The Art of Manualism on Display at TVland.com
Recreating Classic TV Theme Songs Through Palm Farting
Technically speaking, palm farting is actually called Manualism. (And doesn't that sound it should be referring to something else that is probably appearing on at least a million computer screens as you read this?) R.A. Wilson is Tvland.com's resident manualist and he is truly a genius. If you were alive in the 70s you may remember there was another guy would pop up on variety and talk shows and display his own form of manualism, but his forte-if I recall correctly-was mostly classical works. R.A. Wilson's manualistic genius arrives in the form of being able to genuinely make those classic TV show themes recognizable. One of the videos available under the What the Heck tab on Tvland.com's video section has Wilson discussing manualism and he even mentions the appearance of John Toobey on The Tonight Show in 1972 as his inspiration for taking up the creative art of manualism. If you are interested in becoming a professional manualist yourself, that particular video also offers advice and tips and demonstrations on how to turn that sad little fart into musical gold.
While it may be easy to believe that simply by squeezing his palms together R.A. Wilson could recreate the slow and simple theme song of Addams Family, it might be more difficult to swallow his being able to recreate the vastly more complex theme songs to shows like I Dream of Jeannie or I Love Lucy. And let me just add that if you do decide to travel back in time by visiting Tvland.com and you do watch R.A. Wilson strutting his stuff, you are truly missing a virtuoso performance if you don't watch him do the theme song to The Odd Couple.
Go to TVland.com video section here. Then scroll across to What the Heck.
Published by Timothy Sexton - Featured Contributor in Arts & Entertainment
Timothy Sexton was named this site's very first Writer of the Year. Today he has several columns on Yahoo Movies and a weekly column on The Simpsons on Yahoo TV. He has published over 8,000 articles coverin... View profile
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4 Comments
Post a CommentBy the way, it was John *Twomey* that I saw on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, back in the early 70s.
Links to more of my videos may be found at
http://rawilson.googlepages.com/Manualism.htm
Thanks again.
Wow, thanks Timothy!
Added note: I've had the feeling that conservative audiences may have been turned off by those TV Land/R.A. Wilson interstitials using the theme songs. Those people offended just have to keep in mind that TV Land is pure cheese most of the time. They don't take any of their acquired old shows seriously...while (contradictory) they do in other ways...
I used to be able to display Manualism when I was in grade school. I couldn't play any melodies--but I could create a good and loud squeaking sound (similar to a chirping bird)...just enough to annoy the teachers. ;) I actually got in trouble once for doing that during class, so I showed off my abilities during recess instead. Strangely, when I became an adult, I couldn't make the sound anymore. Maybe the structure of your hands change as you grow up--but I can't even make the sound now. Sometimes I can manage one little sound if I try hard enough. Overall, though, I may have lost an important artistic skill while gaining new ones along the way. By the way, I've seen the video clip of John Toobey on that early 70's "The Tonight Show" (playing "Stars and Stripes Forever")--and if you need to laugh hard...