Monday, January 24, 2000

Interview: "Son Of Ghoulardi-Hot Hollywood Director"

Toledo Blade, Written By Chris Borrelli
January 24th, 2000


Paul Thomas Anderson is 30 years old, with stylishly rumpled hair and seemingly permanent stubble. He looks the stereotype of the handsome, tortured artist, which works well for him because he makes big sprawling movies that weave and connect multiple plot lines, grand statements about epic subjects like family and home, compassion and love. He's what is called by the media a "hot young director."

His latest, Magnolia, is the kind of self-indulgent but exciting opus that great artists attempt: 3 hours and 15 minutes of gut-wrenching anguish and soul-searching.

This is not the kind of guy you might expect to spring from the loins of Ghoulardi.

But, hey group! - as Ohio's famous horror-movie host might have screamed.

Mr. Hot Serious Director of the Moment is the son of the late Ohio legend Ernie "Ghoulardi" Anderson, who became a local phenomenon during the 1960s when he threw a ratty fright wig on his head, popped one lens out of his sunglasses, and hosted horror movies - from Little Shop of Horrors to House of Wax - on Toledo and Cleveland TV.

Ghoulardi was a bane to parents, telling his audience to "Turn blue!" and "Stay sick!"

He turned the Cleveland suburb of Parma into a running joke. He even made fun of Mike Douglas.




And through most of his fame, Ernie Anderson was shuttling between Cleveland and Toledo, taping one day at WJW in Cleveland and the next at Channel 13, which was then WSPD and the studio was on Huron Street in the building that now houses WGTE.

But Paul Thomas Anderson hadn't even been born yet when Ghoulardi was loved by children and reviled by parents. Last week the young director talked about a lot of things, including Toledo-born actor Philip Baker Hall, whom Anderson casts in all of his films. On the subject of Ghoulardi, the filmmaker almost lapses into the familiar excited rhythms of his father.

"As I got older," Paul Thomas Anderson said, "I kept thinking, 'What is this Ghoulardi thing? What is it? What? What?' We went back to Cleveland once when I was 14 and we were mobbed at the airport by people chanting 'Ghoulardi! Ghoulardi!' And when I do interviews anywhere in the country, constantly, constantly, people who are enamored of my father or who grew up with him bring him up or even thank me for Ghoulardi!"

When Anderson was growing up, his dad was best known as the voice of ABC, and later the announcer on America's Funniest Home Videos.

Since Ernie Anderson's death three years ago from lung cancer, there have been Ghoulardi conventions and a book written about him. Drew Carey even dedicated an episode of his sitcom to Ghoulardi.

"But when I was a kid," Anderson remembered, "he used to tell me, 'I was a really big deal. No, really, I was!' I just couldn't fathom it. We lived in the San Fernando Valley [outside Los Angeles] and his existence was so pedestrian. He would just get up and go to this little recording studio and say a few words and come home."

Anderson's first experience behind a camera, though, was because of his dad.

"He worked on the technical side of ABC," he said, "and knew all these engineers and so he was privy to all these new kinds of VCRs that were coming out in the '70s. Some of those friends stole him a VCR from ABC, and we had a bootleg copy of Jaws. . . . That's how he got an early videocamera, and I think I just took it from him."

Anderson walked out of New York University film school after two days but later headed for Utah where he attended the Sundance Institute's filmmakers' workshop. In 1997 he made a huge critical splash with two movies: Hard Eight and Boogie Nights.

There's a scene in Boogie Nights where a kid heightens the tension of a drug deal by setting off firecrackers in the background. "As Ghoulardi, my dad blew models and stuff up with firecrackers, and that was certainly the inspiration for that scene."

In Magnolia, the estranged father-son relationship between Tom Cruise and Jason Robards is "not at all, not even close" to how Anderson and his father were. But as actor Philip Seymour Hoffman nursed Robards in the film, Anderson says he kept long vigils by his father's bed when he was sick.

"I'm only now starting to see how my dad influenced my work," Anderson said. "When I first saw a tape of his show I cracked up. Some of it was funny, and some of it was pretty bad, actually. But he loved the bad stuff and would comment on how bad it was. Every once and while, though, he would do something legitimately clever and inventive, and to me that was when he had the most important influence.

"What I do and what he did is so different, but he hated authority and he wanted to stir things up. And I hope my work always has that kind of spirit."

So as Magnolia begins, the following title card appears:

"A Ghoulardi Film Company Presentation."

37 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Great Article Image Processing Projects Deep Learning Projects for Final Year JavaScript Training in Chennai JavaScript Training in Chennai The Angular Training covers a wide range of topics including Components, Angular Directives, Angular Services, Pipes, security fundamentals, Routing, and Angular programmability. The new Angular TRaining will lay the foundation you need to specialise in Single Page Application developer. Angular Training Project Centers in Chennai

      Delete
  2. Hi, I am pleased to follow your website and get these all useful posts. Thank you so much and for you all the best. That is a great job.
    fmovies

    ReplyDelete
  3. Disini kami akan berbagi informasi tentang cara menggugurkan hamil dengan cepat dan akurat dengan menggunakan obat aborsi . Mungkin Anda adalah salah satu yang ingin mencari tahu obat penggugur kandungan yang aman dan terbukti ampuh , agar dapat membantu anda untuk melakukan proses cara mencegah kehamilan yang tidak Anda inginkan . Saat ini memang banyak sekali situs yang jual obat aborsi secara online . Namun anda harus lebih cermat dalam memilih . Misoprostol adalah obat menggugurkan kandungan terbaik untuk menginduksi rahim , dan ini bisa anda gunakan untuk memperlancar haid atau sebagai obat telat datang bulan untuk melakukan cara menggugurkan kandungan

    ReplyDelete


  4. A very nice website thanks for sharing such a great information with us.Thanks for sharing.
    Obat Nafas Ngos Ngosan
    Obat Kanker Tulang
    Obat Sekelan

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you, the article is very petrifying, hopefully it can be useful for everyone.

    Penyelamatan Serangan Jantung
    Anjuran Makanan untuk Penderita GERD

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hello.
    I read it well because you shared your article.
    This website is pretty tidy and easy to see.
    Thanks. 하노이 가라오케

    ReplyDelete
  7. What kind of brain do you got? This website and its content is really good, can u reply me ant tell me where do your inspiration come from?

    game tembak ikan

    game ikan

    Bandar judi Sepak Bola

    daftar joker123

    game tembak ikan

    Bandar judi Sepak Bola

    sabung ayam online

    ReplyDelete
  8. Its is very fascinating the way that this blog were made. i am very interested to view how do this blog were made.


    game ikan

    Bandar judi Sepak Bola

    download joker123

    game tembak ikan

    Bandar judi Sepak Bola

    sabung ayam online

    ReplyDelete





  9. شركة نقل عفش
    اهم شركات مكافحة حشرات بالخبر كذلك معرض اهم شركة مكافحة حشرات بالدمام والخبر والجبيل والخبر والاحساء والقطيف كذلك شركة رش حشرات بالدمام ومكافحة الحشرات بالخبر
    شركة مكافحة حشرات بالدمام
    شركة تنظيف خزانات بجدة الجوهرة من افضل شركات تنظيف الخزانات بجدة حيث ان تنظيف خزانات بجدة يحتاج الى مهارة فى كيفية غسيل وتنظيف الخزانات الكبيرة والصغيرة بجدة على ايدى متخصصين فى تنظيف الخزانات بجدة
    شركة تنظيف خزانات بجدة
    شركة كشف تسربات المياه بالدمام

    ReplyDelete
  10. Kami hadir untuk kalian semua yang ingin bermain game online 1 USER ID bisa bermain di banyak game yang kami sediakan dan juga sangat mudah di akses, dan tidak perlu untuk memindahkan coin jika mau bermain di game lainnya

    Bonus harian 10% untuk permainan slot online yang bisa kalian dapatkan hanya di agen kami, daftarkan diri kalian sekarang juga dan dapatkan bonusnya hanya di agen kami sekarang juga .

    KONTAK :
    WA : 081-2222-995
    LINE : cs_bolavita
    TELEGRAM : @bolavitacc

    https://linktr.ee/BVGaming30

    ReplyDelete
  11. SahabatQQ: Agen DominoQQ Agen Domino99 dan Poker Online Aman dan Terpercaya
    Website SahabatQQ
    WA 1 : +6281210795428
    WA 2 : +855889110527
    LINE : SAHABATQQWIN
    FACEBOOK : SahabatQQ Reborn
    Agen Domino99

    ReplyDelete