There and Back Again--a Fangirl's Tale, by Rose of Pollux

It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?  It’s been a year since our last post, and, goodness, do we apologize for that.  LuckyLadybug and I have been on several journeys through various fandoms within the last year.  My own path took me away from Simon for a while--specifically, first to 221 B Baker Street, and then to the TARDIS.  But here I am, back again.  There’s no way I could stay away.

One would wonder whether or not my forays into other fandoms would somehow dampen my ability to enjoy Simon and his characters.  The answer, of course, is a resounding no.  If anything, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who have allowed me to enjoy some of Simon’s roles even more than before.

How?  I’m glad you asked…

Let’s start with the example of Simon in Get Smart.  That was the first time I was ever introduced to Simon, and one of my favorite roles of his for that reason.  Some time ago, I had been rewatching that episode for nostalgia’s sake.  Nothing had ever been said about the final fate of Simon’s unnamed cowboy character--all we know is, according to Max, that he missed the truck of mattresses and fell five stories to the ground.  No possible way the poor Cowboy could survive a fall like that, right?  I assumed so… until I watched the finale of season 2 of BBC’s Sherlock.  If I learned anything from that episode, it’s that there’s every chance that the Cowboy could have survived his fall!  I’d like to think he did--that there’s a chance the story could continue…

Even more intriguing are the parallels between Simon’s Outer Limits appearance and Doctor Who; both Simon’s Empyrian character and the Doctor have the same basic modus operandi--try to stop an intergalactic cataclysm with the help of human companions.  On the surface, it seems that their methods of recruiting human companions are different; the Empyrian merely kidnaps them, while the Doctor invites them.  Intriguingly enough, though, if you look back at the First Doctor, before he mellowed out, he, like the Empyrian, kidnapped his first human companions in the very first episode of Doctor Who; even more intriguing is the fact that Simon’s episode of Outer Limits aired three and a half months after the first Doctor Who episode.

But, I digress.  Comparisons and parallels aside, the fact of the matter is that the one everlasting reason I keep coming back to Simon’s roles is because of how he breathed life into them--every well-chosen dialogue, every movement, every expression came together into creating unique characters each and every time.  No two of Simon’s characters are the same--not even the villains.  Even the villains who appeared on the same show were different; William Poole and Mel Barnes, despite being oneshot Bonanza characters, have notable differences.  You can feel some amount of sympathy for Poole (assuming you believe the idea that it was his girlfriend’s death that unhinged him), but Barnes gets no pity--nor deserves any.

Even the good guys have their differences.  Lieutenant Schrank and Tony Vincenzo are both men who are literally 500% done with the things (more specifically, the people) they have to put up with on a daily basis.  But while Schrank comes across as brash and biting, Tony is just a big teddy bear who’s way too nice for his own good.

Character actors play scores of roles in their careers; most of the time, their names are placed behind those of the starring roles, while, sometimes, they’re lucky enough to get a starring role.  Regardless of the role, their challenge is to make you remember them, whether they’re onscreen for just one scene or throughout the whole thing.  And Simon definitely succeeded; I never forgot that scheming Cowboy in the years between my first seeing him and then later discovering how wonderful Simon was.  And there won’t be a role of his that I’ll ever forget.

And that’s what will always keep me coming back.  It’s just a bit more obvious today, on what would’ve been his 98th birthday.

Happy Birthday, you wonderful man, you.

~Crystal Rose

The Comedic Side of Simon Oakland--Understated Humor at its Best

For my first official musing, I decided to muse about the comedic roles that Simon played (which, incidentally, happens to include my first encounter with him), and why I find them so appealing.

There are different kinds of humor in the world, but, by far, the most challenging kind of humor to present is the understated humor—making people laugh without actually acting crazy or resorting to random slapstick or jokes.  It takes talent; not everyone can pull off understated humor, but those who can do so with the ability to have you in stitches.  And Simon Oakland could.

Simon did this by always playing the straight man to whoever was sharing the scene with him.  Get Smart is a perfect example.  Simon’s cowboy character is best described as a “dying informant” (one of many “dying informants” in the series, I might add) when he desperately tries to communicate to Maxwell Smart about a KAOS plot.  In a comedic series, there generally is an opportunity for “dying informants” to ham it up with their waning breaths (and I’ve seen several that have—both in Get Smart and in another show where the situation was played for laughs), and while that can be amusing, Simon went with a different approach—he played his part of a “dying informant” as straight as possible.  And it worked.  He had a wonderful foil in Don Adams, who bounced off all of Simon’s seriously-delivered lines in a back-and-forth actors’ tennis match that was a joy and an amusement to watch.  Simon proved that a “dying informant” does not have to be melodramatic to get laughs.  And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was this skill in understated humor that made me adore this episode for the longest time.

In pretty much all of the comedic roles I’ve seen him play, Simon plays them as straight as possible while still making them funny.  Two examples that come to mind are as Lieutenant Murphy in the pilot episode of My Favorite Martian and Mr. Cordner in the Car 54, Where are You? episode “Hail to the Chief.”  Once against playing opposite wonderful foils that complimented him, Simon made the roles of these exasperated authority figures believable and hilarious—you can see them try to maintain some level of sanity when all seems to be going crazy around them.  And it’s hilarious.

One of my favorite comedic roles that Simon has played is the crafty casino owner Nick from Follow that Dream.  Simon’s foil here was none other than the King of Rock & Roll himself—the interaction between Simon’s serious, calculating character and Elvis’ laid-back, naïve character is done marvelously. Elvis’ character, Toby, is also humorous without even trying too hard.  It’s not even a battle of wits—Nick tries a variety of schemes to get Toby out of his hair, and Toby’s naïve innocence baffles and frustrates Nick to no end.  It culminates into a magnificently hilarious scene where both actors keep the straightest of faces—though the audience will find it impossible to keep one themselves.

But, by far, the best foil that Simon Oakland had was Darren McGavin, for both drama and comedy.  True, Kolchak is not a comedic series per se, but the most humorous parts of any episode (and the pre-series movies—particularly the sequel) was the banter between Tony Vincenzo and Carl Kolchak.  The ending of The Night Strangler proves this perfectly—you have Carl in his car, monologing into his tape recorder, and you assume he’s alone… but then you suddenly hear Tony grousing in the background—cue the camera pulling back to reveal Tony there, on what is promising to be a very long road trip indeed, without ever overstating the comedic angle—it’s just so believable and amusing.  The series proper has many examples, as well—the looks of annoyance on their faces as one of their many arguments gets interrupted by the roar of a passing train, another argument in the middle of a ransacked office, a series of long-distance arguments over the telephone, and Carl coming to the rescue after Tony’s latest attempt at yoga ended with him getting stuck in the Lotus Pose, to name but a few.  And, in all cases, the humor is never overstated—even something like the aforementioned Lotus Pose fiasco could’ve easily been hammed up for all it was worth, but that’s not what Simon and Darren did.  And how they kept it to be so understated, yet still hilarious, takes talent.  Of course, the chemistry between Simon and Darren had a lot to do with how this understated humor worked so well, but that is a musing for another time.

But, when all is said and done, it becomes clear that Simon’s skill at being able to make people laugh with understated humor is a very special gift.  Understated humor is the most realistic, in my opinion—we don’t go through life laughing at people hamming it up or constantly tripping over things; we go through life laughing mostly at the little things, the understated things.  Perhaps this is one of the main reasons Simon appealed to me so much as an actor—his comedic roles are a window to what is amusing in life.

 ~Crystal Rose