History
The
Obtuse Angle Dry Goods and Millinery Company was founded in 1846 by
a man called Jeremiah “Pappy” Gilchrist. Located near present-day
The 1850s ushered in an era of “big box” trading
posts on the plains, and Pappy struggled to keep TOA afloat. Knowing
that he couldn’t compete with the bargain basement goods offered by
his competitors, Pappy reinvented TOA as a service industry. The service
was entertainment.
For the next 20 years, Pappy’s “Star Spangled
Angle” musical revue was a smash hit among migrants and local settlers
alike – and was even attended by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872.
The patriotic themes and catchy banjo tunes reverberated with the
nation – plus, Pappy served hard booze and the dancing “Anglettes”
were, ostensibly, whores. So that couldn’t have hurt either.
In
the spring of 1881, Pappy finally decided to pursue his own lifelong
dream of moving west. After all, there was indeed gold in them hills,
and he figured the musical revue would do gangbusters in a town like
Pappy did have a wife at the time – his third as a matter
of fact – a filthy young strumpet by the name of Lilly Lou. According
to Pappy’s last will and testament, all his possessions now belonged
to Lilly Lou, and she promptly sold TOA to Phineas Taylor (PT) Barnum,
the longtime showman and circus proprietor. Barnum, in turn, dissolved
the Star Spangled Angle musical revue, replacing the dancer/whores
for midgets and assorted freaks of nature.
This very well could
have been the end of TOA forever. But what Barnum failed to realize
was that TOA retained a small, but fervent, base of loyalists. Amongst
this group was a man called Captain Tim Finnegan, a real-life sea
captain from
What wasn’t trampled
by a horse was the spirit of this ragtag troupe of dancers and banjo
players, who were determined to see their beloved Captain’s last mortal
wish to come true. So these wenches and scallywags banded together
and took their imitation TOA show on the road. It was a smash hit
– from
Trouble was, old Barnum still held ownership of
the TOA franchise, and he was none too pleased about being cheated
out of the profits. So he got a legal injunction against the troupe,
and TOA became defunct once again. It remained that way for nearly
half a century.
The year was 1945, and a
Slappy
had done some research on his family history before shipping off to
war, and therefore he knew about Pappy, his great great granddaddy,
and at least part of the legend of The Obtuse Angle. So he decided
to pay tribute to his heritage the only way he knew how – by changing
the name of his daily broadcast from Armed Forces Radio (AFR) 237-5-XC
to “The Obtuse Angle Musical Revue and Nazi Demoralization Show.”
Catchy, eh?
Inspired as he was, Slappy even rounded himself up
some banjo-playing GIs and wrote old-timey songs for them to play
on the air, sung by German translators. One of the instant favorites,
which was shown to demoralize the Nazis quite considerably, was called
“Eat Apple Pie or Die.” It went like this:
Weeee Amer’cuns like
us some apple pie,
Oh! Amer’cuns like us some apple pie,
It’s true we
alwaaaays got a big supply!
Sue-render and get you some,
Oh! Sue-render
and get you some,
Cause if you don’t, you’re just plain dumb!
We
bake them apples is what we do,
Hey! We bake them apples is what we
do,
But fithly Nazi’s, you bake the jews!
Well, you can’t deny,
You
want some pie!
Eat our apple pie or die,
Said eat our piiiiiiiiiiiie,
Or
you will die!
Right, so you get the idea. This was actually
one of the tamer songs, kind of a warm-up for the big guns – rollicking
tunes like “Nazi Skulls Make Good Ashtrays” and “Gonna Ass Rape Your
Women with Bazookas.” The brass loved it, and they promoted Slappy
to Lieutenant.
As for Hitler, he was a terribly myopic, disillusioned
psychopath, but not stupid. He knew if these broadcasts were allowed
to continue, his forces would be completely demoralized within a matter
of months, if not sooner. So he assembled his most elite SS unit,
complete with Panzer tanks and every weapon in the Nazi arsenal, and
he laid siege upon the radio outpost in
At this point
in the war, the allied forces were stretched thin across
In a daring maneuver, Slappy led his
men to the roof of the two-story building, and ordered them to blow
the 100-foot-tall antenna with their grenades. They did so, and the
antenna began to wobble. “Now climb! Go go go!” Slappy hollered, pointing
to the ladder. The men looked at him with astonishment. Then bullets
started to ricochet all over the place, and they climbed like circus
monkeys, returning the Nazi fire with .45 rounds all the way to the
top.
Slappy brought up the rear, and by the time he joined his
men in the “crow’s nest” at the top of the antenna (which doubled
as a lookout post they never used, except for the occasional late
night smoke break), the Nazis were directly below them, firing from
the rooftop. To their east was the city of
As
luck would have it, they landed right on top of a hay bale – and while
they were shaken and battered by the fall, most of them could get
up and run. They scampered to a barn, where there were about a dozen
horses. Long story short, Slappy narrowly escaped on horseback, as
did half his men. In the final analysis, two were fatally shot, one
crushed (by the fall) and another trampled by a horse. Slappy took
a bullet in the leg, in addition to some nasty shrapnel, but after
a few weeks in hospital he was honorably discharged – with a purple
heart pinned to his uniform and a big ‘ole smile on his face.
Slappy
received a hero’s welcome in his hometown of
While he was still laid
up from his injuries, a man came to visit him. The man wore a shiny
blue suit and carried a leather attaché case. He went by the name
of Long John Nebel, and he was one of the nation’s foremost talk radio
personalities. He said nobody was listening to the old-timey banjo
tunes anymore, but spoke of Elvis Presley and a new brand of music
called rock n’ roll. He proposed a show combining talk with musical
interludes, and suggested that Slappy be the host.
Needless to
say, Slappy jumped at the opportunity, and by the Spring of 1955 he
was behind the mike in
For the next ten years, Slappy rode the success
of TOA to great fame and fortune. His magnanimity garnered him friends
among the heavy-hitters of the time including “Rat Pack” members Frank
Sinatra and Dean Martin, as well as the most influential politicians,
businessmen and socialites. He didn’t forget his roots, however, returning
to the family ranch in
In May of
1965, Slappy visited his now-elderly parents for their 75th wedding
anniversary. He then flew them via private plane to
As much as he enjoyed the celebrity life, these were perhaps
the greatest few days of Slappy’s life, sharing so much happiness
with his parents. Unfortunately (I think you knew where this was going),
their luck finally caught up with them at one of the show’s main events
– the rodeo championships. A bucking bronco careened over the ring’s
containment wall and into their front-row seats, trampling all three
of them to death. A bronco is essentially an untamed horse, by the
way. They were trampled by a goddamned horse.
Needless
to say, TOA fans were shocked and dismayed by the tragedy. Over a
thousand people held vigil for days in Central Park, and many others
undertook a pilgrimage to the
Perhaps emboldened by this dramatic increase
in sales, the Tropicana Corporation then did something very foolish.
They attempted to revive TOA. Not only that, but they chose hackneyed
jokester Jerry Lewis to fill the seat vacated by Slappy. Long-since
washed up, dried up and otherwise shut up, as he should have remained,
Lewis took the helm of TOA and promptly drove the franchise straight
into the ground.
In fact, things got so bad that disgruntled
fans released a horse on Lewis’s suburban
