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Tiki Talk with Ben Willis: Mid-Century Masterpieces, Secret Weapons, and Twangy Guitars · Mega Rock On Demand

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's Friday afternoon, and that means it's time to light the torches once again for Tiki Talk on Mega Rock.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ben Willis with you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot talk about the history of Tiki culture spreading across a mainland U.S.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: without talking about the connection it had with Hollywood, because California, quite frankly, is where the Tiki Craze was birthed in the mainland part of the U.S.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Regley, of course, back with Don the Beach Cover in Hollywood, catering to the Hollywood actors and actresses elite with his wonderful escapist bar and restaurant, and then of course Trader Vick later on doing the same thing with his offering.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: But in the movies and in television, in particular throughout the mid-20th century, you had a long-standing habit of tropical and tikified movies and television shows making their way into the American public view.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: One of the first television shows in the genre, arguably Adventures in Paradise.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Same year 1959 introduced legendary show Hawaiian Eye, a detective story set in Hawaii.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Later on, you had other shows like Mikhail's Navy and sitcoms like Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch, eventually getting all the way to Fantasy Island, and the long-running Hawaii 5-0 television series.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, unless you're shooting in Hawaii, like they were for Hawaii 5-0, most of these shows were produced on a soundstage, and you had to decorate that soundstage with tropical and maybe even tiki accoutrement.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the vast majority of set dressings, and of course, tiki's came to the Hollywood Studios by way of Oceanic Arts in Whittier, California, run by the legendary Robert Van Oosting and Leroy Schmaltz from 1956 all the way up until 2021.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Check out our Facebook page at MegaRock.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: We got some pictures of historical shots from within the Oceanic Arts warehouse in Whittier, California.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely fascinating to think you could just walk in and rent or buy right off the shelf everything you would need to outfit a full-blown tiki palace if you needed to.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, once again, those days seem to have passed.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, as a toast to those days gone by, to the history of Hollywood and Tiki, here's one to try.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Golden Gun.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: In a cocktail shaker filled with cracker cubed ice, we're going to take 3 quarter ounce of fresh lime juice, a half ounce of fresh grapefruit juice, 1 half ounce of Demerara sugar syrup, 1 half ounce of apricot liqueur, you could substitute apricot brandy if you have to 1 half ounce of aged rum, and 1 half ounce of lightly aged rum.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And 2 dashes of Angostura bitters.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Shake string into a collins or highball glass with more ice.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Garnish as you so desire.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's the golden gun to put you in that Hollywood mood.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So until we meet on another island out there somewhere, this is Ben Willis saying Aloha! We're going to send you off with another Hollywood classic, originally written by Henry Mancini.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's Dwayne Eddy, the original twangy guitar, and the theme from Peter Gunn on Tiki Talk on Mega Rock.