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Why "Squished Frog?"The question I'm asked the most when people learn about the domain name I use for my e-mail and Web site and (ha ha) company is "Where did Squished Frog come from?"
But far more important, there were movies to be made. (Okay, videos. Who the hell can afford film?) Gumby
Squished Frog Productions was made up of the core group of my friends that I hung out with that summer, included the above, though Rob wasn't into the filming. (Not sure where he's ended up. Rob? E-mail me, man!) Through the years, my brother Paul has also been actively involved in our shenanigans. The filming itself began with a small plastic frog. The lovely Kathy LaBarron (now Kathy LaBarron-Roberts) won it for us at a booth during the Fireman's Carnival, a Hornell summer tradition that I know more about than I should, since my father works at the Hornell Fire Department. Bill and I decided to find gruesome Eventually, we moved up to a full-fledged toy frog that we could stuff full of macaroni and ketchup and drive over with the car. And hit with a bat. Which we did in front of a window so we could catch the spew on video. The major ideas we got that summer came from two items: the first Batman film and the fact that Bill owned a three-foot high stuffed Gumby doll. As the destruction of frogs for posterity was going so well -- so well that we'd dubbed ourselves Squished Frog Productions -- we decided to move up a notch and create a full-fledged video. It was entitled The Many Deaths of Gumby.
We even tried to spread the word of Squished Frog. My dad probably
wasn't too happy that we did, since this is what we did to his truck
for a local Hornell parade: Ratguy
As I mentioned, we'd all become quite entranced with the new 80's vision of Batman as played by Michael Keaton. Despite the fact that he seemed ready to pucker up for a kiss at any moment (lemon-lips, by the way, seems to happen to anyone who wears the mask), the film was an enjoyable romp featuring one of our favorite heroes. And thus, it was ripe for skewering in our oh so imitable fashion. (That is not a compliment.) So, during the first part of my sophomore year of college (as I was discovering the joys of a regular girlfriend with whom I could spend all the time I wanted, day or night, hubba hubba), we set about to create all the props and crap we would need to spend our Christmas break filming the immortal tale of... Ratguy. (It would have been a lot easier back then if we'd all had e-mail. But I digress...) We never finished the entire film. We did, however, spend one of the most amazingly fun weeks of our lives in Erie, Pennsylvania (Bill and Brian went to school there at Gannon University). I spend much of the week in drag, as I was saddled with the role of "Icky Vale," our she-male version of Kim Basinger's role in Batman. Bill was Rat Guy, Brian was the Butler, and Dave was the evil nemesis, the Clown. Paul and Brett filled out the other roles as needed-- Paul did an especially grand job as our main stuntman, tacking punch after kick after punch (most fake, some real). And Paul's giant Toyota truck served as our Rat-mobile. In the end, Brett edited it together with the Batman theme music to make a movie trailer that we were all proud off. In retrospect, we probably should have concentrated more on movie trailer parodies...we'd have gotten a lot more done. The Canterbury Tales
Since I'd just taken a video editing course during my time at Ithaca College's Roy H. Park School of Communications, Bill came out to me with the source tapes and we put it all together. (It turned out during the first edit we never got any of the sound right, so he had to come back to Ithaca for another six hour stretch as we re-edited the whole thing). It was a big hit with his class, and did earn him an A. In that same time frame, we did a "remote newscast" parody for a TV production class I had, which was about toxic waste dumping. It featured Bill with a melting face and Dave screaming as a third arm grew from his...crotch. (I only got a B-. It wasn't like doing a video for a TV production class was considered noteworthy.) Later, we did a series of Ratguy radio shows, each about 30 to 60 seconds long, which got airplay on the local Hornell station, WKPQ. I like to think they're the reason Brett become such a bigwig at the station in recent years in his persona as Chuck. Squished Frog TodayWe've all pretty much gone our separate ways now, though Hornell remains our common denominator since our parents all live in and around the town. It's generally acknowledged that if you don't get out of Hornell while you're young, you may never escape. Brett Bossard will probably prove that rule wrong. Despite spending the years after he graduated Ithaca College in Hornell working at WKPQ, he's now moving on for graduate school at Bowling Green State University. Paul Griffith, my brudder, proves the rule right, but since he's a cop in Alfred, New York, and carries a gun, and can write tickets to anyone he wants, no one gets in has face about it. Dave Griffin, last I knew, had escaped to Seattle and in 1993 he sent me one of the funniest notes in the history of mail. I replied to him, but haven't heard from him since. Dave, if you ever see this page-- e-mail me! Brian Doran was still working at the local radio station, WLEA last I knew, though he'd talked of heading out to work for a different station. I believe he's also hitched now. And Bill Kays, AKA Kayser, AKA "Sir," is with the United State Army, and has settled into a life of protecting his country. We're still hoping he'll do it without getting sent somewhere nasty to get shot at. I thank Bill and Brett especially, the two other main partners in Squished Frog Productions that I'm in contact with, for giving me the okay to use this domain name. To me, despite the fact that I might build a site here or there under the name, it'll always belong to the group who, in 1989, destroyed defenseless toys for the sheer joy of it. [[Note: this was written in May 1999. To date, I still have not recieved e-mail from Dave or Rob.]] |
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For
the answer, travel back in time with me to the summer of 1989. I had
completed my freshman year of 
ways
to destroy said frog, and record it on video. This was in the days long
before the Littleton, CO shootings, so it was all just good fun. Today,
anyone under 20 years of age pulling such pranks would be spied upon
and reported to adults as possible Troublemakers with a capital "T,"
and than rhymes with "G," and that stands for gun.
That
poor doll. We beat the stuffing out of it. We threw it off a cliff,
off a bridge, off the bleachers at Hornell High School. We shot it with
paint ball guns. We left it in the road and drew chalk outlines around
it. In the end, we took it out and filled it with firecrackers and blew
it's head off. Eventually, using some equipment my mom used over at
St. James, Brett and I spent a couple of days editing all the footage
together into a semi-coherent whole that we all still laugh about when
we're able to get together every couple of years.
The
final major Squished Frog Production was perhaps our best, as we had
a real grasp of what we needed to do. Bill needed to do a presentation
for a class about the