decries vigilantism and calls for nationalizing police under Army generals.

Brad Ricca, a lecturer at Case Western Reserve University and director of a Siegel, Shuster and Superman documentary called "Last Son," said Siegel drew inspiration for Superman from many sources. He said the costume has a bit of Flash Gordon, the hair of Tarzan and weightlifter's boots.

"When his dad died, Jerry knew he had to do something to help support himself and his mother," Ricca said. "He created Superman by drawing on everything that was all around him, including his dad."

He added: "There is a scene in the second issue of Superman where he is standing at the grave of his adoptive parents, promising them that he would do good. This made me think of Jerry's father and how this was Jerry's way of promising to make something of himself."

So why all this attention now? Widow Joanne Siegel says it's all because of the new books.

"You know how writers are, they say things," she said.

News Researcher Jo Ellen Corrigan contributed to this story.

Editor's note: Plain Dealer reporter Michael Sangiacomo co-teaches a class with Brad Ricca.


Update September 2, 2008
Today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting that an online auction to benefit the restoration of Jerry Siegel’s Cleveland home in the Glenville neighborhood will begin today. More information about the auction can be found at the “Ordinary People Change the World” web site, here.

You can also see a video on this topic, below, which includes comments from Brad Meltzer, author of “Book of Lies”, that also includes a look at the current state of the home, which isn’t very good on the inside.






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Cleveland’s "Other" Arcades

The Arcade

When everyone thinks of an arcade in Cleveland, they think of “The” Arcade, (above) which sits between Euclid Avenue and Superior, and is now part of the Hyatt Regency hotel. Of course, it is an impressive building. But there are two other, smaller arcades very close by on the other side of Euclid Avenue that deserves more attention and respect than they get.

Built in 1898, The Colonial Arcade originally connected Euclid Avenue with the Colonial Hotel (now the Residence Inn). It was designed by George Smith (who also helped design “The” Arcade) in the Georgian Revival Style. The neighboring Euclid Arcade was built in 1908 in the Classical Roman Style. (I am unable to verify who designed the Euclid Arcade.)

As part of the Colonial Marketplace development in 2000, a food court was added to connect the Colonial and Euclid Arcades in 2000 as part of a $60 million renovation project, and a Residence Inn was opened at the location.

Cityprowl Cleveland has a short walking tour map of this area that you can access via this link. All three arcades are just a short walk east of Cleveland's Public Square, near East 4th Street.

So if your looking for a nice walking trip before the end if summer – or anytime for that manner – check out these lovely arcades.

The Colonial Arcade

The Euclid Arcade

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here.

"The Rocker" Set To Rock Cleveland - and The World

The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently featured a movie whose story is set in Cleveland, with some of the exteriors filmed in Cleveland. It’s called “The Rocker” and stars Rainn Wilson. The film opens nationwide on Wednesday, August 20. The Plain Dealer article is below.



Rainn Wilson pounds and preens for laughs as 'The Rocker'

by Clint O'Connor/Plain Dealer Film Critic
Friday August 15, 2008, 8:00 AM

Rainn Wilson rocks.

As Dwight on "The Office." As the wisecracking convenience store worker in "Juno." And as Robert "Fish" Fishman, the bitter hair-metal-drummer-turned-rockin'-role-model in the new comedy "The Rocker," which opens nationwide Wednesday.

Wilson plays drums, cavorts with Christina Applegate, jams with Teddy Geiger and generally has a rowdy good time in the flick that is set in Cleveland. He was here last summer shooting a few scenes. But before we get to all of that we need to establish "The Rocker's" vaunted position in the pantheon of great drummer movies. Such as they are.

"This is the first movie ever about a rock drummer," said Wilson, 42, in his deadest deadpan tone. "It's the second movie ever about a drummer, preceded by 'The Gene Krupa Story.' Now you see, Sal Mineo was brutally stabbed to death on a Hollywood street, and he played Gene Krupa in the 'The Gene Krupa Story.' "

Pause.

"I hope that is not my fate."

Mineo was, in fact, murdered. But it was 17 years after the Krupa movie was released. Wilson is therefore safely absolved from the playing-a-drummer-in-a-drummer-movie curse. We think.

"The Rocker" opens in 1988 when Fish was the kick-ass drummer for Vesuvius. Just as the hair-metal band is about to strike it rich, they dump him. Twenty years later we find Fish stuck in a mindless job in Cleveland, living in his sister's attic. He seeks his rock-revenge through his nephew, Matt (Josh Gad) and Matt's band, A.D.D., which features Curtis (real-life heartthrob singer-songwriter Teddy Geiger), and Amelia (Emma Stone from "Superbad").

Wilson was not well-versed in metal. "I really, thankfully, slept through the mid- '80s," he said on the phone from Chicago. "At that point I'd gotten into the Clash and Elvis Costello and REM and XTC. But since coming back to it, I realized [heavy metal bands] made rock more accessible, fun and just a rockin' great time. We could use a little more of that today. I think rock musicians tend to take themselves a little too seriously."

As part of his pre-film prep, Wilson was given a drum set and a drum coach.

"Not only did I learn how to drum, but I had to learn how to capture the essence of the heavy-metal drummer. If drummers are dumb, then heavy-metal drummers are preening idiots," he said.

"I had to learn how to physicalize that. But it really helped me define the character. There's something about the mentality of someone who likes to sit behind other people and thump on things and make incredibly loud noises."

Geiger was the only real musician in A.D.D. (and he sings most of the songs in the film). "Everyone was taking lessons, so they all kind of learned at least the songs in the movie," said Geiger before a gig at the Agora last month. "Watching back, I think it looks good. You wouldn't know they had just learned to play their instruments."

Wilson had a head start. In high school he played in a band called Collected Moss.

"It was the worst cover band you could ever imagine. I was the lead singer, and we did covers of 'Magic Carpet Ride,' 'Fire on the Mountain,' and bunch of other crazy songs. I actually grew up playing a lot of instruments. I played piano and clarinet, saxophone, and -- yes, Cleveland -- even the bassoon. I am maybe the first bassoonist that you've ever interviewed."

This is true.

Most of "The Rocker" was filmed in Toronto, but Wilson and a small contingent zipped down to Cleveland last August for two days to shoot some exteriors -- the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Public Square, Browns Stadium and Jacobs Field before the name change.

Two days. Plenty of time to catch the Cleveland vibe.

"There was a hail storm," said Wilson. "It had been like 90 degrees outside and all of a sudden it was hailing, and it was hailing like the size of grapefruits, thundering down on the cars below, and I thought, 'This is some crazy-ass weather. And this is the summer? I wonder what the winters are like here.' "

Churning "The Rocker" out quickly on a relatively small budget (about $15 million) meant lengthy hours. "It was exhausting, about 15 hours a day six days a week," said Wilson. "But it was so worth it. It's a sweet, coming-of-age comedy. I think it's refreshing in these days of either really broad, dumb comedies, or R-rated giant sketch comedies, to have a really small human story."

Wilson was in Chicago promoting "The Rocker," then was headed to Los Angeles to film a brief appearance in "Transformers 2," before shooting new episodes of "The Office." The fifth season launches on NBC at 9 p.m. Sept. 25.

"The Rocker" is a big switch for Wilson. He usually plays the oddball supporting character. Now he's the lead, responsible for carrying an entire film.

Of course, most people know him as Dwight Schrute, Dunder Mifflin's bungling sycophant. I asked Wilson if he was cool with that being his signature part, with people screaming, "Hey, Dwight!" when they see him.

"You know, unlike Lindsay Lohan, I got famous at around age 37 or 38, so I have been around for a long time," he said.

"The fact that I'm now on a TV show that's taken off and is really high quality and that people love, I could not be more thrilled and more grateful. What a great job I get to do. I get to play a really memorable character. I get to show up with a bad haircut and be really annoying, and do some really off the wall stuff. And I love it."


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Cleveland’s Collection of Children’s Shows

Back when there were only a handful of TV channels from which to choose – Channel 3 (WKYC/KYW), Channel 5 (WEWS) and Channel 8 (WJW), locally produced programming for the kids in town was a very big deal. Cleveland had a whole litany of stars for the kids: Captain Penny (Ron Penfound) with Jungle Larry; Mr. Jingeling (played by Max Ellis, Carl Mackey, and Earl Keyes); Barnaby (Linn Sheldon) and Woodrow the Woodsman (J. Clayton "Clay" Conroy; Miss Barbara (Barbara Plummer) the local host for the nationally syndicated/franchised Romper Room; and Franz the Toymaker (Ray Stawiarski).

Looking back on these shows (there are some clips below), they were amateurish and frankly, not that great compared to today’s standards. But, they served their purpose; they kept the kids captivated and hopefully out of mom’s hair for a while. Since there were six children in my family, my mother had to keep these shows just to keep her own sanity. I think she had a crush on Captain Penny, though.

And who can forget some of their tag lines or themes:

Captain Penny:

You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool Mom. She's pretty nice and she's pretty smart.

Barnaby:

“If anybody calls, tell them Barnaby said 'hello, 'and tell them I think you are the nicest person in the whole world…just you.”

Mr. Jingeling

Mister Jingeling how you tingeling
Keeper of the keys
On Halle's seventh floor we'll be looking for
You to turn the keys

Miss Barbara at Romper Room

“Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic mirror, tell me today. Have all my friends had fun at play.”