"Artists are performing on Letterman and Conan O'Brien in New York City, then heading to D.C. to be interviewed by a puppet named Rufus," says Carla Parisi, an independent New York publicist who works with artists like singer-songwriter Nellie McKay and indie rockers Shonen Knife, who just taped a "Pancake Mountain" appearance. "The day there are no more media outlets featuring puppets and dance parties with children is the day I quit public relations." Rufus isn't the show's only star. There's also Billy the Screaming Kid (a kid named Billy who screams), and Timmy, a man-child whose lip-syncing is far worse than Ashlee Simpson's. There's also a neighborhood wise guy, Joey, who is actually neighborhood funny guy Joey Filosa. Filosa moved to Washington from his native Brooklyn 25 years ago and manages an Italian restaurant in Glover Park. In his recurring skit, "Ask Joey," he plays a spectacularly unhelpful answer man. When one toddler poses a question to him about clouds, he responds, "First of all, kid, I can barely understand a word you're saying."
Even Stuckey's father, Bill Stuckey, a former congressman from Georgia, has found a role on the show, as a boardroom heavy looking to make a few bucks selling cheesy "Pancake Mountain" souvenirs to the show's fans. "We're dealing with kids," he says in one scene, holding a cigar. "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of kids."
The cable-access show stages dance parties with hip musical guests -- all tailored for kiddies' consumption. Uri Guttman, 3, rocks during a recent show.
(Hans Ericsson For The Washington Post)
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Education -- actually learning things -- is not a "Pancake Mountain" priority. Or if it is, it's only in the silliest sense. In one skit, a German scientist -- okay, a guy in a lab coat with a bad German accent -- arrives at the answer to the central question that has plagued humanity for centuries: "How much vood vould a voodchuck chuck if a voodchuck could chuck vood?" His answer? "Seven." Hard to argue with that.
If Stuckey is the driving force behind "Pancake Mountain," he is quick to acknowledge the volunteers, all friends of his, who contribute to the program. They are the graphic designers, camera people, writers and performers who make the show happen. "Almost everyone I know now who is working on this show, I've known for the past 20 years," he says.
Stuckey received his first camera when he was 8 and he's been making movies ever since: independent films, videos, commercials. He has also worked producing music with artists like Chesnutt and R.E.M. All along, though, Stuckey was looking for a project that would tap the creativity of the people around him and explore his fondness for the surreal and silly.
A story from his childhood:
Stuckey's grandparents founded the legendary Stuckey's restaurant chain that once dominated East Coast interstates. But when Lady Bird Johnson was first lady, she began the "Keep America Beautiful" campaign, part of which included the removal of highway billboards. That threatened the Stuckey's empire, and so Scott's mother took him across the street from the White House wearing a miniature Stuckey's billboard that read:
"Oh, Daddy, to your billboards I'm true, But Lady Bird has me all in a stew.
"Keeping America Beautiful sure is wise, But we all need to advertise.
"Can't I have my candy and eat it, too?"
Stuckey says his mother now worries this may have scarred her young son for life.
The show that inspires him the most is a Chicago-based cable access show called "Chic a Go Go." It is a plotless, skitless dance show for kids and adults. It seems to have no point at all. And Stuckey loves that. He writes fan e-mails to the show saying how great it is. No one writes back.
But perhaps more than "Chic a Go Go," his model is Andy Warhol's celebrated Factory in New York. Stuckey offers the comparison and then quickly downplays it, worried that it sounds pretentious. But the idea clearly guides him.
"I love the Factory kind of environment," he says. "Everyone who was hanging out in the scene was trading ideas and sharing. I'd like to have some little kind of version of that here. Everywhere else it is so guarded, but here the scene is small and people seem very open. Artists sharing ideas is what makes it so special."
