CheapShow - Ep 181: Winkie: The Untold Story

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

It's the greatest story NEVER told... Until Now! To celebrate CheapShow's 5th Birthday, Eli and Paul present a very special (and very long) edition of the economy comedy podcast. It's the "as-complete-as-we-can-tell-it" tale of the failed attempt to market a piece of wearable technology, a mysterious nightclub owner with big ideas, the lives of 12 strangers taking part in a 6 month endurance competition, an obscure piece of French pop and the two idiotic podcast hosts who try to piece it all together. What was "Winkie"? Well, it's time to tell The Untold Story... Strap In! With BIG thanks to Jeff Olan, Penny Floyd, Laurent De Gasperis for agreeing to chat with us for the show and to Ken Reid and Mark Crosby for their contributions to the episode. Podcast Art @Vorratony And if you like us, why not support us: www.patreon.com/cheapshow Share & Enjoy. Photos/Videos for this episode can be seen at https://www.thecheapshow.co.uk/ep-181-winkie-the-untold-story If you want to get involved, email us at [e-mail] And if you have to, follow us on Twitter @thecheapshowpod or @paulgannonshow & @elisnoid @hossrudson @KennethWReid Like, Review, Share, Comment... LOVE US! AWARDS: Vote Now @projectcheapsk8 https://tinyurl.com/cca2020vote2 MERCH Www.cheapmag.shop www.tinyurl.com/rbcheapshow Paul is writing a book! Want to help make it happen? https://unbound.com/books/ghosts/

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It's just a fact of cheap show you're going to have to learn to fucking accept. Cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap Cheap Show It's the price of shite Paul Gannon Eli Silverman. Welcome to Cheap Show. And I go and I nuzzle.

Hello, welcome to Cheap Show. It's a very special edition of the podcast. I'm Paul Gannon. I'm Eli Silverman. This is the Winky Special. It's the Winky Special, which sounds a little bit weird without context birthday special it's our birthday winky special i'd like so with the i'd like something done to my winky on your birthday yeah is this really the time and the place to put a request out it's not sorry can you go on paul you go on sorry so to celebrate five years of this bloody podcast's existence, we thought we would spend one episode talking about something that came into our lives about a year or so ago

and has lingered ever since, and it is the Winky. In episodes 114 and 115, Eli went vinyl shopping, and what did you come across? Well, a magazine, but then i went out to the shop and uh great so you know when i said before we started recording we're going to keep this reasonably moderate so newcomers would would find it appealing and not just quickly go into the spoff give me two okay i'm sorry yourself mate you're getting excited i'm sorry okay yeah so there is uh obviously long-time listeners will know pa Paul, there is a section of the show, Silverman's Platters, where we try and find unusual and novelty records.

It's one of the things we do, isn't it? I mean, years ago, before even the podcast, I had a character called Mike Elanius, who was like a specialty novelty and crap record DJ. Yeah, and you used to play them at the Geekatorium comedy nights and you would kind of emcee the interval. Yeah, that's right. So I've always had an interest, especially for seven inches that are unusual, novelty or one-off tie-in things. I like tie-in records and stuff. So on the day in question, I was in Reckless Records. I like the fact that you're talking like you're a defence in a court case or something. On the day in question, Your Honour. Reckless Records in Soho, which you know, they are actually an excellent record shop

and they have a miscellaneous section. They've got a comedy, comedy exotica miscellaneous section where you find a lot of these weird records and they're reasonably priced. And on that day, Winky winked ated at me i thought what on earth is that and the sticker the sticker that they put on in the record shop in reckless said french electro so i was intrigued i was intrigued by the cover and uh by the promise of french electro because it's a good genre so fair enough i didn't know and i think it was three pounds or 350 so not you know not dirt cheap but it was in very good condition uh and has a lovely it's a very striking

album a single cover because it is of this microchip face with a red eye and a green eye you know and i can imagine that being eye popping to some extent yeah it is very it is it's a very eye-catching um design that's for sure um which is what they all thought must have thought at the time mustn't they because they thought this is going to sell because it's so sort of uh it's well branded i just think the issue uh more than anything else is the product itself you know i mean like well yeah and this is where this is where we're getting to because what began as a find for the vinyl segment of the cheap show podcast turned into a rabbit hole that kept getting deeper and deeper and odder and more random the more we looked basically we

noticed we noticed when we were reviewing the record that there was a trademark next to the winky the title winky didn't we so yeah and that that was the really was the the little clue that that opened the rabbit hole so to speak wasn't it that was because that was such a strange metaphor that i'm not sure if it was sounded filthy or not it could it be. I'm restraining myself, Paul. This is serious, Eli. I'm not going to say anything about getting a vice and leveraging open a lovely wet rabbit hole or anything like that. Right, so we are going to move on

and explain to you that this episode, then, is an exploration of the mystery of a French single, the confusion of a pointless toy, the madness of a French single, the confusion of a pointless toy, the madness of a promotional enterprise, the famous people who walk in and out of the story randomly, the people upon it. We are going to spend all of this week's birthday episode talking about Winky, the story that I'm surprised no one knows about, considering.

Another thing that occurred to me, Paul, about Winky, the story that I'm surprised no one knows about, considering. Another thing that occurred to me, Paul, is Winky slang for a penis all over the world, or is it just British? I think it's a British thing, but I also presume it probably travels very easily and is understandable. Yeah, it's got a certain ring to it that makes it sound like a penis word, doesn't it? Yeah, because there are people we speak to throughout the course of this episode. We have interviews, and we have clips and all sorts. But they all come across like, yes, it was kind of a dumb name.

Yeah. But it did also sell the product. So with that said, Eli, are you ready to begin? I'm ready to do a deep dive into the Winky with you, Paul, on our birthday. Really? Let's go. Let's deep dive into the Winky, out the rabbit hole,

round the Winky hole. All dance round the Winky hole. You know what? You could have said yes, Eli. That would have been perfectly fine. Yes! In that case, in that case,

strap in, ladies and gentlemen, it's going to be a long one. This is the story of Winky. Right, so to tell this story, Mr. Silverman, I have to start in the way a podcast we're both fond of would start themselves. As in, we're going to rip off the dollop, basically. You're going to shout a date, are you? Here we go. You ready?

Yeah. 1955. Or 54, we're not quite sure is where this story begins. But I think it's 1955. 54. I think it's 1954. We don't have an actual date. No. We have 1954.

That's when we presume the man behind this story was born. So in 1954, Lawrence Lynn was born to Robert and Betty Lynn. Now, before we go any further, Eli, very little about Dr. Winky Lawrence Lynn is known, other than the reports about him and his own self-promotion. Okay. Now, why does he have it? If I'm right in thinking, he's Chinese and his parents are both Chinese. Is that right?

They are. But this is where a lot of guessing comes in, because I've read a lot of articles and if we quoted every single one we'd be here all night but I pieced together that Robert and Betty Lynn Chinese maybe they changed their name to fit in and be more American after the second world war it sounds like they they chose anglicized names now there's nothing on Robertbert lynn that i could find but betty lynn we do know made her own fortune in the printing industry okay but that's in the states all we know the states on the west coast of the states in the states yeah we believe san francisco at this point but we're not sure because again everything i don't know for a fact is a guess at this point so the reason i could put

this together is because in 2000, there was an independent news article, right? And this article was about the singer, Eddie Fisher. Do you remember Eddie Fisher, a singer? Popular in the 50s? I remember Climby Fisher. No, this is...

What was that Climby Fisher one? That's good. Climby Fisher's good. Can we stay on topic, please? No. Out of all the episodes, we need to focus Give me an example of an Eddie Fisher song

Eddie Fisher songs I'm using Google on the fly Cindy, oh Cindy, I'm walking behind you Oh my papa I don't know Eddie Fisher, a popular singer Very, very rich with a string of women behind him Apparently he was married to Debbie, Debbie Reynolds.

Okay. And cheated on Debbie Reynolds with Elizabeth Taylor. Okay. Eddie and Debbie's child was Carrie Fisher, Star Wars. Oh. Princess Leia. Okay.

Now, now. And she said, and she said if she knew about her dad's sexual activity, she'd have her DNA fumigated. I think that's what she said. Really? Because he,

it all came out later, did it? How much he was sleeping around. Yeah. Okay. So eventually, at some point, Eddie Fisher and Betty Lynn married. So we don't know what happened to Robert. Maybe he died. It was a divorce.

We don't know. But Betty Lynn married Eddie Fisher. So this is after Lawrence was born, obviously. Lawrence is the son of... Much later, yeah. He is the son of much later yeah he is he is the son of robert and betty but betty's betty was the was the the money maker in that marriage she was it was her business is that right we can only presume as we go on to find in this story lawrence lynn i mean look reading between

the lines of some of the stories that i've read about lawrence lynn like he it looks like he was at least affluent obviously he lived a very affluent lifestyle. But at the same time, he seemed to be well-educated and quite clever. He went to a very, you know, good school. And from what we can gather... Now, what I also think is that he used his mum's money to pay for a lot of follies.

Yes. Business enterprises, you know, things that he could potentially try out because he's rich and why not try it? Classic baby boomer yeah pretty much actually and funnily enough when it comes to him it's like there's not much about what he did beforehand i checked his records on a website and a reader got in touch with me who i've forgotten the name of now who sent me a lot of information about him and it looks like he had

business after business after business open and close open and close okay you know he's had he's had an interesting life in terms of his businesses you know and that does suggest that he just had some kind of uh inexhaustible pot of money to keep uh keep opening these businesses well you know as we'll find out he certainly had enough to throw around because it's it's alluded to that even though Lawrence owned these practices, the money came from his mum. But this is kind of hearsay on my part, judged on what I've read. At some point, though, he wants to open a nightclub in San Francisco. And in 1985, he opens what became known as the famous DV8 Club in San Francisco. But what I didn't know about it was apparently,

and this is another character who will pop in and out of the story, but Keith Haring, the artist, baptized the venue when it opened in 1984 with a massive load of murals, and it became known as the place where dance music was born in San Francisco. It's like, that's where dance music came from Europe over to the

East Coast through to the West Coast. It was popularized at that venue. And when you say dance, you mean, when did he open? what year did he open dva 1985 okay so we're well into the house early house music era yeah it's not dance music had been big in frisco let me tell you paul for a year from you know for years and years yeah because you've got the huge gay community and the gay community uh was one one of the uh scenes where where disco emerged from so you know it's got what i'm saying is there's a pedigree of of dance music in frisco before 85 that's what i'm okay but what i'm saying is like it became the home

to it and think of it as like the hacienda of san francisco it was the hippest club it was the studio 54 and that well we're going to get into that because just to give you a bit of reference, there's a Rolling Stones article from, I think, the late 80s. I can't remember the context of it now, but it says this little quote. Up on the West Coast, Dr. Winky has been throwing one big party at his 20,000-square-foot club, DV8, since 1986. A San Francisco native and a college dropout. Ah, well, there you go, college dropout ah well there you go college

dropout lawrence lynn made his first million in the printing business when he was 23 and went on to invent the winky okay a red and green microchip for the lapel his mom was his mom was his mom was in the in the printing business as well we can presume he was given a role in it somewhere made his own money somehow maybe she gifted him a business yeah here's the interesting thing that i think paints a bit more about his character it says recently he bought the doobie brothers tour plane and built a restaurant the caribbean zone in and around it but dr winky still spends every night at the dv8 club everyone thinks it's very glamorous work he says you try staying up late with people it tends tends to be hard work. Yeah. Hard work, which is alleviated, the tiredness at least, by cocaine. Yes.

By copious amounts of cocaine. Now. Oh, it's hard work. For whatever reason. What hard work it is. I get up at six in the evening, go over to my club, do a gram and fucking get pissed. I'm blown by a prosy. I'm weeping for you,rence hard-working rich boy well here's the thing right it it feels like as we'll discover in this story

i think dr winky liked being an outsider but of just a very affluent outsider i think he reveled in being the alternative to what was popular and trying to create his own i get the impression that on the east coast of america when like you know that mondo new york movie was released looking into the kind of underground life of the artists on you know in soho and things like that where people like um you know divine or rupal probably started out at that time i get the impression he wanted to bring that over to the West Coast in San Francisco. So I think the reason why he started getting involved with people like Keith Haring was because he liked the association.

And Keith Haring very much in that New York scene, wasn't he? The 80s New York scene. Yeah. I mean, we will cover him in a bit more detail later on the story. There's an article from 1986, The Sentinel, in LA, and it's specifically about the nightclub scene in San Francisco at this time.

I'm not going to read all of it out. I'll read the opening bit. It goes, Dr. Winky has unveiled a new nightclub called DV8 at 540 Howard. Winky plans an eight-room, three-floor, glitz, emporial,

I can't even say that, emporium slated. Emporium slated. Emporium slated. I can't even say that emporium slated emporium slated emporium slated I can't just say the whole sentence again I'm not going to say them again at all to be fair at this point

Fridays through Sundays a spot Winky hopes will provide an internationally established dance place here in San Francisco but what the article goes on to say is that what makes his nightclub better is that it's more exclusive it will cost you ten dollars a pop on friday and saturday nights and eight dollars every other night now we're talking

1986 so that's quite costly yeah especially if you want the 450 general membership and then there's a vip you know? So it's like a subscription service to be part of this scene. But again, Paul, again, this just makes me think he was kind of ahead of his time. This is just like,

you know, like the, the fire festival or something like that. It's this, this sort of people getting into the act of selling luxury, you know, selling the idea of exclusivity rather than being a grassroots you know that he was so into dance music or he was so into the you know anything else it just

seems seems like a ploy well this is the thing it's there's a publicist and there's a character i think will pop in and out later in the story called jennifer jones who was laurence lynn's lackey which i shouldn't have chosen as a sentence. But she would be, I believe, like his right-hand man in all of this. And they talk about the article where it's very secretive. At this point in time, the club is just about to open. It's very secretive. And what year is this? 86?

86. And when was the Winky toy first introduced? Well, again, this is the timeline, isn't it? We're talking 84 was when the competition started. 85 was when it kind of ran its course. So the club happened after the Winky episode. Or at the same time. This is where, without racing ahead in the story,

the timeline's all a bit fudged as to when and what happened, right? Okay. It goes on to say, when it came to who's allowed in, Winky said, they have to be beautiful, act beautifully, and kie themselves off with beauty. This isn't meant to be discriminatory, but we're just trying to create an atmosphere conducive to the public we wish to have.

Yeah, okay, yeah. That's, yeah, well done. Yeah, that's very good. Yeah, do you see what I mean? It's also surfacy. It's also like, he's a sham. It goes on to say. He's a scam artist.

Well, is he a scam artist? Or is he just an idealist with too much money and not enough business sense? Because that kind of feels more accurate. For me, wanting to sell something just off the back of it being exclusive and that's the main thing you're buying you're buying the feeling of exclusivity or the feeling of you know being with the well it's like a kickstarter yeah if this was today he'd be doing a kickstarter winky campaign you know it's like it's all those people who go, my Kickstarter campaign is I'm going to give you a watch with no clock face on it,

just so you don't have to think about time. You think, it's that kind of thing. If he was opening this club today, he'd have all the Instagram models all, you know, adorned over some kind of plexiglass stage, you know, I don't know, pouring champagne over their young nubile bodies maybe rubbing their groins together tastefully all right calm down mate calm down pg pg mate is it

have we gone pg uh no but paul another point i'd just like to make quickly is this whole thing with the club as well as well as the art winky idea it seems slightly ahead of its time his ideas do seem do you know what i mean like like well like there's a sense of pt barnum to it yeah but his ideas do seem to be for running trends that became much bigger you know well the article goes on to say winky has definitely paid plenty for the club's look a combination of trump leo morals faux marble columns walnut and wood bars and chandeliers, all in the Keith Haring room where live acts will perform. There's an act who works, who will become famous for the venue called Tom Sex, I think his name is. There's an exclusivity to some of the bars, like some floors you can't get into without the VIP access.

There are other opposing comments in this article from other nearby bars saying it's not competition because it's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous venue. So we're going to keep things open and public and nice and affordable. For the common party people. However, if you do want to go to DV8, it says in the article, ordinary folk can buy tickets to a live event for alternative acts like opening entertainer New York's John Sex, German industrial noise band Estre Zenf, Nubatten, and rocker Charlie Sexton,

to name a few. Why are they all called Sex? Mr. Sex, John Sex. Who's the next act? The Sexos. What's coming up? Yeah. Sex Boy featuring Sex with Sex-o- boy featuring sex with with yeah it's sex

edgelordy yeah well you know what i mean it feels a little bit edge lordy so paul was um lynn what was his sexual orientation was he an out um gay man or was he well here's the thing all i can tell you from another article um was that there was a second wedding the first we'll get to in time but there was a second wedding at the dv8 club okay and that was for him and a lady called uh i can't remember her first name i've written the name down kong her surname okay and so there was a marriage between these kong family and the lynn family and it took place at the dv8 bar so he did have children i believe he hasn't had spouses so it's the 80s he might have had a bit of fun but as far as i know no i was

just wondering what family man what his deal was vis-a-vis that and the club wasn't wasn't an exclusive just because i know san francisco's got the biggest gay you know scene in the in the us doesn't it so i'm just wondering what the what the sort of I'm just wondering what was going on with that. Well, then it goes on to talk about Herring's influence on the fact that his murals were used throughout the venue, and famously so. The story goes, and I don't want to read the article because it's very long, but the story goes that

Herring agreed to do a mural. Lawrence Lynn didn't really pay him, other than maybe in drugs and the exposure. But when he thought it was going agreed to do a mural lawrence lynn didn't really pay him other than maybe in drugs and the exposure but when he thought it's going to be a small mural and lawrence lynn went no do the whole wall then he got the bargain of it was called the keith herring lounge and things like that but it was like full of his art the pop art style that he was famous for again we see this pattern with lynn though of not paying you know yeah we'll we'll get to that where it's considering he's rich he

doesn't like spending his own money he aren't he doesn't one of the murals was a cartoony five panel configuration figure featuring three-eyed and three-breasted monsters gobbling serpents with my male genitalia in fact madcap new york sex exhibitionist john sex noted later from the stage it's nice to see famous people painting penises don't you think I wish there was more of it well good good on you John Sex no but I think do they still exist

these murals does the club still exist well again we'll come to that at a certain point but the article talking about those murals we get the impression that basically lawrence lynn nicked them and they're probably in storage right now somewhere wow you know so at this point that's where lawrence lynn is in his life it's 85 he's got this dv8 club and around that time or just before winky happens and we're not sure if winky was meant to help with

the club or whether it was another little side project. But at some point. But was he known as Dr. Winky before Winky? This is, we don't know. I can't say for sure. This is one of the big unexplained mysteries of this whole story, Paul. Why was he Dr. Winky? He's already known as Dr. Winky when it, because Winky happened before.

So he must have become Dr. Winky after Winky started, after he birthed Winky. My belief belief other than you trying to just cram in the word winky as many times as possible i'm being serious my belief is that i think he saw winky as a brand he would be brand dr winky there would be winky stuff clothing fashion you know what i mean i get the impression he was trying to be as you say forward thinking tech as fashion yes Mr Winky as a brand dance music this nightclub I think it all kind of came at the same time and I believe it was all meant to work together as one big brand whole

right so yeah it's it's unified if he's known as Dr Winky but I wish there'd been some kind of medical aspect to uh where's the doctor bit come from? Well, it might be that it's a doctorate of the fine arts. You know what I mean? He might be an expert at Winkies.

So I don't know. Well, wouldn't it be good if Winky, as well as being your friend who was a little robot, it could also sort of diagnose minor ailments or something like that? Well, we have that now in many respects. We do. We've got fit bits and stuff so it's all like all that kind of stuff yeah it's interesting isn't it how it was the forerunner but it was like just the idea and none of the actual yeah it was all mouth and no trousers

yeah totally well in that case ladies and gentlemen let's talk about winky because now it's time to talk about a toy you probably don't remember. So what is Winky? We found the song. We discovered our route through the story is different from the way we're telling the story today. But we found the song, then we found out what the song was about. And it was about a toy called Winky, a computer friendship. And on the front package, it just says, pin on and wear anywhere, microlights, flash red and green, official user's guide included,

replaceable batteries included. And effectively, what it is, is a small square badge that looks like, and if you want to go to our website, thecheapshow.co.uk, you're going to see video clips and pictures that accompany everything we're talking about today. There's a whole stash of images you can enjoy looking at as you listen to this, if you so desire. But the Winky Badge is an electronic little microchip face, two little flashing lights, and you pin it on you, and it's got little... Effectively, what happens is it's got some kind of microchip in, and when you wear the badge, the contacts on the four corners bump against your clothing and change the flashing pattern of the eyes.

That's essentially the toy. And we love it. You know, it's a tiny little thing. It comes on this little gatefold packaging. Inside is the most enormous amount of claptrap about what this toy is. So in the early 80s, because of the changes in how you can make toys, toys became more gimmicky. What changes do you mean, Paul? Toys used to be cardboard and wood, right? Maybe metal. But when plastics became more adaptable, then board games changed and toys changed.

So you're talking about actual technological advances and material advances? Yeah. One guy at some point invents a craze in the US called a pet rock. And it's a rock in a box and it's a pet it does nothing but it was absolutely sodding huge yeah you got you got a birth certificate you got certification with it didn't you and and like a guide how to feed it or whatever as well didn't you all stupid stuff yeah so basically with the pet rock i think winky said i can do better but because i'm dr winky i going to add technology to it.

You know, you've also got to remember, like at the early 80s, electronic toys were coming into fashion. It was like the video game era before the crash, you know. So we had Ataris in people's homes and arcades filled with things, you know. Totally. Everything was like Tron. Yes. And I think this toy was designed to tap into it. Now, what we don't know is who made it, who designed it.

We can only guess that maybe Lawrence Lin designed it, but whether he had the wherewithal. It was his patent. He owned the whole concept and idea, didn't he? There is no patent. There was a trademark for it, but there's no patent for the actual design. Okay.

Right? So that says one thing to me. To me, and I might be wrong, is that this is technology he bought somewhere. You know, like an accidental invention, like, I don't know, Post-it notes, where someone tried to invent a glue and it wasn't strong enough. But hey, maybe it can work for notes. And then I think maybe someone invented this little microchip, realised it was pointless. Well, it's essentially...

And maybe Lawrence Lynn stepped... Essentially, but it's like a switch, isn't it? So it's just a component that would be part of all sorts of electronic devices. And the material itself, the face of the badge, the face of Winky, is just a bit of circuit board, isn't it, essentially? Yes. And I think that it's just a standard piece. So it could be that, Paul,

that it was invented and it was useless and then it was just picked up by Lin. But it also could be to do with there being an excess job lot of bits of circuit board or something. Or just, you know what I mean? The materials, they could have a surplus of some materials

and just think, what the fuck are we going to do with all these two million electric switches I've got? do you know what i mean well exactly and he and maybe laurence lynn said i'll tell you what i've got this i've drawn a face of a microchip i'll slap it on the front and we'll yeah come up with the last later it could be your theory or it could be my theory or it could be a combination of both those reasons couldn't it it's just it it's fascinating all we know is that he set up a company called Extronics Inc.

and then a company called Winky Inc. as well to promote and make this. I know how to make Winky Inc. Now, here's the interesting thing, and this is where, once again, the timeline gets on my tits with this story. Okay. Because we know the events to come started in 84.

We know the club opened in 85, but was open on the 86. The trademark for this wasn't until October 1st, 1985. So months after all the crazy events that took place. So it's like he tried to trademark it when it wasn't being successful. But also the Winky existed at least a year before, because the billboard, the Xtronics billboard, was advertising Winky. In December 84. So for whatever reason, maybe it took a long time to get it done.

Maybe he didn't know he had to do it. I'll tell you why, Paul, because he was off his head on cocaine. That's right. Well, okay, I'll be honest. I'm looking at the US Patent and Trademark Office and it says he filed it in March of 85, which is right in the middle of the promotion. Right.

But it wasn't given the thumbs up until October. Yeah, it's just something you have to do, isn't it? You have to get it trademarked and it's not at the top of your list if you're just trying to do a wild P. barnum and just get it you know you can you can iron out the details afterwards can't you i think he wanted to he wanted to push it first obviously also it's worth bearing in mind that uh you know he got the patent for this or the trademark sorted whilst in the promotion by time it was rat you know it was given the thumbs up, the toy was dead.

Yeah. But I don't think there's reasons for that. And the reasons are it's a terrible toy. It is and it isn't because we fell in love with it. When I decided to go online and buy one from this guy on eBay, I got one and I kind of fell in love with it. It is cute.

The logo, the design of it is eye catching and kind of you know as jewelry it has a certain charm but as a toy uh yeah it's terrible interestingly you couldn't call it a toy he filed it as a trademark he did it he did it as wearable jewelry yeah so he did file it on the jewelry and also wearable jewelry as opposed to uh the jewelry you just put on the table. Yeah. All right. I get it. Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out.

Is that what it's called? Wearable tech, you mean? Right. Wearable tech. Wearable jewellery. I've bought some of these new type of clothes, Paul. Wearable ones. Right.

Okay. We want to move on. All right. Sorry. Do you want to move on? Because what I want to do is right now turn this podcast into the 18 rated version to put you in your place. All right, sorry.

For being a nice boy. Sorry. So anyway, we fell in love with the toy. You know, we started talking about it on the podcast. And, you know, you look at the packaging for it. And we're not going to read it all out now. There are pictures on the website. But basically, it invents this whole character, what it does, how it behaves, how you can live with it.

You know, it doesn't do anything. No. No, it but it doesn't do anything no no mate you can't do anything sexual with this unless you have a big thing about penises and meters well you could wedge it in your meters or in your ass right moving on but paul paul isn't some of some of the stuff on the on the gatefold packaging that it comes in yeah isn't that sort of saying oh you can ask it questions or it you know or what does it say it's random and it's flashing depending on how you use the contacts but it kind of wants to say if it's red flashing on its own it says this if it's green flashing on its own it means that so if they're both flashing at this time it does this it's kind of making it

like feel like a language but it's just random nonsense. And also, it's got so many elements of other toys in it. Because it's like an 8-ball, a magic 8-ball, or one of those fish. You know, the fortune-telling fish as well. It's got that aspect to it, doesn't it? As well as being sort of like a bit computer gamery. Yeah. And also a bit like jewellery. It's just such a strange amalgamation of different trends.

Yeah. And again, it's like you're meant to remember, it's not only is it fashion, but it's technology. Oh, it's the future. It's not, but that's the conceit. I'll tell you what, I'll read you one part of the packaging. The Winky Ownership Agreement, right? Here's what it says. right here's what it says extronics inc hereby grants ownership of said friendly microchip winky to the following person who agrees to befriend care for and bring up the aforementioned chip

oh yeah i promise to the highest standards of morality emotional stability and social equality fucking hell they had high hopes they had high hopes for winky didn't they he was going to solve the fucking world's problems. Not even Tamagotchis get this much respect, and they poo and die. Now, also, that copy that you just read out, Paul, is very reminiscent of the whole pet rock thing, isn't it? Like, you care for your pet rock, and, you know, trying to sort of give it an official beingness, almost, saying it's a being, it's a little being, you know?

But it's not. It's like, on the back it says, get your Winky to wash your hamster, clean closet wash your hamster what the fuck is going on does it say wash your hamster paul i've known hamster owners for all my life i've never heard about them washing it they have they take their own baths what What is going on? Wash your hamster. Use your winky to wash your hamster. God, shut up. This is the kind of copy you write when you are off your sparkling tits on Coke, isn't it? It so is.

It so is. It's a Coke product. Basically, to cut a long story short, a few months later, a guy who listens to the podcast called Ross Hudson very kindly sent you and i our own winkies bespoke winkies that again pictures on our website that he managed to i don't know what you call backwards engineer his own badge essentially he did backward engineer it

because he this is what i mean about it being quite a standard configuration on on the actual uh chip on the on the chipboard. So here's the thing. I spoke to him about this because I wanted to know what he figured out. And he said, I don't have too much to say, but he sent me this. Now, I'm going to say off the top of my head, I don't know anything of what he's talking about right now, but it makes sense to him and it might make sense to others listening. So when I asked him about the makeup of it, the technological makeup of it, he went, and this is what he said.

It's quite technically impressive that it operates on just three volts. My guess is that the circuit inside the chip on board is a flip-flop multivibrator based on CMOS logic. Would you like to make a joke about multivibrator flip-flop? I don't need to, I just say. All right, moving on. CMOS, which I don't know what that is, was around well before the 80s, but it was quite expensive and almost definitely wouldn't have been used in toys.

In 1984, I think it was still newfangled to some degree. TTL is the more traditional cheaper logic family, but it uses comparatively a lot of power and couldn't operate at that lower voltage at the time, as far as I'm aware. a lot of power and couldn't operate at that lower voltage at the time as far as i'm aware also leds are also quite expensive at the time and not something you would typically expect to be in a toy so thank you ross hudson you can follow him on twitter at hoss rudson if you wish to and thank you for the badges they are excellent the badges are amazing and they have little upgrades on the original don't they because they have a little switch an actual little switch you've got it so you can put it on the contacts or you can put it on uh just flashing green red it's interesting what he says about them being very expensive at the time and he and what he's saying there essentially paul as well is that he can't really figure out how they got a battery

powerful enough for that because his version is much larger at least twice the size of your original winkies but they are lovely and they have my name on and it's like a unique bespoke winky i i treasure we've got a nice little winky collection between the vinyl and the badges and all the little bits and bobs we've got and a few other surprises which we'll get into later what i will do to end this segment off though briefly is just to mention that you know at this point he has to sell the damn thing and we do know it wasn't sold nationally it was sold only on the west coast sorry the other point i was going to say is that it seems to me a little clue about why it failed so spectacularly is because of uh budgets and overheads because ross was saying

they were very expensive so perhaps it you know it looks like it didn't make sense in terms of a unit price sort of proposition. And that's it. Selling it on a loss, but hopefully the publicity that he was going to drum up for it would sell it. So it'll be the Rubik's Cube of 1985 or whatever. It's like, all we do know,

all we do know is that it was only sold at the billboard, which we're going to get to next, or in kind of smaller convenience store chains and things like that right so it was a small you know release only a few shops were selling it so dr winky how do you sell this damn thing well he had a genius idea and that's where we're going to next. So, he's got the badge. He's got probably a few retailers willing to sell it. But how do you promote it?

You can't really go on national TV. Maybe he didn't have the budget to make an advert for it. We don't know. But we do know that at some point he decided to revolutionize the flagpole sitter. So it was a variation on a theme. Maybe. It's become quite common practice now with competitions like Touch the Truck, where you get 30 volunteers to put their hand on a truck and the last one standing wins the truck. So it could take days, it could take weeks, you know.

So it's an endurance test but that's what pole sitting was always wasn't it people tried to break a record by living on a pole for as long as possible yeah if you there's a great episode of the dollop all about it but effectively yeah it was a craze in the early 20th century where people just sat on the top of a flag pole for ages you know yeah it's like it's a different time. But also, Paul, I think the history of that as an activity goes back a lot further to holy men. Holy men or ascetics who used to do it as part of being like a monk or whatever, you know?

Yeah. Weren't there stories of monks' bodies being found where they kind of self-mummified or something? On top of a pole, yeah. On top of a thing. Right, yeah. The way that, you know, like a Sufi or something, someone will go, you know, a guru type will go into a cave.

They used to go on top of poles as well. Well, so somehow, some way, Dr. Winky decided to promote this in the best way possible. And to be fair, the idea he had is kind of genius. What he decided to drum up was an idea where on Sunset's trip, he would buy or rent a massive billboard and then there would be an

endurance competition where people would live on the billboard for as long as possible and the last man or woman standing will win the prize of I think it was a car and a screen test. Things we'll probably get to in a little while. And cash money as well.

What's interesting is I found an article from, again, Rolling Stone, funnily enough, from February 1985, talking about Sunset Strip. And today, well, 85, billboards on Sunset Strip tell a more eclectic story. So it's kind of like a history of Sunset Strip, specifically a certain area of Sunset Strip tell a more eclectic story so it's kind of like a history of Sunset Strip specifically a certain area

of Sunset Strip because it goes on for miles but the place we all know about is where the nightclubs are No I didn't know that Chateau Mormont I didn't know that

so it's like it goes on for a long time and there's different bits of it Basically there's a stretch of it which is known because it has Tower Records on one road it has the Viper Club

it's got all those kind of places That's the strip Playboy offices were there i think as well yes but what it became also known for was its billboards which were huge and as the years gone on they were great for advertising movie events and things the article says it is billboards not buildings that give the strip its special character and its special place in 20th century americana although the rock revolution of the 1960s and 70s billboards advertised the latest Billboard's not buildings that give the strip its special character and its special place in 20th century Americana. Although the rock revolution of the 1960s and 70s, Billboard advertised the latest rock albums and loomed over the strip like alien creatures. They were enormous, oversized, the world's largest no doubt, and their colours and images were electric in both intensity and impact. The strip was a living museum to contemporary music, its face undergoing the equivalent of radical plastic surgery with every fluctuation

of the Billboard Top 100. Times and billboards change and last year the most striking billboard on the strip featured a car. Not a photograph of a car, but an actual car dangled from the side of a billboard with a working engine.

The car has long since been the quintessential symbol of Los Angeles, because obviously you need to get around. It's Freeway City, and it's the world's biggest parking lot. Now, this is where it starts talking about Winky, because randomly the story just popped up. So this year, the article says, the most striking billboard on the strip featured human beings,

live human beings. This billboard advertises something called winky whatever that is yeah yeah exactly whatever the fuck that is dismissed and bears sturdy scaffolding to support the many would-be actors and actresses who've entered the 85 equivalent of flagpole sitting they aspire to fame and fortune and spend weeks at a time sitting on the platform that runs along the bottom of the billboard whoever sits there the longest is supposed to win amongst other things a screen test so that's that bit of the article interesting do you know what occurred to me just then it's the way the the writer says winky whatever that is it's yeah that there's an inherent problem with this competition to live on top of the billboard being a promotion for Winky because they're completely unconnected conceptually.

And do you know what I mean? It's bad. It's bad marketing. It says a lot about fads of the time, meaning that they haven't heard about it. So who gives a fuck? And also there'll be something bigger and better on that billboard in six weeks time or six months time in this case. So there's always a sense of maybe today with Instagram

and Facebook and Twitter, it might have caught on. But back then, it was kind of like a freak show. Yes. I'd imagine. A lot of aspects of this story make you think about how the whole landscape of media was different then as well. Because you talk about Winky trying to take the New York scene over to the other coast

you know which we'll get to you know that's only something where you'd have these separate cultures in different locations you know and now it's yeah it's there's no sort of moving a culture anywhere it's all everywhere everything is everywhere now i would argue there's a lot of factors why winky didn't catch on and it might have been you know financially his eyes being bigger than his belly but either way he built this massive billboard and if you see the pictures you can see it's interesting it's massive massive Winky badge with big red and green flashing lights and then along the side of it women in bikinis you know painted looking sexy okay and then a few bits like advertising for other companies bedded into that. Oh, there is other adverts in it.

Crikey. Yeah. Like call Bob's local convenience store for whatever. Why would you call a convenience store? I'm sorry. I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's not the best example.

I'm just trying to prove a point that it was low-end advertising. Yeah. Yeah. I get you. I get you. Local advertising. Small, yeah. I get you. I get you. Local advertising. Small, small stuff, yeah. But what I didn't notice until really recently is that if you look at the billboard, there's

only one painted gentleman on the advertisement, and it is Dr. Winky himself. It's him. Surrounded by sexy women. Yeah. Yeah. And if it's not, it certainly bloody looks like him. Right. And if he designed that billboard, I can't imagine he didn't paint himself with his ego because i imagine he's got a friggin ego well obviously he does and does the character

who you you claim is a representation of dr winky himself is he wearing sunglasses because i know not in that picture though that's the interesting thing he's not all right and also on the billboard there was a phone number because the idea is as the competition went on, whoever lived on the billboard longest, they could talk to people because they had a phone number. So you could phone the billboard. There was a phone on top. There was a phone up there, wasn't there?

There was two phones on top of the, up there with them. So anyone could phone. And then there was a counter of like days gone by. So like, you know, days on the billboard one, two, whatever. And then at some point,

this advert goes out. And this is what was put in a newspaper, probably LA Sentinel or LA Times, whatever. It says, be a star on Sunset. Enter the actor's billboard marathon. Reach for the stars, a screen test, and a free car. Starting December 1st, 20 selected actors and actresses will compete in a living billboard marathon on sunset boulevard

that's right living and if you can stay up on the billboard longer than anyone else you'll win all the prizes plus lots of national publicity to enter send your resume and photo to the billboard marathon blah blah blah blah blah no walk-ins or telephone calls deadlines and photos from resumes is november 5th and then when we discovered this in the story, I think it kind of blew our minds that a song we'd never heard of about a toy we'd never heard of had an event this big that we'd never heard of.

Yeah. At this point, when we were discovering about the competition, we couldn't for the life of us think why the song was French, could we? I mean... No. Luckily, we may have an answer to that later. We've got an answer coming up later, Paul. But...

Ooh! It's strange, isn't it? Because there was no mention of the song in any of this stuff we were finding out about Dr. Winky, was there? No mention whatsoever. To cut a long story short, ladies and gentlemen, we talk about it on the podcast.

And then, out of the blue, and I need to talk podcast, and then, out of the blue, and I need to talk about the timeline somewhat, out of the blue, I got an email to our website from a lady called Penny. And Penny said, and I quote, I'm the bitch with the fruit. That's so bizarre. I'm the bitch with the fruit. What fruit?

Well, in amongst all the crazy stories that happened, eventually, and this is the potted version, eventually a bunch of people went up on the billboard. It came down to four. One was a stuntman, one was an actor, one was a model. There was a wedding on there between... We found out there was a wedding that took place between one of the participants and one of the ladies

who helped out with the organisation. And it turned out that the took place between one of the participants and one of the ladies who helped out with the organization. And it turned out that the woman who married one of the Jeffs... God, I hate telling this story because it goes all over the place and I just want to tell it clearly. You haven't even mentioned the Jeffs yet. You just mentioned Jeff, the Jeffs, and yet they don't know about the Jeffs. So, I'm getting to it. You're misrepresenting Penny. Calm down!

Okay. So, a bunch of people went up in December of 1984. And by June 1985, there was four left. One of them was about to get married on the billboard. The stories go everywhere, right?

One of them was a stuntman. But after six months, and all the crazy stories of what took place on this billboard, it was over. And then that's kind of for us where the story ended. what took place on this billboard. It was over. And then that's kind of for us where the story ended. Until I got that email from Penny. I started talking to Penny and she goes, yeah, I'm the woman who you talked about who married the guy Jeff Stewart on the billboard. Now, at the end of the thing, there was four people.

Jeff Stewart, Jeff Olan, Jeff Winky. Absolutely random. But a guy, a stuntman called Jeff Winky, ended up on the billboard. Winky. Winky. Fanky. Hey, Fanky!

Hey, Jeff Fanky! And a model called Sherry Davis, right? We had so many loose ends and stories that when I got the email from Penny, I was kind of like, oh, alright, we'll organise an interview. And we started talking back and forth and she was a bit guarded and I kind of left it for a bit. And then I reached out to the other Jeff, Jeff Olam, who then I discovered had a website. And on that website was newspaper clippings and photographs of his time on the

board. It turns out he ran a casting agency. I got touch with him i was meant to meet up with him last year in america didn't pan out again that's something i filed away lockdown happens and i go well let's reach out to them both again so i reached out to jeff and i reached out to penny and they both agreed to speak and so we are now going to talk to people who lived on the billboard and you're going to hear the story and their experience their way. It's fascinating. Well, to be technically correct, Paul, Penny didn't actually live on the billboard. No. Jeff was one of the last four. There was three Jeffs and Sherry Davis.

They were the last four. And Sherry Davis, well, you'll have to make up your own mind, listener, about Sherry Davis. Well, Sherry Davis, it might be a sad story, we don't know, but it's certainly an interesting story. And there's contradictions, as you'll hear, as we speak to Jeff and Penny. Now, it is I, Paul Gannon, because Eli wasn't available, speaking to Jeff Olan and his time and experiences on that billboard in 1984,

stroke five. It's about 40 minutes, so settle in. It's fascinating. I'm sure you're going to love it, and you'll see me and Eli on the back end with our reactions. We've kind of pieced most of the story together now, but we still can't figure out why there was a song to advertise an American toy that was in the limited lease on the East Coast,

but released in French and only in France. And that's what blows my mind. So it's all of these bubbling questions that I hope you can help answer some of today. I'll be able to answer some, but I'm going to be honest with you. The song thing, that whole song thing, I never knew anything about that. Really? Yeah. So, you know, you're getting the self-proclaimed spokesman right now

of the Billboard. I mean, I got so much publicity it was beyond but when you said that you found this in the old vinyl oh no no I'll show you no we didn't find the badge bear with me one second bear with me hang on

I gotcha man I gotcha so we found this it's a 12 inch we've also got the 7 inch but this is the 12 inch uh winky album a single when was that when was that dated uh bear with me i will try and tell you yeah because there's veryinky anywhere on that music album? Absolutely not. Okay, so I think it was somebody who maybe saw the whole Winky billboard thing

and maybe took something off of there. I'm not sure. Maybe. I never knew anything about that. That's bizarre to me because that's kind of never knew anything about that that's that's bizarre to me because that's kind of the part of the story that makes the least sense to me because as i say it was like a limited released kind of toy blah blah blah blah blah and yet in a different part of the world there's a french man and we i can't remember his name off the top of my head now and

my french pronunciation is also awful but the two guys made this, one was in like a well-known French pop band of the 80s. And then he disappeared off the face of the earth. I don't know who owns the rights to the song anymore because it's been bought by different companies over its time and they've disappeared and eaten up by other companies. But he had a YouTube channel. And when we found the YouTube channel, the only video was him doing French rap

to the image of a cat smoking a blunt and a brick wall. And someone said it translates as in, it translates into some kind of Nostradamus prophecy of the future. And then we found out in the 10 years it's been up on YouTube, we were the only viewer of it.

No. One view. No kidding. I, you know, that, that's, that's, that's amazing. First of all, and first and second, the, the fact that you had what you your show talking about winky on YouTube blew me away because for years, for years I had had searched i had searched interviews that i've done i did so many interviews so many years ago but it's so many years ago i don't i don't know you know i don't know where they are who can't we're you know they're in some sort of archives yeah

okay so with that all being said because now i'm in podcast mode uh just uh just explain who you are and how you got involved in this tell me your entry into this whole weird universe so i'm jeff olin oh well yeah i don't know if you need any of that or if that's okay no so i was an actor when i when i first came out to los angeles 30 some years ago i was an an actor came out from Indiana, like so many others, you know, chasing the dream, seeing how we can, you know, get my name out there a little bit and what have you. And I saw this, I saw this little ad in the was at the time, it was called the drama log. It was a actor's newspaper that gave you all kinds of, you know, tips or audition tips or this or that or whatever.

And it had in there, be a star on Sunset Boulevard, enter the Winky Billboard Marathon. You'll get a screen test. You'll get a car. You'll get all these, like, products from a company that was called Shackley, Shackley Products, like thousands of dollars worth. And you'll get to, you know, meet people and become basically a star. So I saw this, I was like, Oh, my God, this is crazy. Let me, let me, let me, you know, put my name in and, and see what happens. Well, I get called down to an interview. They had interviewed somewhere in the neighborhood of about 400 people. Now at the time, Paul, you got to remember,

this was the first reality show without cameras going. Okay. Because there had been things like kind of touch the truck marathons and things like that. Little things like that. Yeah. I just found out yesterday, actually, somebody I know, her uncle lived on a flagpole someplace in the Midwest. Flagpole sitters, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For many, many, many days. So there was all kinds of things. People were trying to break world records and all that. That wasn't something that I went up there for. When I got the call, I said, hey, you're one of the people. Can you give up? Can you give up your apartment? Can you give up your life?

Can you give up everything and get up on the billboard? And basically it was king of the hill. And I said, because I had already made the decision I was going to do this if I was selected, I said, absolutely, let's go for it. Now with that in mind, what do you think they were looking for when they were looking for people? Because, yeah, I don't know, what were they looking for, do you think they were looking for when they were looking for people because how yeah I don't know what were they looking for do you think I I think a lot of it had to do with um you know kind of a little bit of like what producers look for today they look for either a great story that's gonna go you know bad or they're looking for someone who could really, in this case, talk up their product. And I was, I was, and I still am a very good communicator. I know how to talk and know how to, you know, reach people.

And I believe that's what they, that's what they went with me on, I believe. I told them at the time I was, I had, I had been a disc jockey for a station back in Indiana. And they knew that I was an actor. And I have a pretty outgoing personality. And I believe that's a good part of why they selected me. So they were looking for kind of colorful characters, but ones that could also communicate what they were basically selling through their promotion. Right.

Because I think you had mentioned it was a bunch of actors. So we had 12 people that went up there. And out of the 12 people, there were seven guys and five women. And there was mostly actors. There was a boxer, an amateur boxer. There was an amateur, some sort of model. There was a guy in production. That was Jeffrey Stewart. Yeah. And there was a stuntman,

which is a whole other crazy story later. We'll get into that. Okay, cool. Okay, cool. Because the other thing as well is that when they sit you down and you get there, did they explain the product? Did you know too much about that side of things going in?

We knew a little bit we were given um we were given the winky product wait i might as well show this now people aren't going to see this except oh my god oh that's amazing for those listening it is a massive winky is it taken from the sign no oh this actually had the lights in it the uh yeah the red and green. And the green light. And I don't know what happened to those over the last 30 some years, but it's a big piece of plexiglass that was connected to the front of the billboard.

And it's one of the best things that I got from it. It's beautiful. I'm just taking a screen grab now so I can actually put it in with the metadata when I save the episode. All right, wonderful. I usually do say I have the biggest winky around.

Because that's the other thing as well is that I get the meaning of it because it blinks, it winks, you know. But at the same time, it's a stupid name. It really is. Because, you know, my first thought

if someone goes, can I show you my winky is just to call the police. So true. So true. And also, did you know anything of Dr. Winky at the time? Because I think we're going to be bouncing around somewhat. Yes, we are. From you, I get the impression that he owned Extronics,

which was the billboard company. But they also somehow made this toy. And he designed it? Yeah. So he came out, he came out with this, uh, as you say, the toy, uh, which was to be, uh, as, uh, you had, uh, previously said the pep rock of the eighties. Um, you can also take it and it had these little things where you could put it on as an earring or you could put it on as a pin, on your lapel or what have you. And so he came up with that. We didn't know, the contestants did not know as much about him as he probably knew about us yet he was a very, very intelligent and very, yeah, very, yeah, very secretive. And,

and, you know, you, you try to get information out of him. You couldn't always, but, you know, I did a pretty good job of trying to pick his brain. Yeah. We knew that he had owned a nightclub or two in San Francisco. Yeah. There was only one contestant up on the billboard that knew more about him because she came from San Francisco, which is a whole nother story. Oh, wow. Cause that, that, again, I get from the pieces that I've learned about him to say he's had a checkered history is, is interesting because I think he's had his high

points and his low points yeah but as far as i'm concerned he comes across like a the man behind the curtain the wizard of oz kind of thing that's exactly it that's exactly it and he wore these really uh and i'll send you some uh some photos he wore these really you know kind of uh he always wore shades never showed his eyes always wore shades and it's usually almost in all light i mean he wasn't he was a character and he said to all of us he said you'll call me dr winky that's my name call me dr winky that's so strange because again when we're kind of going backwards and piecing it all together from like where we were when we started doing the digging in the podcast it was like oh what a coincidence that the eventual wedding took place at the nightclub owned

by Dr. Winky. That must've been fortuitous, but it was like, no, it's, I can see how it all works now knowing that he was that man in the first place. You know, we did, like I said, we didn't, we did not know as much about it. He had, he had gathered us all up. He picked 12 out of the, you know, 400 or so people, a little under 400 he picked us. And he sat us all down and he said, we're up here to promote this product. This is what it does. You guys are the spokespeople of it, but actually it's the billboard. And this is a contest to see who can

live on the billboard the longest. This is what you're going to win longest this is what you're going to win this is what you're going to get but as we went on and this thing continued and month after month after month yeah a lot of the rules per se started to break down a little bit and different things that happened okay because did did they give you a rough estimate of how long they expected you to be on there or was it kind of they were always moving the goal posts they were they were moving the goal posts but also us contestants were moving the goal posts but they they told us they thought we would be up there maybe three weeks maybe a month at the longest because it was was is it just before or just after christmas that you started it was um december 11th 1984 that's a strange time to kick it off when it's so near to Christmas, but maybe they're thinking toy for Christmas and things like that. But how did you

prepare for it? So they say, yes, you're ready to go. What are those first few days, that first week like? It was pretty crazy because here I was, I just knew I was going to stay up there. No matter what it took, I was going to stay there. And so my oldest brother at the time had lived in LA. He would come and pick up my laundry and do my laundry. I kind of knew what his job was going to be from the get go. I sublet my apartment out in Santa Monica. I parked my car. That was it. I got my sleeping blanket and I got enough wardrobe that could last me for about a week yeah and packed everything up went off and you know told my friends and family and of course heard everything from what the people are doing what yeah I can the thing is I can totally see that at that period in LA,

being involved in something like this, had to have been, certainly from someone from your point of view, you can't miss it. You need to at least see what it tasted like. It was beyond like anything I could even tell you or your audience. It was beyond. And, you know, as you, well, I want your audience to know this and you probably already know, but Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, it's the most famous

strip in the Hollywood Los Angeles area. And it's known for its billboards. So that's why Dr. Wienke said, let's make it a living billboard. Let's put people up there, live on this billboard. And by golly, we're going to get them attention. And we got attention from all over, all over the world. Again, it seems like it's a story that more people should have known about or certainly lingered. You know, you would think so, but you gotta, you know, also remember there was no, there was no social media back there no back then there was you know no cell phones there was you know so we had it was it was before the time i mean now it's like if if you did something like that the whole world would know but it was crazy we'd be up on that

billboard we'd be doing things and because of us being there uh and because of the special permits that lawrence got you know uh we were able to stay as long as we could. But there was accidents that were caused because they were seeing people up there and people moving around on the billboard in the day and the nighttime. There was more people that came by that did things that you wouldn't even know. I mean, you could get into that now or then. Yeah, I think we'll just roll through it and see what we can pick up. Because even now, as I'm talking to you, I'm thinking, I can't spare the man four hours of his day while I ask him every single question I want to know. I'm here for you, man. What did you want to do in the bad weather?

How did you cope? Blah, blah, blah. It's just there's so much going on. There's so much. And, you know, I've been writing about this for a long time now, but it is, it is, it's an unbelievable, it was an unbelievable experience. And so I will just tell you this, that, you know, I mentioned there was a stunt man up there. Yes. That stunt man, you know, he taught us all how to rappel off the billboard down to the ground and then go right back up. We had a guard on us.

We had a 24-hour guard that would time us. We had three 10-minute breaks and one 20-minute break to go use the facilities, have some fun, whatever, whatever, whatever. And there was plenty of fun, let me tell you. But getting back to the stuntman, a couple times he lit himself on fire while he was up on the billboard so you're seeing a guy who's going back and forth on a rope on fire you can imagine the people on sunset boulevard we got we had crowds of people that would stop and go what the heck is going on i mean

that's amazing yeah but also i mean okay so you're with 13 strangers and some of you got to get on and most of you probably won't. So how do you keep your shit together when you're just literally killing time? Well, you have to put it into your head. You know, this is a contest. It's a game. You know, are you going to be the winner? Are you going to be, you know, are you going to be a loser? you gonna be a loser are you gonna go up there you're gonna do what you got to do so a lot of it was mind games so we don't you know we all got together we

had all gone up together we went up the ladder we got up there everybody made their own little cubicles of space you picked where you wanted to be. And at first we had literally, it was 12 people total. We had 12 cubicles of literally, however we made it, we throw a sleeping bag out there. Some people brought some plastic to put over them. Other people brought umbrellas and chairs and, you know, and then you made your 12 cubicles. I brought a sleeping bag and, and you know and then you made your 12 cubicles i brought a sleeping bag and uh and i was okay i was going to be in that sleeping bag whatever it took i would be on the board on the sleeping bag uh because the board itself they they constructed a little wider you know obviously not longer but wider so it was it was three and a half feet wide from the billboard with a four foot plexiglass around the front.

Right. So it couldn't, you know, fall off. Yeah. It got netting around it or something as well. Yeah. So then it's like once you set it and you bed in, what was your game plan? I mean, I know it's like positivity and things like that, but there must have been nights when you thought, ah, fuck this.

You must have been so close. Well, I think those nights didn't come until much later, much later, and I don't know if you know how long. It was six months, right? To June or July? Right. So there was, and this is all part of the, obviously the bigger story.

In the end, there was four of us left uh and there was three guys named jeff that was the other thing so i thought that was unusual but yes it's an unusual story why not oh beyond unusual three guys named jeff one of the guys the stuntman his last last name was winky but was spelled differently was no relation to doctor so what a godsend that producer had when he when a stuntman sat down and went hello my name is winky they thought yeah you just go to the front of the queue you're fine right right and when we all found out that it was no relation whatsoever and and he was the stunt man. Then there was the model from San Francisco, who we found out later on had known them a little bit.

So that was a kind of, you know, I think it was maybe a little bit of a plant. So in the end, there was the three gals named Jeff, the three guys named Jeff with one gal named Sherry, and we kind of all made a pack to come down together. That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what, but going back to your question, Paul, is when we all got up there, everybody had in their mind, you know, kind of whatever they were going up there for, whether it was up there for, they were up there for publicity for a day, they were up there for uh publicity for a day

they were up there to get away from something in life they were up there for you know whatever because the the first couple of people left within within two days people were out soon yeah um and then you know because listen you sign up for something like this and then you're up there and then you're like well wait this isn't exactly what i thought i was going to sign up for something like this and then you're up there and then you're like, well, wait, this isn't exactly what I thought I was going to sign up for. In my mind, it was exactly what I was going to sign up for and then some. Yeah. Okay. So I watched as people left.

And I'll tell you a funny story. There was a writer up there, a guy who was writing. And at the time, he was trying to write a sitcom. He had been up there for, I think, about a month and a half. His literary agent brought him a chicken sandwich. And he ended up choking on a bone from the chicken sandwich that his literary agent brought him. He was taken away in an ambulance. That that's a terrible way to go he's okay i was gonna say i hope there was a happy ending to that he made us happy he left and it's a happy

ending he got to keep the whole uh chicken and and and his age when you got down to the final four you were six months in and so i can imagine you had life experiences on there that you wouldn't have had anywhere else so the the it came down to about the four of us in about uh about two um about two months in okay it dropped from 12 to four of us two months then nobody wanted to leave we were all doing things together yeah um but yet we all had what was going on. The stunt man and the model, they got together up on the billboard. And they had their fun on the billboard. Oh, right.

Yeah, they were rocking and rolling up on that billboard. As long as he wasn't on fire at the same time, I'm fine with it. Yeah. Well, he might have been on fire and her. Yeah. Yeah. Metaphorically speaking. Yeah. time I'm fine with it yeah well he might have been on fire and her yeah yeah yeah but it was a little irritating for me and the other Jeff and then the other Jeff and I on our breaks we were able to go downstairs to the nearby apartment and we would also quote-unquote catch on fire in our own little ways because okay there was a little ways because there was a lot of, um, there was a lot of fans and a lot of fan favorites,

as we should say. Oh, cause that was the other thing I was going to say. It's like, yeah, what was the action from people like that? Cause I know we're eventually spins off too, but I'm, I'm gathering you were taking the cream of the crop. Um, I, I would say some of the, some of the cream and some of the crop. We had people that would stop by. They would bring us food.

We had people that would give us gifts. We had people that would, you know, just, you know, they'd come by. They'd buy the Winkies because we were able to make a couple of dollars selling those things. And we got all kinds of things. I got love letters from, you know, it's funny. It was so cute. I got love letters. They see me on the's funny, it's so cute. I got love letters. They see me on the news or they saw me on a TV show.

And then we also got love songs and everything that came to us from the older gals that we were able to get to know a little bit. And that's how Jeff Stewart got to know his, but that's further down the line. We had an awful lot of fun. I had a cousin at the time that was living in L.A. First of all, they told us, Dr. Wienke and his people told us, there'll be absolutely no drinking whatsoever while you're up there. Right. We did drink one time, but that was for New Year's. They brought the champagne. But otherwise, he said there'll be no drinking. right we did drink one time but that was a new that was for new year's and they actually they

brought the um champagne but otherwise he said there'll be no drinking now these were the 1980s yeah in the mid 80s paul as you probably know there was some other drugs this thing is that's what i was gonna say no drinking but i'm pretty sure some recreational entertainment had other ways. There was. There was some recreational entertainment. There was a little bit of snow. And there was a little bit of weed.

I have a cousin of mine who, God bless him, they brought me a big cigar box filled with joints rolling. Oh, bliss. I'd be happy. That's how I get rid of a few days. a big cigar box filled with joints rolling. Oh, bliss. I'd be happy. That's how I get rid of a few days. That's how you do it. It's a memory eraser. A big box of that is just fine. God bless them. And let me tell you something. It's one thing living on a billboard, but it's another thing living on a billboard when you're a little bit high. It's not even that. It's living on a billboard when you're a little bit high it's not it's not even that it's living on a billboard when you're high and a massive electronic microchip face staring over you the the levels of absurdity is what always delights me about this story because like it

just seems like it was just a mad moment and it burnt bright you know for that moment it did because you you know you showed you showed the photos of the big billboard yeah yeah lights those lights up on the board were like i mean they're pretty well you you can see it here but yeah i don't know how to but it's huge i mean really huge i would say probably you know a foot foot and a half across uh for the light round and they would be blinking up and down sunset boulevard uh coming off of Hollywood Boulevard. You know the area. You know, it was amazing. People that saw it, they would be stopping and honking and getting out of their cars and taking pictures. And there was so much that happened down there.

You know, in those days, there was a lot of the, you know, the street walkers, okay you know on the street um i have a really funny story to tell you several yeah several i got to know a lot of these got to know a lot of the girls yeah we're in the street walking and looking for their clients well across the street kitty corner from the billboard there was a cross the street from the Standard Hotel, you know, cross the street from the Standard. In those days, there was two pay phones. And because remember, there was no cell phones at the time. Yeah. And here I am. And I got to know some of the gals that were walking. And here I am. And I could see pretty far down the street. And I saw a police car coming on down the strip.

Well, I wanted to help out my new friends who were showing their legs and what have you. Yeah. So I had the number to the, to the phone, uh, and I would call the phone on the street. Yeah. They picked it up and I said something like, hello, Daisy. Uh, listen, you got, uh, you know, Smokey down the street about three blocks. You've got to run up in the hills. So move out.

So I warned them, and they got out of the way. A week later, her and a couple of her friends came by right in front of the billboard and asked for me. Yeah. And they gave me a show like no show. They took their tops, and they held it up and they go this is for you thank you that's great and you think oh yeah no anytime anytime dear anytime anytime exactly wow you know so with all this going on i mean where do i even begin where do i even go with these stories because i'm sure there sure there's all sorts of tangents we can go down.

But like fundamentally, if you're going to live and choose that lifestyle for that longer time, you kind of have to roll with the punches and kind of just live differently. Did you feel, I mean, just bumping along to the end a little bit, at the end when it all finished, did you feel like it had been a life-changing thing? Or was it an anomaly? No, I definitely felt it was a life-changing thing because I didn't, because of all the publicity that we had gotten along the way, I didn't really know what was going to happen,

but I knew that something, something big was going to happen. And it was a life-changing thing. And, you know, when we all came down and there's a lot more to tell, but when we all came down and I got home that thing. And, you know, when we all came down, and there's a lot more to tell, but when we all came down and I got home that day, I, you know, I went straight to my car. Six months not driving it, but I went to the car. And I got into it, and I was just going to go to a little store to pick up some groceries.

And I get in my car. Needless to know, well, first of all i felt like i forgot how to drive and then i i get about three blocks and the car runs out of gas so i'm like you gotta be kidding me like you know first of all what was i thinking to leave the car there with no gas yeah so i start walking and i'm walking and i'm and i felt like i was like walking on a cloud because I still felt like I was up in the air and I was like it was really weird and I'm like going. Oh, this is crazy So finally I walk into a gas station And I said to the guy I told him I said hey I need some gas and well

I walked into his gas station Paul and I said I've got a story for you gas station and I said I've got a story for you. So this is like when a cowboy walks into a town and buys a beer with a story. Is it that kind of thing? That's kind of the thing yeah. I had no money. I did not know. Forgot obviously. I just got into my car. Forgot that you have to put a wallet into your pocket and I go in there and I said listen I got this story for you. I tell him this whole story. He starts cracking up. Nobody, nobody would ever tell me a story like that, unless it was true. He said, I'm going to fill up a can of gas for you, take it to your car. And I said, listen, I will bring the, I will bring the money back. I will bring the gas can back.

I don't think he believed me, but I did and I did it that day, but it was it was Unbelievable. So yeah, it was it was beyond So the other thing I just remember my point from earlier that I missed so the other thing obviously having that lack of privacy So was the attention sometimes too much? I mean I can imagine it was also you had dickheads throwing things or Hollering and all this kind of I'm sure it was like your first year of people raining on the parade. But like, did you, being that exposed, did it either liberate you or did you close up a little bit, get a bit guarded?

I didn't, I didn't get guarded. I didn't get guarded because one of the reasons I went up there, well, the only real, the real reason I went up there was I wanted to get, you know, I wanted to get, I want to get famous. I want to get more famous. I came out as an actor. I was trying to do everything I wanted to get, you know, I wanted to get, I want to get famous. I want to get more famous. I went, I came out as an actor. I was trying to do everything I could to get noticed. So, but, but with what you say,

or with the question that you're asking, there were a few nights that maybe I was, maybe I was up a little too long or what have you, because you'd usually be up till two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Because Sunset Boulevard is such a busy boulevard at night, especially, you know, well, anytime it's busy. You got cars and you got people walking and yelling, like you said. So there were a few nights where, you know, I couldn't get to sleep and I was kind of irritated, but nothing that really affected me so much. We also had some torrential

rains during that time. And we also had, and as you know, it hardly ever rains in California, but that year it did a lot. And then we had one night of a bug infestation that were coming. You know, if you look at a billboard and you have those big lights in front. Whatever happened, there was millions of these bugs that were all over the place. And literally, we had to get underneath the plastic or whatever we had at that point in time. You saw the bugs all around you. It took hours for us to get rid of them. Those are the days when you think, is this worth it? Because when things were getting big, when the initial explosion died off,

was it hard for even the brand to maintain the exposure? I mean, why do you think it ended when it did? Was it just that there was a line that was crossed and it was like, we have to be done with this, otherwise it will be forever? Yes, yes, yes. I mean, there was a lot of, that's exactly right. We kept going. Nobody was leaving out of the four of us. And Sherry, we kept going. Nobody was leaving out of the four of us. And Sherry, the model, she ended up stop. She stopped talking. That was her way of trying to get rid of us. So she stopped talk. Listen, I'm just telling you, there are a million stories.

I know. A million. But she stopped talking for about two weeks because that was her way to try to get rid of us. So she stopped talking. Okay. Meanwhile, the guys, all the guys, we kind of formed together, the three Jeffs, and we just said, hey, you know. And then finally in the end, we just said, okay, let's all of us come down together. We'll take the prizes, we'll take the prize money, and we'll split it up. And so that's what we decided to do. and we all started coming down the stairs together. But then Sherry ran back up to the top of the stairs.

We declared her the official winner. Really? That's why we said that we believe maybe from the get-go she was a plant for the company. Oh, I see. So their friend could end up potentially winning it as a backbeat again of being involved in the first place but no when i came down uh me personally i mean um it yeah it was really strange but but we came down with a wedding uh which you uh pre-loaded in your in your earlier and by the way yeah i am one of the proud owners of the keith herring

invitation because i've seen i think we mentioned the podcast but even prints of that are a thousand dollars yeah yeah i'll take a well you have you saw it but i have it i have it somewhere and that's beautiful because the story as i understand it was because originally i thought it was two people on the billboard that got married, but no, it was someone who called into a radio station or please tell me. Cause obviously, you know, not me.

I don't know why I'm trying to tell me, I tell you your history, but go on. Oh, I love this. I love this. This is great. This is great.

So Penny, Penny Floyd, who ended up getting married to Jeff Stewart. Okay. Jeff was the, he was working in production, and he went up on the billboard, and in one of his earlier comments through one of the newspapers, they said, why'd you come up here?

He said, well, I came up here to find a wife. Way before Tinder. Way before Tinder. Way before Tinder. Way before, yeah. And he was probably somewhat joking but he you know he for whatever reason he went up there and so we had four telephone lines that were up on the billboard that extronics put up there for us people could call us from all over there was the telephone number on the billboard call these guys and from every part of the country in the world we would get phone calls and he picked up the phone one day and he ended up talking to Penny and one thing

led to another and then he invited her to come see him but he couldn't at that point in time he couldn't take her up on the billboard there was no yes up on the billboard at that point in time. now I get the impression that there are hooded figures being gathered up there at certain times of the day. we got up there eventually yeah. Winky wasn't always watching over it. no no so Jeff Stewart and his Winky so they went down to meet him and we had an apartment down below that we could take our breaks in with whomever we wanted to. Fair enough.

And he started inviting Penny into the break room. It was an apartment. One thing led to another. And they decided, well, what had happened was they fell in love. And then Dr. Winkie said to them, how about we'll take care of the wedding? We'll pay for everything. Will you do it? Will you do it up here on the billboard? And this, how long was this into it? Was it towards the back end of the time? Like this was the planning of all this probably started about four months into it.

Okay. Oh, wow. Okay. Maybe four and a half. But then what happened in about the fifth month, maybe the start of the fifth month or maybe the middle of the fifth month, the billboard company, which this billboard company was not Extronics. It was a billboard company. The billboard company, from what we understand, is that Extronics stopped or were late on payment to keep us up there. Also, I think the city of West Hollywood and Hollywood wanted to get us down from there by this time. Fair play. Yeah, like, okay, this is good enough.

So about the fifth month, give or take, we're up there. We know there's going to be this wedding. We had planned for it there's a lot of stuff that happened from the time that he asked her to marry him until the wedding itself and again like i said that's a whole nother yeah i believe they tried to get people to do the the ceremony but a lot of people said no so they got was it a random rabbi came by to do it yeah it was a it was a rabbi that they found uh and um you know who because it was the most like on i mean who who does a who does a wedding on a billboard i know you know a rabbi or a priest or anyone anyone yeah so you know we got somebody

they had the hopa and it was a great, it was a really wonderful, wonderful time. But what happened, Paul, which is interesting, and I'm sure you're going to find this to be very interesting in your audience. Okay. The billboard company, because that last month wasn't paid, that fifth month, I believe, the billboard company came while we were still up there with their big trailer trucks, with their cranes, and they took down the facade of the billboard. Oh, wow.

So they took down the winky, the blinking lights. They took it all down, and it was just the planks across. Wow. But we still stayed there. We didn't come down. Because I guess they couldn't evict you, I guess, at this point. It would be a weird way to end it to be fair a stuntman on fire swinging i can't even imagine it would be like the end of duck soup or something it would just be odd

odd yeah so the wet so the and then the reception that took place it is it was it called d8 or something whatever winky's nightclub was was that after everyone came down or was there something going on that you just weren't invited to? No, we all came down. We all went to the reception. That in itself was bizarre because it really wasn't put together right. Dr. Winkie, like I said, great guy. He had spent so much money on putting us up there. It cost a lot of money to put us up there and get the permits and all that. He didn't spend a lot of money on uh you know putting putting us up there it cost a lot of money to put us up there and permits and all that he didn't spend a lot of money on this wedding uh he didn't come to the premises it was not really at the nightclub uh that he had mentioned it would be at it was actually at a much smaller place um everybody went over there but by this time i think uh

i think everybody just wanted to get out of there. It was like, you know, enough is enough. And at this point, sorry, at this point, because obviously every now and then it's weird to actually mention the product in all of this, but the badge itself, do you know anything about what happened with that? Because I know that it was released, I imagine around the same time you went up on the billboard,

but to the best of my knowledge, it was only released in that California state. I don't believe it was sold anywhere else. Did you know what the sales were like? Did you know what Dr. Winkie's reaction to all that was? Or was it just so insular that it didn't matter to you? Yeah, I don't, yeah, I was, I was pretty much, I think I was pretty much done. I could tell you, I'll tell you a story about that too. But I was pretty much done. I think everybody was pretty much done. They had had it. And Dr. Winkinky, we had found out by that point in time that, you know, behind those, behind his sunglasses was a man that wasn't being a hundred percent complete with us on a lot. We believe that

the whole billboard thing wasn't necessarily for the product of Winky. We believe it was Dr. Winky's narcissistic personality that he wanted people to know about him. And it was the great, like you said, Oz, the great Dr. Winky behind the curtain. And that's what we believe had happened there. Now go backwards for a second. And I will tell you, he and his couple of people,onies people who work with him had approached me they they brought me into the office in the apartment down below this was about uh three weeks give or take till the end of the thing and they asked me if i would like to do this again in new york and this is the story i was gonna tell you you. If you have time, I'll tell you. Please, please. I've got all the time if you've got it. Right. I've got it. So they asked

me if I would get into a pickup truck with part of the billboard, drive cross country to New York because I was the best spokesperson for the product. Yeah. And for what they wanted to do, they would do the same thing in New York. Well, I declined because it had already been six months. I saw what was going on. I didn't want to go to New York. I knew the weather in New York, you know, was going to be probably very humid over the summer.

And I didn't need to be sitting on a billboard for another six weeks. So what they did was they took Sherry, the person who they determined the winner. They took her. Now here's the story that is the, this is the million dollar story. So they take Sherry, they drive cross country. She's up on this billboard. It has the phone number, call her, has the phone number call her blah blah blah some years later I'm working I'm starting on my career as I gave up acting for casting starting my career and a guy that I started working with in a casting company out here in Los Angeles he and I started talking and he tells me about the story about years prior out of his 17th floor in New York City condo he saw this billboard across the street with this big number on it and he and his buddy called the number up went up to the billboard to meet this girl Sherry yeah I even said to him I

said was her name Sherry and he he goes, how do you know? Turned out he and I became partners many years later. Wow. It's a small universe, isn't it? Very small. So the aftermath of that, you came down. Again, things I'm a bit fuzzy on. Were you given the promised rewards? What happened with all of that?

Not too much of anything. We were promised um we were promised you know a car a screen test all these products probably at that point time in the mid 80s uh uh maybe it came out to five six thousand dollars we were just going to take it split it up say adios this is this is really cool for one person it would have been nice but there was the four of us that were uh we came down and right as soon as we got down, because it was already in the papers, some of the newspapers were doing things saying, you know, there's, you know, there's, there's some to try to go after Dr. Winky and whatever, whatever. But nothing happened out of it. I'm the only one that I know right now that even has a story on it and who has done anything on it over the years.

And as I told you earlier, I uh I am friends with uh with Jeff Stewart Jeffrey Stewart yeah yeah he pretty much buried it for about umpteen years until I brought it to his attention that I was doing something with it and uh he's a co-producer with me on something we're putting together um yeah you know it was uh it was it was a time of my life that obviously I'll I'll never forget it was the stories that came out that obviously I'll never forget. It was the stories that came out of it. I ended up getting a publicist out of it, an agent out of it. I was really lucky because I just said I was going to do this, make the best of it,

and make as many, just get whatever I could out of it. And, you know, now years later, I mean, look, I'm talking to you, 30 some, about 35 and a half, 36 years later. Yeah. I would have been six and a half when this happened. Were you really? Yeah. I was just getting over the thrill of Ghostbusters. I love it.

Oh, my God. But, you know, so many years years later and here I am still talking about it I have had my office at my uh my casting company you know Jeff Olin casting yeah I have pictures and people will come in and they'll go are you kidding me you did that how long you know still the same questions you know my parents god love them they, they're gone now. But, you know, everybody would go up to my parents and go, you know, your son is doing what? And my mom would always say, listen, some people, their sons are lawyers and others are doctors. And our good son, Jeff is a billboard sitter. Yeah. You know what? The worst things in life to be seriously. It's like, what would you rather be, an accountant or have a life full of stories? And I think I'd rather have a life full of stories, frankly. Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. And the stories are endless, Paul. There was so much that I've just given you a

little bit of a taste of it. Yeah yeah even this little taste has been exquisite so thank you very much for this already i really appreciate it oh my pleasure anytime this has been a lot of fun and uh you know all right jeff take care of yourself have a good day i appreciate it thanks so much right so what did you make of jeff oland then based on that i made several things of him paul um yeah i detected a little bit of a sort of savior complex going on with him with the uh with the the prostitutes who he befriends and helps you know what i mean it's like it's like how was that what you took away from it it's like no and the way he's kept sort of going oh i was boning i don't know how much i can say but i was boning is what he's saying the

whole way through isn isn't he? I think we can all agree that it was the 80s, he was living it up and he was having a jolly good time. Absolutely fine. I don't think he's being a saviour, though. It did have sort of overtones of like, you know, he's helping her out. You know what I mean. Anyway.

I just find it fascinating that that's the one thing you decided to lead with with your observations on this whole event. It's not the one thing. It's what I decided to lead with. Here's something else. Wasn't a very good lead.

Oh, fuck you. I'll bury the lead up your arse. Right. Right. Come on. There's also a really funny moment where he talks about having sex. There was a lot.

Basically, they got. Again, you're fascinated with the nookie on the winky. Yeah, I am, actually. And it did seem that they were getting a lot of sort of, you know, people coming along. Groupies almost. Admirers, yes. Yeah. Who'd come along.

And then they had their breaks, didn't they? In the flat where they could. He just said it was basically a bone pad. He didn't say it was a bone pad he did he basically he got down you washed your nuts and then you boned someone then you got back on top great i was i was hoping you'd say more like i don't know eli what would you what would you do this would you spend six months on a billboard for exposure absolutely not no no no Because it seems like, in Geoff's instance, I believe the prizes weren't as much as the exposure to him. No, he was very ambitious.

That comes across. He was very ambitious. And it was obviously something he kind of relished, didn't he? He was very positive about the actual challenge itself, wasn't he? Yeah. I wonder how much of that is just, you know, when you tell history, you embellish it somewhat. And maybe he paints a rosier picture because, frankly, it can't all have been fun and games for six months on a billboard in all kinds of weather.

Also, there is a point where he goes, he was great. Dr. Winky, Lin, was great. He was a great person, he says at one point. But then also he intimates that he was a scam artist and didn't pay them did you notice that I did but that's the interesting thing I still feel that

Lin is just an interesting like we say it in the episode like a Wizard of Oz character where he exists behind the scenes to create this universe

that he's built but he doesn't like to engage in it much he just likes to be the man who did it he's like a Bond villain yeah like a Bond villain he really is it is strange like when you hear the man who did it he's like a bond villain yeah like a bond villain it is strange like when you hear the stories about the guy setting himself on fire and the group he's

coming by and the sex show that they put on him on sunset strip brilliant you know and you just think it could only happen in la on sunset strip in 1984 when cocaine and weed and everything was just there yeah the other thing is yeah the whole uh it really I got a real sense of how kind of freaky it would be if you got really stoned on weed and like it's two in the morning and then you do a load of blow on top of this billboard and you're you're paranoid and you're already paranoid because it's got that whole aspect of uh reality tv about it you know paranoid because it's got that whole aspect of reality TV about it. You know, because everyone's competing against each other. And you're vulnerable the whole time.

Yeah. Both weed and cocaine are known to cause paranoia. So, you know, must have been freaked out up there. Well, that's like I said to him. You know, someone's having sex under a massive winky light bulb as a stuntman sets himself and fire nab sales down the sign. It's like, yeah, it's a very strange experience it's like bloody fury road or something isn't it it's like a fucking post-apocalyptic weird billboard fireman yeah and also it's like you look at the coverage it did get and like there's so much footage that must be lost to time that local news shows probably

had of the people outside i mean he talks about you know stars stopping by yes and he talks about um the phone calls from radio stations and just it's just for a minute you're like the center of attention on a big publicity campaign but ultimately i think like the message was lost i think like the toy became you know supplemental to this big showcase yeah that's another thing but that's like i said there there's no connection there's no link there's no path you can take from this from the competition to actually the toy like what do they all have a winky to help them survive up there they had their own winky friend there was not even anything like that

it was it's plainly shit well they were selling winkies while they were up there as well to make a bit of money well did they get to keep the money or did they have to give their money to fact we don't know did he come and collect the the winky takings you know i mean the only thing i can say is that it's like i can imagine it being like a big issue salesman where they get a commission on everyone sold yeah who knows but he was definitely working for lynn selling the winky off there. And I think he understood that, though. I think I get the impression he knew exactly that he was being exploited and he was going to take as much as he could as well.

Yes, but I think they were just cheated out of the prize money in the end, weren't they? I mean, that whole thing about Sherry is contentious, because as we'll find when we talk to Penny in a moment. She was friends with Sherry. She got to know Penny, I think, probably better than the boys did, the Jeffs. Yeah, because Penny wasn't even on top of the billboard. Penny was just a fan. It phoned in, wasn't she really?

And then, as we'll find out, became a quite important part of the whole process. One other thing about Jeff is when he was saying there was lots of girls who came and wanted basic drinks. You're obsessed with this part of the story. There was one point where you go, you're playing along and you say, oh, I bet you got the cream of the crop. And he goes, yeah, sometimes I got the cream and sometimes I got the crop. I'm amazed that that's amusing to you. It's so amusing because he doesn't even know what you mean by the cream of the crop.

Well, it's like I look at, it's like Jeff sent me a bunch of stuff in an email with like articles to like Insider Soap where they're talking about, here are the winners and the final people of the thing and they're going to go on to stardom and they're going to be in TVs and soaps and movie roles and stuff like that. Because he started off as an actor, and then he moved into casting. It feels like the acting didn't work out for him,

or maybe he just realised that the casting was a more secure job in the industry. Well, yeah, totally. Of course it's more secure. You can see from his delight he took in the industry well yeah totally of course it's more secure he can see from his sort of delight he took in the whole uh the whole event it's almost it's almost little inkling of him being into casting because he was like he's all into the different characters and you know watching everybody and he and he of course he's got this thing where he's trying to develop it into a mini-series or whatever well i mean the thing is the story itself is fascinating but you know like it's like it's la so you've got to hustle that's why it's gonna why it would be a great little mini series

because it's these vectors of all of these things that were going to be huge like the whole reality tv and the whole all of that stuff you know and the drugs and the strip it's just so it is quite cinematic as an idea isn't it yeah but also you've got to remember, there's other lives that we just haven't touched on at all. Like he said, there was a boxer up there and a writer. Yeah, the writer choked on a chicken sandwich and then had to go, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's like, it's almost,

I think I say it in the interview, like it's a Willy Wonka-esque quality with all dropping off one by one. But apparently most of them left within the first month. Just strange that the last three guys were all called Jeff. Yeah. And I can understand that them being quote-unquote betrayed by Sherry because... You can almost, you can see

Sherry as the serpent in the Garden of Eden and them as the three wise men, the three wise Jeffs, if you will. And Winky is the Jesus. Winky is the Jesus. Winky is the child.

Right, I'm going to call it. That is the shittest analogy you could have made. No, it's not. Three Jeffs. The three wise Jeffs. You're calling nothing. So anyway, Jeff, thank you very much, Jeff, for talking to us.

He's got a load of stuff he sent me. So if you want to know more, go to our website or there'll be links to his website where you can just check out all the articles and news clippings he's got. And Paul, you do have a photograph of his giant Winky which he recovered from the billboard. Yes, I do. I have a picture of Jeff's giant Winky. I mean, ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't discovered by now, Winky is an easy source of humour when it comes to just saying Winky. So we are going to ride on that till the end of the episode.

Yes. On that note, Paul, did you say that Dr. Winky had a company called Winky Inc.? Yeah. That could be a euphemism. Yes, it could. For? Yeah. For Spoff.

Right, good. Moving on. Winky Inc. I've squeezed out some Winkyinky ink and write a message on your your butt i do hate you sometimes so we're going on to the next interview now and this is penny who reached out to me initially with the i was the fruit bitch comment so we got talking on ebay and we you know knocked it back and forth. On eBay? You got talking on eBay? Email. Weird.

An eBay romance. Selling each other little trinkets or something. I'm tired. It's a long story. So I got speaking to Penny and she was a bit guarded because of the content

and the tone of our show. But once I convinced her to chat, I think I had a really fascinating chat with her. Now, in both cases with Jeff and with Penny, the conversations were much, much longer and I think I'm going to get, I'm going to chat I think I had a really fascinating chat with her now in both cases with Jeff and with Penny the conversations were much much longer and I think I'm going to get I'm going to give those out to the Patreon people because especially in Penny's case there are a lot of tangents and a lot of kind of personal bits I've kind of lopped out just to focus on the story

yeah but they are quite fascinating in their own way some of those tangents really fascinating Penny has led I mean Penny and Jeff have both led really interesting lives. And it was a shame to kind of focus just on the story, but I wanted to. So reach out to Penny. Now, Penny in the story was the lady who helped out initially with Dr. Winky to kind of maintain the billboard. She kind of invited herself into the story, as we'll find out. And then she fell in love with Jeff Stewart. And then they got married. And the big publicity was the marriage,

which took place on top of the billboard. That whole thing was fascinating, again, because it leans back on the Keith Haring thing. One of the most fascinating things I find about Lawrence Lynn is that he kind of always seems to ask Keith Haring to do something, and Keith Haring does it. What did he have on Haring, I wonder? I don't think he had anything on Haring.

I just think Haring possibly didn't like Lawrence Lynn that much, but maybe he benefited in other ways in terms of the scene and the nightlife. He also did the invite to the wedding we're going to talk about in this segment. So Keith Haring has dipped in and out. And even now, we spoke about it before, a print of that invitation of the winky figure dancing on the wedding cake goes for about a grand online. And it's just fascinating that that is a part of that invitation of the winky figure dancing on the wedding cake goes for about a grand online wow and it's just fascinating that that is a part of the story the the keith herring angle you know who's a really iconic artist you know it's like you can't mistake his work for

anything else and of that era of that era as well and there's a great documentary i think about his life on youtube that you can check out it's fascinating and tragic and the fact that it's even tangentially involved with this daft toy is fascinating to me. So without any further ado then, let's hear from Penny. It's going to hear from Penny.

And as I say, we chopped a lot out to get it down, but it's about another 30 odd minutes or so. Enjoy more fascinating opinions. We'll join you right at the end of this segment. It really took off. A fascinating thing thing we did get free swatch watches but we never got a winky watch unless lynn got one he was like always hoarding shit you know like we were getting from

like sponsors and things like that so like well okay there was a prototype he probably kept it okay so i'll tell you what so because this is automatically recording what i'll do is i'll just start by asking you how you got involved. Like what was your, how did you get to LA and how did you get involved? And then I'll just let you talk. Well, the LA times article has a lot of factual mistakes,

but basically, you know, I had a bad relationship and a stalker situation. I moved from San Diego back towood where i had grown up okay in the hollywood hills on a street called holly drive and some people they came of age while i was gone they were like young 20 well actually i was only 21 so what am i talking about they may have been 18 or 19 but they were kids when i had moved away and they wanted to ride around like go to michael jackson's house they go we're gonna go over to mj's in encino and i thought it was a nightclub that's kind of thing it was michael jackson's house and it was like all

these people i'm like this shit's not cool yeah i want to go back to hollywood so we're driving around hollywood cruising you know what i'm saying like cruising american thing oh yeah yeah yeah okay so we're going down the strip and uh they have the famous iconic billboards in chartreuse marmont and as we're passing the famous cowboy marlboro we see all these lights and stuff up ahead which is next to the iconic playboy club uh sweets or ave is where playboy club sets yes yeah yeah didn't they used to have a store there on the corner eventually it was a huge office building and the penthouse was playable and that's where they used to shoot the old tv show back right okay okay you remember that yeah i vaguely know of it yeah anyway that's where they used to shoot it

yeah so there's a big billboard there and gannett advertising they're the ones who rent the billboards out and we're like what the hell there's the big i can't even i have pictures there was a picture of a winky i don't think it blinked though the red and green okay and there was people on the billboard and this was uh i like to say christmas time yeah it started just before christmas in 84 right well when i came back i came back to hollywood like in uh january yeah because 1984 was horrible 1985 i went to see the steelers and the raiders steelers lost right right after that that was january i moved back so like end of january beginning of

february so we're driving around at that period of time okay in the middle like the end of january and we're like what the hell's going on and i'm like the kids didn't know anything about these teenage boys that i was with yeah so i'm like that's crazy but now that i moved home i needed a job so right i got a job right away because i have connections in Beverly Hills CPA firms. So my reception is at this swanky Beverly Hills CPA firm. All celebrities, all multimillionaires and things like that. And I have to drive past the billboard every day with my roommate, who's from Pennsylvania also, who also knows Keith Haring, her new Keith Haring family. We're all from little towns right there.

So she's like, what is that? I said, I don't know. It's a bunch of people. I guess it's some kind of contest so there was a big number and i called the number and you're right there was the four people that i got to know really well at the end but i think time there might have been eight or nine people up there okay so we had a one out of nine shot that jeff stewart would answer the phone everybody calls him stewie i call him jeff or stew right but so he answers the phone and right away i could tell he's from the east coast long island and i'm from pennsylvania okay so we're chatting this is crazy and he's telling me about the food they have up there and you know they're getting ribs and free meat and delivery

from around that every hill is west hollywood area i'm like well would you like some fresh fruit yeah and i did i brought him some fruit and we're just hanging out he was submitting like right away West Hollywood area. I'm like, well, would you like some fresh fruit? Yeah. And I did. I brought him some fruit and we're just hanging out. He was smitten like right away. You could tell. Okay. He was blushing. He was like pacing around.

And then Jeff Winky, he was the stud up there. Gorgeous. He's a stunt man. Yeah. He was a stunt man. Yeah. I heard he was doing some crazy stuff from time to time just to kind of pass the time.

I set him on fire. You set him on fire. On the billboard billboard yeah he taught me how to do it he also i'm afraid of heights he had me rappelling off the billboard and swinging around on above sunset boulevard whatever you know contraption it was yeah it was crazy up there we We had crazy times. But at any rate, so, and Jeff Olin, who you talked to. Yeah. Anyway, I love him too. I do. We're more like a brother and sister. And he was the only actor.

That's what they got wrong. Sherry was a model. Jeff Winkie was a stuntman. Now, my husband-to-be, he had owned a deli in New York. He grew up in long island his life was nothing about hollywood or acting or modeling or anything like that okay okay so that's a mistake that's a misnomer now people just wanted to win the prizes so yeah you did have a couple actors yeah you did have a model yeah you did have people that are attention seeking punts.

Anyway, so get to the point of the story. So anyway, I really had no expectation of going back other than he was so adorable and his hair had been growing out. So it was kind of curly. Okay. And he's hilarious. Oh, my God. He's so funny. So anyway, I wasn't going to go back. But, you know, people got curious.

Like Todd Bridges. he came by once. Okay. But he actually had been arrested. Todd Bridges was a child actor in a show called Different Strokes. That's right, yeah. Yeah, and he had had a lot of problems. Remember, this is the middle 80s, right? Right.

And so I have a picture of a cop car, but you can't see him. Because this is an old 126 film. Yeah. He had been arrested for some shenanigans two very more came by for like a um it was part of a scavenger hunt right it was like a little tiny girl at the time because was was the other activities going on throughout the period they were up there to kind of keep the interest going yeah so i got it so people were like you know what's going on up there and i would would tell them, so I would go with other people.

So within a few weeks, Jeff was like, so he's been, he wanted to get married. And he's like. Wow. And it had nothing to do with the billboard. And I mean, I'm not going to sit here and try to like, I was like, I didn't understand what an attractive female I was. Right. Okay, I was 21.

I had a bad relationship. I had people stalking me. I'm a very tomboy type of girl. I don't wear makeup. And I didn't really get it, but I'm like, yeah, why not? I'm the one who said, why not, to the LA Times. Jeff said about the rabbi. Oh, right.

It was right below the guy that he said, hail Satan. That guy, the killer. The Night Stalker. Yeah, the Night Stalker. Yeah, right below him was- Rick Rodriguez. Yeah, so the quotes of the year was The Night Stalker. Yeah, the Night Stalker. Yeah, right below him was... Rick Rodriguez. Yeah, so the quotes of the year was the Night Stalker saying, Hail Satan.

Jeff Stewart saying, I must have called every rabbi in LA before I got one to agree to do it. Because we had a hoopa and we broke the glass and everything. Yeah. Yeah. So I said, yeah, but I didn't really think about it at the time. And we were smoking weed. Right. We I said, yeah, but I didn't really think about it at the time and we were smoking weed. We had a little joke.

So you're all just wrapped up in the moment trying to just like celebrate it and just have fun. I was 21, dude. 21. Exactly. They were like, Jeff was 25. I think Oli was 23 maybe. I don't know.

Winky, see we all had nicknames yet because the three japs yeah that was the biggest surprise to me when i was like no which jeff is this right now and i was trying to keep a timeline in my head wiki ollie stewie that's it so jeff olin was the only aspiring actor who happened to be in nightmare on elm street he's one of the cops to come breaking through the door at the very end of the movie oh really it went the freaking hat all you but if you know that nose you know you know what the more i hear this story the more i like the fact that it kind of splinters out into all these little pots of pop culture all over the place it's really what you guys really didn't get about it is that we were all friends after that well that's i mean that's the thing that's what i want to get

to at some point it's like because me, the biggest mysteries now are just, who was Lawrence Lim and what brought him to make this thing? He was a jerk. Grace Jones slapped the shit out of him at a party. At his nightclub, DBAs. He took her little boy, Dolph Lundgren, and Grace Jones had a little boy. Yeah. And he's taken me all over because I wasn't on the billboard.

Okay. Went to this party and I didn't even get to see the actual fight. But everybody was like, oh, my God. He took her little boy who could only been like a toddler at the time. Yeah. He took him away from where she was at. Right. It wasn't a real party party.

It was some kind of promotional thing. You know what I mean? Okay. But she obviously didn't like the idea of him just walking off with their kid you know she's like jamaican or haitian and she slapped the shit out of him yeah she is fierce but he had like these like old um like vintage mercedes-benz uh limousines that he grabbed around in because what i can piece together about him is that he comes from like a rich chinese family his mother was in in married a famous singer that i escaped the name of right now but at that time he was basically i think living off her money and doing little projects well i didn't know all that till later yeah he ran around wearing these like weird glasses

and like it was the 80s the ugliest fashion yeah his assistant was this chick named jennifer jones but maybe weighed 70 pounds yes um she was always like it's not gonna be good it's not good it's not good like these people are full of shit yeah she was wasn't she in charge of publicity or press or something oh whatever yeah i don't know it's like her name pops up in one or two of the articles i've seen online i don't know about lawrence's uh educational background or how it came up with linky i mean they were intoxicated i'm not going to sit here and say i know what they were intoxicated on yeah it was the let's just say it was the 80s and people get crazy ideals and they talk about it really fast and tell you all these little details they convinced me on

one of these tangents to make a take a pair of uh chuckies which uh all-star converse sneaker okay the canvas sneaker and cover it in winkies and jennifer said she was gonna help me but she didn't it was me and sherry we covered him in winkies and we sent him to david letterman we never heard a peep and he never wore him as far as i know we thought he would that's fascinating though that there's a i don't think david letterman was into that kind of crass commercialism promote you know it probably came across as really quite rude and you know what it's almost unsolicited yeah because it all seemed like at the end of the day it was like for everyone's involvement it did seem like a vanity project for dr winky because like wasn't he painted on the billboard was surrounded by women i think he was

yeah there was a poster in fact I was just somebody put a picture of me on Facebook for my birthday and I'm wearing this crazy wig and crown of Winkies which I see people on Twitter apparently would kill themselves to get all the Winkies yeah and there was like all these models holding him he's the biggest enigma in all this from like certainly from our point of view in that you know we're trying to trace why he did it who designed it who he got how he got made an empty mansion once in beverly hills yeah which was like weird it was this mansion like right off of uh santa monica boulevard there's a lot of nice park there i see fred astaire every morning walking through that park he would always wave he was a nice man if you had the camera i could show you the tube.

Like I came up with the wedding invitations. Yes, he did know Keith Haring as a business. Did you see my email to you? Yes. Okay. So like it was the business thing. He painted a mural. I don't think Keithy liked him.

I think because he was like famous, like Donald Trump for not paying people. Yeah, I used to hang out in San Franciscoisco in the 80s also yeah okay and a completely different scene from la and from new york because like you used to go to new york because jeff was from new york and i used to go to new york because i grew up next door you know tri-state areas pennsylvania new jersey new york so they're completely different scenes new york was that's why keith went from kurtztown okay he was actually born in reading i think that's how my mom met his mom because we used to go down to the chef for our d plant and get big ass kansas ravioli and stuff yeah but everybody wanted to leave our little towns and to me new york was just full of rats and trash i love the scene yeah

no way i'm gonna go to la he's like no way he's gonna go to pennsylvania he's gonna go to new york you know and also you know being gay in our little area being gay being interracial being anything different than white redneck with a gun rack in your truck yeah you're gonna get bullied and picked on and shit no he was always an artist he was always different so he's going where he wants to be accepted and he's being accepted in places which is outside the norm i mean i wish i had went to new york because then i would have met um andy warhol well yeah you know that that's god oh my god are you killing me that would have been great and that's the thing at this time the reason why this story is so interesting to me

is that it is like a very strange moment in like you know pop culture in the 80s where you've got all this conflation of of styles and merchandise and branding and then artwork and nightclubs. It's crazy. The Swatch guy, who's Italian, I can't think of his name now. Yeah. I should know that, right? Because Swatch was everything.

It was huge, yeah. They gave me a free Swatch watch. Everyone was so jealous. It was just a Swatch. It wasn't a winky swatch. No. I know wedding rings had winkies on them. Really?

Yeah. I gave my ring to Jeff. I never would wear it. Okay. And Seiko was a robot that was in the last Rocky movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And a famous rich billionaire guy.

He's the heir of the Scott Tissue or something like that. Okay. That could have been a lot. I don't know. But he was very mysterious. He controlled Seiko. And my best friend who was supposed to give me away that day had to have his artery stripped. So Seiko ended up giving me away.

And my mother, who was born in 1922, was a nightclub singer. We flew her out, and she was standing on Seco and dancing around with him. And we didn't get the negatives because Lawrence never paid the photographer. See, that's, I feel like a lot of really good stuff is lost because of his negligence. You know, it's like he was burning everything behind him when it didn't work. Like I said, there was intoxication issues. Yeah. There was, maybe he was just too smart for his own good.

Okay. I mean, what was he like in terms of his personality? Was he, was he kind of all talk or, or I don't know. He was a bullshit artist. He was really brief.

I mean, listen, I wasn't raised with money, but I was around a lot of people of real wealth, not new money. Like, you know, where it was generational and he had that

air about him like he didn't care if they got fed he just thought they got fed because people get fed don't they bring you your dinner so were you part of a crew then or a team that looked after them or was it just until he couldn't he didn't want to pay anybody to babysit the last, the final four. So they put me in charge when they would go to New York or San Francisco. Oh, right. So you were kind of left holding the baby, so to speak,

like when basically, yeah, because now I'm involved, I'm engaged and they're like, we're going to pay for everything. We're going to do everything. Right. But I had to put my foot down about a lot of stuff.

Okay. So like, he's basically saying we're doing you a favor with me giving you X, Y, and Z. I brought up Keith Harington doing the wedding invitations, but I wanted just the fucking primitive guys and girls dancing. He's the one to put the winky heads on it.

Of course he did. He wanted it to be branding, didn't he? He wanted it everywhere. Well, you've seen the posters. So like, I really don't want to unwrap mine because, you can see it's getting aged okay and what we did is we sent them out in red tubes

and we filled them with red green and gold rice to mess with everybody and you're not going to believe this go on i have a huge family and i knew they wouldn't come but i sent everybody one and it came with the invitation to the reception also the smaller version and they threw them all away whoa i just talked to a girl in la i'm like don't you still have yours like no i don't know what happened to it that's correct i mean i actually don't even have one of my own i have my sister jerry's that she never opened it right because people had opened it told her about the rights to she's a neat freak she lost her mind. Fair enough, yeah. So that's the other thing as well,

is because this was just kind of, I don't know, I don't know what to say, it's like because it was six months of everyone's life, the fact that it kind of just disappeared immediately is what kind of makes the story interesting because... It's LA. Well, it's LA and it's like the next best thing is coming along the corner.

At that time, Good Morning America interviewed us. People came from japan in germany i've never seen any of these things my only footage i had somebody taped over it on the old you know videotape vcr um i never saw the good morning america interview well i did i that's why i think i saw it there in the that morning because like they came at like five eight four a.m or three a.m to get get us because it's filmed in New York. And Paul Hartman was supposed to interview us and they put it off on Joan Lunden. She was the new girl.

Right. And she was wonderful. She was so bubbly and lovely. And she's like, so what does your family think? I'm like, well, they don't know. Or Jeff's might have said they don't know. I was like, they do now because everybody was mourning America back then.

So how long was it between you meeting him and you get and then getting married was it a few months or a few weeks like I used to journal but it was definitely in January that I met him and then the proposal thing which I didn't get an engagement ring and I'm not a jewelry person he did buy me one later on for my birthday okay but um so and it was Valentine's Day and I was there because i brought i brought cookies from my entire office in beverly hills so and i had more cookies and i took them over to the billboard and i think at this point there was only the four of them left right when i first saw it there might have been eight or nine people there i saw it right after christmas right before new year's you know i i love hollywood yeah not because i wanted

to be an actor or dancer or singer or model people wanted me to model people wanted me to do all kinds of crazy stuff yeah i was more introverted i like writing i mean i'm extroverted but i'm not i see what you mean i see what you mean so you're expressive but it's kind of you'd like to show off and jeff is the same way and that's like people thought it was scammy or shammy or whatever they want to call it. Yeah. It was a real true connection. Right. Okay.

And if I had been a little older, more mature, cause every, they were making bets on how long the relationship will last, my friends and other people. Really? So, so when it was wrapping up then the whole experience and you've met all

these celebrities, cause people were stopping by, what was happening towards the end of because i know they said they came up with an agreement where the four of them it devolved into a lot of disgruntled and dissatisfaction and sherry davis didn't speak for four months she took a vow really i was like i was letting them do whatever they wanted to do because i thought it was all a bunch of bullshit yeah um people weren't getting paid so it was like the wheels were coming off it towards the end well everything did the wedding did come off okay and the night we were at the lamadrian okay that famous the red yellow and we had the reception there and there were a lot of people there i don't remember everybody because

i started drinking in the morning in the limo pasad. I was at my sister's house in Pasadena with my mom and family members. And so, you know, push-button limo, push-button bar. Yeah. It was all morning. And I said my vowel was a perfect Yiddish, Hebrew. So we're at the La Madre on. Yeah. Now the party's over, and everybody had a grand time, truthfully.

It really went well. There was paparazzi everywhere i don't know how celebrities deal with that shit i couldn't see anything wow when i walked down sunset boulevard with the robot sico we had to walk up the steps to the billboard we had a great time we had the wedding everybody got changed went to a reception and that night just to stick it to lawrence i ordered uh i think it was three or four jabooms of champagne wow why not yeah because i knew it was a joke yeah oh i tell you what actually because there's one question that i think you asked and i wanted to ask it as well is that you've not been able to

track down sherry davis and i know one of the questions i have sorry sorry, is just Jeff Olin suggested the idea that she might have been a ringer and was promised to win. And then that's why she's going to do the New York one. I mean, that's the only conspiracy theory I know of that he ever floated. No, that's not true. Sherry and I were very close. Okay. It's just because we don't know. I don't know too much about it.

And it's interesting that she went to do it in New York for a little time afterwards. I don't know what happened. Okay. It's just because we don't know, I don't know too much about it. And it's interesting that she went to do it in New York for a little time afterwards. I don't know what happened. Yeah. The picture you see is- Sherry just disappeared after the wedding. Okay. Yeah.

After the spoons of champagne, we all sat up in the hotel. We ordered pizza. We got twisted. And all the Winkies stayed up in our honeymoon suite with us. God almighty. Everybody left. Yeah.

And Sherry did disappear. did disappear and it's just me and the jeffs and the two winkies and ollie got an apartment and me and jeff moved into a cottage um right next to tower records espago oh cool that's a lovely website yeah so you know i just kept on living my hollywood life yeah you know, I loved Hollywood because I loved the movies and I loved scripts. And, you know, and Jeff, he went back into the food industry. Okay. He worked for years at the University of Judaism,

managing their cafeteria. So he went back to that and then just like, I imagine once everything calmed down, it just all kind of just faded away. Well, the guys, they sought legal action. They were furious he never he never gave up the money the trip to hawaii the car whatever that was promised the screen test and things like that sherry see i'm black sherry's back and um jennifer jones who

i never liked blacks okay he's one of those people that we call it oreo black on the outside white on the inside right i didn't trust that chick okay i don't know what was going on behind my back with those two girls right but i know what was going on in my mind and how you hear me how you see me and how i am i i don't know about motivations and playing games and i felt bad for the jeffs because they did do six months up there and they'd all agreed agreed, hadn't they, to come down at once and then she turned around and went back up? No, she did not go back up. Oh, the story goes is that she went back up there just to kind of...

No, she might have went back up to get her stuff. I don't know. Like I said, she didn't talk for four months. Yeah, that's the other strange thing. She did not speak to me. We wrote notes in hand gestures. And would you never explain why she went silent? I kept trying to get because of the guys.

Oh, okay. It was just all a bit too much for her. Sherry was insanely gorgeous in the color of her Hershey bar. The woman was just perfection. Right. I don't know what went on before I met them because I, did they start with like 16 or something? I think 12, I think 16 or something 13 or something

I think 12 I think or something and then they got rid of a few quite quickly and then by the time I think they got into the new year it was down to like 6 I don't know how many women

were up there you know Jeff Winky I don't think he had any kind of malice in his body at all like or anything like that

but I can imagine if you're up there for 6 months at the end of the day it's like that patience begins to wear thin I forget what triggered her not speaking it just seems like it's strange if you had that bad a time why you she'd want to go and do it again in new york for a few weeks i forgot about that see it's amazing what you forget you know and then um like jeff olin and

well jeff winky ended up because we used to go see Jeff Winkie's shows, all of us together. Okay. And his name was Justin Case. What kind of show did he do? You know, you go to those big monster truck rallies. Oh, okay. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would be the entertainment, jumping over stuff.

And we watched him get so devastatingly injured once. Oh, so like an evil thing i actually punched this white guy in the audience because they're like yeah he's not even bleeding wow try to stop me stewie and holy try to stop me and i just attacked this guy because i'm in like shock our friend watched his body contort it was horrible but he was fine i'm fine i'm fine so he was doing the whole evil can evil thing then at that time yes he wanted to be a he wanted to be a hollywood stuntman wow and so jeff was working um in television production doing commercials he did

like a lot of things he did a famous sprint commercial where the lady gets pulled back into her cubicle they're going through the office of sprint it was a phone company yes yeah and the little chubby lady is talking they're all talking to the employees and this lady she like ducks out of her cubicle and then she gets pulled back in like magic yeah that was my husband my husband okay they did dick clark uh they did mutual of omaha yeah you know we spent a lot of and i have a lot of i had a lot of props i don't know what i have left now but i mean you know he see a lot of and i have a lot of i had a lot of props i don't know what i have left now but i mean you know he did a lot of work so when when you look back on it now is it like you know they say the past is a different country do you see it as this wild moment in your life do you

recognize it oh i look at it like if it had been filmed it would have been the first reality show well yeah it would have been you're right there was there was so much of that that kind of big brother thing you got to know about the hollywood strip right i mean sunset strip yeah oh yeah yeah yeah like the seven veils strip club um is the motley crew was a poison who did the girls girls girls uh that's motley crew yeah yeah i met all them because they were at the strip club the seven veils and oh the worst story of all is like, because I didn't have a car, but I used to go to my roommate when I was like, we would drive together to the CPA that we worked for.

And so I would take the bus down to visit them. And at Hollywood and Vine was a great big Mercedes van building, right? And I would catch the bus there. But see, Santa Monica is where the boys turn treks. Sunset is where the girls turn treks. So I'm down there looking all fresh-faced in a miniskirt and sneakers, Reeboks, you know. but see Santa Monica is where the boys turn tracks. Sunset's where the girls turn tracks. Right. So I'm down there looking all fresh facing, miniskirt and sneakers,

Reeboks, you know, they were the thing. And I got hit on so many times who thought I was a prostitute. Catching the bus to go down to the, to the West side of sunset. Cause I lived in the Hollywood Hills, which is off of a Cahuenga and Vine and Ivar,

old Hollywood. Yeah. Old USO was on Ivar ivar coanga is where that one club is where we ran into prince his old like i forget the name of that club anyway but it was crazy like there were these guys that were dwarfs that were rich uh real estate developers they were on a lot of tv shows back in the 80s okay they were twins okay they were twin dwarfs that were rich real estate developers that that is a sentence i'd never thought i'd hear before as a prostitute at the mercedes-benz building on

sunset as i was taking the bus down to see job do you see that in many respects it's a mad thought it's a mad thought it's like if you wrote that in a script it would be told to be ridiculous i'm like how are you even driving he had the specially equipped van it's shameless though it is shameless because it's like i i briefly lived in la for a while in like 2000 so you know well yeah i got to know the area and i got to know some parts of it you know quite well but there was that sense of that whole part of Hollywood, anything could happen, you know, depending on what street you went on. Well, it's weird to think about Hollywood, see, because nobody's from there.

No. There's a weird dichotomy. There's a lot of hard and good, decent people there. And then on the other side, like you're saying, everything is for sale. Like, I did not look like a prostitute. I have a very athletic body. I had very small breasts. I wasn't exposing skin. i didn't wear wild makeup i was just probably wearing shorts or a jean miniskirt and sneakers

and a t-shirt a rich old white guy in a silver shadow um i forget the name of the street now because it's been so long but a couple blocks before sweet star i was walking yeah and this rich old man he looked like the cryptkeeper with glasses in the silver shadow rolls royce i love cars i'm like wow look at this car like i said i don't wear makeup and i keep my hair cut like a boy it's long now but back then always short okay he offered me five thousand dollars to go home with him whoa and i'm like seriously dude and this old dude just thinks you know he maybe he didn't think i was a prostitute maybe he thought oh five thousand dollars and she'll come with me yeah maybe because that's the ugly side of hollywood and the harvey wine scene is the ugly side of hollywood well yeah

deep-seated heart and see another thing is people come from all over the world become famous in hollywood all these beautiful people and they chewed up and spat out become famous so the other 99 percent breed yeah so you have those gorgeous we're there you have the most gorgeous people tell me are they beautiful in hollywood yeah they can be store clerk 7-eleven yeah the guy at the video store which doesn't exist anymore well you know quentin Tarantino Worked at a video store Everyone who worked At Tower Records Could have been

In a 90s indie movie Exactly Exactly So when So when I got When you got in touch with me And we started The conversation

Is it weird Talking about it now Did you think it was Like just a relic Because I'm surprised The story's not been Told more often No because we were

Friends for so long And then the Keithy Connection And more often we were friends for so long and then the keithy connection and okay so is it we're talking about it no because i regret divorcing my husband okay i had to get out and get away at the time i mean we were married for two and a half years like we beat everybody's stupid bed i truly adore him and love him to this day and um i've been married twice since then so anyway it's like and i was talking to some friends they bring up does it bother you about the winky thing or do you think it was a flash in the pan what have you yeah no because the winky thing is one thing our relationship is friends being married is another yeah and i quit leaving my husband he didn't want the divorce

i wanted the divorce i wanted to be free to do what i wanted to do yeah okay and he wasn't into this stuff but he liked to go shopping and he liked at stores he liked fashion he liked food um he was just a really fun funny person He loved our cats. He loved our old, funky Oldsmobile station wagon. His heart broke when I took it. I mean, Jeff was a great guy. My whole family adored him, except for one sister who's a bitch. She told Jeff's mother on our wedding day that her son was not attractive enough to marry me. Nice.

Just what you want to hear. Excellent stuff. Okay. You guys say cunt all the time. When we say it over here, we mean it. Everybody else loved Jeff. Everybody else loved Jeff. All my friends adored him.

Like I said, they remained friends until some of them passed away. Yeah. And so that's all the way up until the young 2000s. Well, I mean, from my point of view, I just want to say thank you for reaching out and helping us tell this story. I was kind of being a bitch when I reached out tell the truth but after being angry with you guys I did I mean I listened to it because it's a long um episode yeah I can see that you have this genuine affection and I'm like oh you haven't been around

English people in a while you forget how they are yeah and I don't know how dr winky lawrence i don't know how he got the idea i mean because pole sitting has been a thing in our country for a long time yeah flagpole sitting was a whole thing and then yeah yeah i don't know i see he was always intoxicated that's like imaginary air quotes intoxicated and not alcohol yeah i don't know how he got the idea and so it's supposed to be this interactive friend but all i did was blink right in green yeah sometimes okay so you could press the button on the back of beam and make you only red or make you only green you notice if you press the little buttons on the back of the chip yeah it alternates the the flash yeah yeah i think

it has three settings correct yeah so like I love you guys call it a badge. Yeah, it's a pin. But yeah, for me, it's a lovely badge. No, no, no, no, no. It was not a pin. It was your interactive friend. It was jewelry. That was Lawrence's line. He was so full of shit.

Yeah. That was him. He was like, I don't know how he truly was in his real life. But you know, I'm kind of glad I did it. I mean, I don't regret it at all. I regret what the boys went through. I shouldn't boys but everybody we were really young nobody was of course but i do feel bad for what they put into that effort and they were treated very shabbily but hadn't been for me truthfully i mean they wouldn't and they kind of went shell-shocked too when i took him like i took him off the billboard yeah to may 3rd market and he was like having ptsd couldn't stand to be around the people was weird

yeah so they had it bad i mean yeah they got a place to shit it was a lovely little apartment on switzer down below the billboard and we had a guard for a while i think they stopped paying the guard service too they also stopped paying the billboard people oh they stopped paying the billboard they were treated really badly and they had these like you know all like jeff olin really thought that he was gonna be that he was gonna i think was there something about being an actor there was a screen test and a potential yeah yeah right yeah and i guess to be fair at the end of all of that you'd at least want something you know rather than memories well they got to be good friends like i said winky and ollie they were roommates for years okay jeff and i were together for two and a half years and we were still friends for about

i wouldn't call it i don't know he just long enough i don't know i mean i love jeff to this day i stand by my decision at the time. I regret that we can't be friends. And I'm glad that Jeff, Oli and I can still be friends. I mean, it's, you know, I lived in, I moved home to Pennsylvania. I had a son and then I moved to Ohio after the election in 2016. I had to get, I mean. Okay. So you've kind of gone to where you feel safer, so to speak.

Well, it's more metropolitan. Yeah. From my point of view, it's like, there's a lot of gaps and a lot of things i just wanted to know and between the three of you i've got a really good story the only real mystery is lawrence and i don't think that's gonna happen like what did i say in the beginning of this interview lawrence lynn man a mystery he was full of shit okay yeah i mean he was promising things to people behind our backs like i said i got to meet the swatch the guy that designed the swatch thing yeah i think was a clothing designer to start with i got to meet al sassoon i got to meet grace jones and dolph lundgren no but i think that's that's the

thing i think i think it's like it's that era at that age and it's not until you get age and wisdom that you look back and go ah and young people being promised you know they had stars in their eyes or like they wanted the money yeah or in the trip and and like i was always on the outside looking in and i always knew it was that this guy was not doing because i i knew about the apartment manager i talked to the people that lived in the apartment. Just like I said, when you're around people of real wealth, you can see the cracks in the foundation. And there were a ton of cracks. Everything's sponsored.

I do believe he owed Keith Haring money at the end. He kept the original block that was printed, that printed our invitations, which is kind of crappy since they were made for us yeah exactly right it's like he's he's hoovering up all that all those memories all that nostalgia all that merch yeah i'm a vindictive american i'm glad he got robbed and supposedly purported which i don't know about that yeah he was from a wealthy family and um but he did have an engineer he did have some kind of education

to come up with a microchip thing that i don't want to besmirch yeah but i don't know what happened to him he went down some rabbit hole i know you guys love that term i do and maybe he could have been a nicer person better person he could have kept his promises they should have got a signed contract i do believe they did get something but i do believe there was a contract okay and that's why they sought legal remedy and um there was an article about that too i'm not in that article thank god a little embarrassed to even be a part of the situation at the time yeah because i knew that they were getting ripped off they didn't understand and when they started leaving to go to new york and san francisco and putting me in charge

yeah you saw the writing i yeah i saw the writing on the wall yes sir thank you paul exactly and i thought this sucks so you saw it coming and they got the shell shock of like abruptly being a cold shower at the end yeah i wasn't a babe in the woods okay so it's like i saw it coming i'm like this is so mad yeah and they really did do they really did they had a bathroom yes they had a bathroom yeah but the food delivery was the donations from the restaurants was cold and soggy yeah we'll keep that stuff six months and they did need the fresh fruit by the way so yes this bitch did bring them fresh it's california we're known for it of course you want to at least make sure they get their vitamin d and c and on that cheery note i'm gonna say good night but look after yourself okay

i'll give you a shout i'll give you a shout when the episode goes up you can have a listen all right all right thanks paul you look after yourself penny take care stay safe you too thank you so penny's an interesting character i think she's led a life quote unquote and i like the fact that she's boisterous she's got a great voice it's not any one sort of region i can tell it seems like she's bounced around from east to west coast you know so maybe it's just like i don't know that's like i don't know either way it's just i find it fascinating i think she genuinely does regret the outcome to the winky and the wedding you know i i get the impression that well she seems like she was still in love with the guy she says she told she wants to be married to him still i mean she wasn't beating

about the bush about it no i i agree but at the same time it's like you know i still have very fond feelings of my ex when i was married you know and i still romanticize about that sometimes but i also know like you know things sometimes happen for a reason yeah but she didn't she seemed genuinely like she'd walk back into that relationship if she could do you know what i mean yeah and i it as i say it's like it's weird now because as these stories have all come together because i would say the two jeffs of two of the jeffs have got back in touch and they're working on projects and i think penny as well she's had winky brought back into her life because other people have heard

of this stupid bloody podcast basically she called up and got chatting with the guy and then came and visited jeff and that was it but then she also started working for lynn i you know i mean that that's not clear transient nature i think of you know just being young and i you know i mean that that's not clear transience nature i think of you know just being young and dumb you know and in la yeah and i think you know i she got swept up in it and i think as she points out she kind of got left holding the baby lynn was fucking about all over the place working on his club and going to new york and meanwhile she has to feed and maintain the security basically came out of her own pocket, a lot of it, it seems like, didn't it? Like, she, you know.

But also, she got to rub shoulders with a lot of, you know, celebrities. Like, the Grace Jones story is fantastic. Right, yeah. Because if anyone knows what she did on Russell Harty, yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all that she'd slapped the fuck out of him. She slapped Lynn, is what the story basically says. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, fair play. So, yeah, and you do get, she definitely thinks that Lynn was sort of just not trying to spend the least money possible on it by the end of it. He probably moved on. He'd moved on in his mind, hadn't he, by then, probably, you know? Very likely. It was interesting when she talks about the marketing they tried to drum up, like the sneakers that they sent to David Letterman's show. Yeah. All that kind of stuff.

I just feel like he treated it like a fringe festival gig, where it's kind of like, who can fire? Who can do this? Who can hawk their words for the promise of getting into my club or hanging out with my celeb mates? He definitely used his sort of cachet and hanging on to get people to work for him, and Penny was. It sounds like she was sort of like being a sort of personal assistant

to all of them by the end. But as a result of his kind of flighty nature, when that ended with the wedding in June, it was like, I think they signified the ending of the whole experience with the wedding. It was like how to close it off. But I think he was, you're right, he moved on to something else.

And so just the complete and utter abandonment of the winners, and the fact that they didn't get their prizes, and the fact that they were left... They had to publicise themselves afterwards. Terrible. I've written in my notes, Paul, twin dwarf real estate moguls.

Did I dream that? No, that is something definitely that happened. Right. That happened, yes. That's what we call a typical LA story from 1980s. So he was hanging out with them, basically. Lynn was an associate of the twin dwarf real estate moguls. No, I think Penny was implying that just in her time outside the billboard,

people kept stopping and trying to offer sex, and they were just two random passes by okay but she said they were kind of famous at the time well probably if you're two small real estate people i can imagine that's quite the usp did she also say at one point that ember dink humper dink what's he called um humper dink emper dink engelberg humper dink engelberg humper dink has a club called Bangers or something. Possibly. There's so many random facts that come out of her story.

Humperdinck has a club called Bangers. Yes. Bizarre. But it's interesting also getting her take because she's much more critical of Lynn than Jeff, isn't she? I think to some extent Jeff kind of rolled with the punches and kind of put a good spin on it, you know, whereas she saw the bullshit to some extent

exploited it but I don't think that involved the wedding because as we found out I think that was very important to her it was genuine it seems like

they genuinely were in love and it's like she's trying to sort of balance you know the pure sort of showbiz schmaltzy

hollowness of the whole thing with you know trying to actually... Yeah. It's never going to be easy to start a long-term marriage when you get married as part of a publicity stunt on top of a billboard, you know what I mean?

Possibly, but... It's not a good start. It's not a good start, and I think you can tell from the comments of some of our friends and family at the time that it was all looked down upon. Yeah. What was interesting from both of these stories is, I mean, again, thank you to Penny for spending her time talking with me.

We'll put the unedited one up on our Patreon. Also, Patreon exclusive will be my trip to LA. I've just decided now I'm going to put that trip to LA as a Patreon exclusive where I go on my winky pilgrimage. Yeah. But what was interesting that came out of both stories was the fact that, and I didn't know this, but after it all stopped, and let's remember, by 85 of June, the toy was probably dead on its arse. And he stopped paying rent.

He didn't pay the rent on the billboard. I mean. Yeah. Because I think he didn't even think it was going to last that long. Did they get evicted? Is that what was going to happen? Were they going to get kicked off by the... Pretty much.

Right. And that's why they formed the pact to come down together and split it. And it's Sherry Davis, Sherry Davis. Well, here's the thing. I don't think it's fair to paint her as a bad guy because it's easy to think that. Let's just say she wasn't a plant and was promised a win. Let's just say that the win that she did achieve was fair and square what boggles my mind is the fact that winky tried it again in

new york a few months later yes that to me is absolute arrogance he uh he asked jeff though as well so she wasn't a plant she just got the offer that Jeff got. But if she was so unhappy with everything, with them, with the guys, why would you agree to do it again in New York? Because there's an article from the New York News. I can't find the date, unfortunately. Jeff sent me this, so thank you again to Jeff. It says, actress Sherry Davis made it to the top of Broadway by setting up temporarily on a billboard high above

great white way so they're talking about new york now not la davis is the living billboard and is advertising the winky a decorative microchip with a red and green light that is supposed to be worn as a pin or earring at least they just didn't say whatever the fuck that is that's true yeah the ascent to broadway began on de December 11th when she and 11 other actors, and that was the other thing, it looked like it wasn't all actors. It looked like it was a fair mix. But anyway,

entered the winky contest to see who could live the longest on a 15-foot tall billboard on Sunset Strip in LA. Davis, 26, won. She stayed on the billboard for 184 days, nine days longer than anyone else. That's probably not true, but we don't know.

Then she and lawrence lynn 30 an owner of extronics inc of san francisco who's manufactures the winky decided to take their show on the road and come to new york she traveled cross-country on a truck with a billboard on it and tuesday she climbed the stairs to a five-story building housing a dance school and a car dealership on broadway and west 56th street and began living on a colorful winky billboard 88 feet above great white way once she's finished her reign on broadway davis plans to collect her prizes from the company which is a trip to haiti a honda civic a role in a movie about the microchip and a part in a commercial for winky to be aired

on mtv none of that happened, imagine there was a movie. They were talking about a Winky movie. I know. That would be so shit. It would have been an E.T. kind of wank, Short Circuit. Except all it does is winks. It doesn't talk. Mate, can you imagine if Short Circuit ended up being

originally a script for Winky? That is not outside the realm of believability at all. Because you hear of these movies like Die Hard 4 was originally going to be Lethal Weapon 6 or something. You know it. Anyway, Davis says she plans

to stay on the 3 foot by 48 foot billboard as long as New York is willing to wink back at me. She has a 19 inch colour television set, a stereo, two fig plants

to keep her company in her penthouse, quote unquote, as well as a telephone. Davis, a tall, thin model and actress to keep her company in her penthouse quote unquote as well as a telephone davis a tall thin model an actress with a gold streak in her hair plans to come down twice a day for 15 minute pit stops to go to the bathroom take a shower and change clothes in an apartment nearby her food will be provided by the hard rock cafe so she had the shits the whole time she was up there and will be brought up to her she'll be protected around the clock by bodyguards provided by the company but she said she feels a lot safer than

she did in her apartment in san francisco who's going to come up here davis asked with a laugh for protection from the element she has a plexiglass roof sleeps on a foam mattress why would she want to live on a billboard well i was bored davis says anyway i always want to be a star on Broadway, and this is the most fun way to do it. It's not a way to do it, though, is it? No. It's like saying, I've always wanted to be in the West End,

so I jumped on top of the Palladium and got the balls out. You haven't performed at the West End. Davis said her family and friends thought she was crazy until they heard about the prize. Yeah. Her life on a billboard in California had some added benefits too. She said actor-playwright Sam Shepard stopped by and she got a call from Dolly Parton, Matt Dillon and Dustin Hoffman

who told her, If I was ten years younger, I'd be up there myself. I can't do Dustin Hoffman. That's, well, you tried, Paul. You tried. Yeah, and unfortunately, I think I sounded more like Al Jolson. Yeah. So we'll move on. But what gets me is this is where the story literally dies for the badge for me.

We don't know what happened to Sherry. We presume she didn't get the prizes. We presume she's disappeared. No one's heard of her. I couldn't find any trace of her outside of this story. That just always gives me the fear. It just gives me the fear, that lonely feeling of someone... Unless she's still up there, and they just haven't brought her down yet.

No. This is why it's unfair to paint her strictly as a villain, I think. It's more interesting to say that, just like Jeff, she wanted to be famous. Yes, but she also is definitely working with Lynn to some extent. We don't know. We don't know that. How come she wins in New York? I don't understand.

Why is she alone up there? Well, as Jeff said, it seemed like it was like a freak show, but more kind of pathetic because his friend said he was in New York at the time and called her because he could see her from her window. So this is what gets me about the exploitation of this. And the only person to walk away from it without shit on their hands is Lawrence Lin who just goes on to create another business

or another enterprise or another nightclub. Because since then, he's been involved in all kinds of weird businesses. Small tech, other nightclubs, a media company called Loop Media that made videos for online companies. And apparently he's still working out of his home address in San Francisco, but that's

all we know. And I did get an email, but I have decided not to get in touch because I kind of worry that that's a bad idea. What? You got an email from Lin? No, I've got an email. I've got his email address, apparently, potentially. But I kind of feel like getting in touch with him could... Could stop the

end the whole of this podcast. There's also that, yeah. So this all brings us to It's the next chapter in the story after the billboard really for us, isn't it Paul? It's the final chapter. It links back to the question we had at the beginning. Why is there

a French song about Winky, right? Why? Why? Why was the song released almost a full year later? And you're about to find out why next. So, here's how it goes. The biggest mystery to this was the song for us, right? Because we couldn't understand its relation.

Because the toy definitely had not been released anywhere else in the world. So, we couldn't find the connecting tissue. You know, as we explained in the earlier episode, we went looking for the songwriter, and we found that the songwriter, Claude Tonietti, awful with French pronunciations. Tonietti, yeah, Tonietti. We found his YouTube video of the Nostradamus

French beatbox track with the blunt smoking kitten and the brick wall Which we were the first person to have viewed it. In almost 10 years, yes. It was like the YouTube equivalent of a Google bang or whatever they used to call it Google whack, yeah. Yeah, right

It was a YouTube whack, wasn't it? Yeah. He literally uploaded it. He hadn't even watched it himself on YouTube. Probably not. Do you know what I mean? But once that became a massive dead end, I decided to reach out to a friend of mine.

Her name is Rowena, and she works in the music. I used to do comedy with her back in the day. She used to do improv, but now she works in music. And I said, listen, because we tried to track the the song down like who owned it and it bounced from one independent company to french warner brothers to some other thing we just wanted to know if we could reach out to any of the songwriters and so she put me in touch with a guy who put me in touch with another guy who said i found him and you can reach out to him on facebook and i did and so i managed to get in touch with the composer of the track,

one Laurent Gasperi. So I reached out to him on Facebook, not eBay. God damn it, Paul. Stop using eBay to date Frenchmen. So I reached out to Laurent on Facebook, and I went, Hey, my name's Paul Gannon. I do a podcast. Do you remember ever doing a song called Winky?

And I think he got in touch with me not too long, like five minutes later, saying, wow, I've not been asked about Winky for 35 years. Fucking crazy. What do you want to know? And I went, oh, so much. Everything. But as it turned out, he didn't have much to say. But what he did say made a lot of sense. So I agreed to speak to him on Zoom.

This is another little interview I did with him. This is only about 10 minutes, but I think in those 10 minutes, it pieces it all together. So with that in mind, please enjoy this interview, which explains just why the hell this song exists. Hello. Yeah, okay. Nice to see you.

Yeah, me too. So thank you for agreeing to speak to me. I know it's probably strange and out of the blue, but I really appreciate it. No, it was a big surprise, you know, your mail yesterday, because it's a very old story for me the winky. I can imagine you've probably not spoken about it much to be fair. That makes me laugh yesterday when you say we were very surprised the French song and you wonder why is it in french it's very funny yeah because initially i thought did they did they try and sell it in france and sorry in canada in the french quarter maybe and things

like that but no it was a kind of a loose end so i contacted a few friends of mine who work in the music industry in the uk and they tracked you down and then funnily enough you're on facebook and so we reached out. And I thought, so finally, you can now tell me your involvement and how this came to be. Because we would genuinely love to know. Yeah, so that my friend Claude Tognetti, you know, the writer of the lyrics, and the producer, I think he's the the producer too Claude Bertognetti. So it's a guy I knew for a long time ago and he went to see me in

85 and said I've found a funny thing in a little thing in a little batch in New York and I'm planning to to bought the license for friend and try to sell it in France and but I think it was funny if we met a song together you know we use a long time before to make some music together and I said well you do want to try to to to make music with me and have some lyrics? I can explain what the winky is on the lyrics of the song. And do you want to make some music on it? Say, okay, but what is the purpose?

To dance with it? But people say, yeah, I think it's better for dance music and try to make people dance on the club with that so that's the way we did it it was just like this and it was very fun to do it because we we do it very quickly you know no no no brainstorming and nothing just starting with a with a big box and I had a mini Moog at that time and the bass line and said okay so I played my guitar and I said some you know the freaks is chic and it's like a kind of guitar rhythm guitar like that yeah and it was okay. but the project failed totally in France you know. Claude before was working some... maybe previously he had worked in EMI in France. so he had connection in EMI and when we did

when we got the mix finish and all that, he said i'm gonna call and try to have a rendezvous with the mi because i knew some guys still in working there and and they say okay we we can try to to distribute the the and i say okay well well let's try it well nothing happened you know the radio don't didn't play it and uh so we tried to get to show to to show to a video clip as i told you yesterday yes yes but it's very it's very funny i can send it to you if you really want to see it so it's a cool you have to send this you have to. It took me two hours yesterday because I didn't know where it was. Which hard disk it was, you know.

So I finally found it and I'm going to send it to you. But it's very funny. It's very low budget, you know. Yes. It was like this. So after end of the story because the the record failed and the winky failed end of the story it's it's strange though because when we first heard it it felt like um

the theme to a tv show or a movie almost as well because it we just had it had that sense of you're about to see an adventure with this small little toy and I don't know if you ever got your hands on the badges but when they came out there was like a gatefold sleeve and in it was like this history of the toy what it did the planet it came from all of of these crazy things. It just seems like your song just exists in a parallel timeline to the original understanding. But it's such a fun song. And when we discovered it, and I apologize in advance, but me and my co-host decided to get a translation of it into English.

And we re-recorded it. Excuse me, do you understand the French words? well we a friend of mine speaks french so luckily they translated it and then i adapted it to make it scan for english so we did a very well i think decent translation but what do i know and we recorded it for our podcast just for a laugh to put it in english and it was one of like our audience's like strongest reactions to something people love that track and it's because I do a lot of pop culture stuff online this story of Winky and the Badge has just not been told it's a blip in history and so discovering the song discovering your good self the people who I've spoken to three of the people who lived on the billboard in la and so i've been building this whole story up of the whole legacy of winky and the man who created

it who's a mysterious crazy figure i don't know it's just it's a beautiful story i thought we'd never figure out the song element and so it's just really been good to have you speak to us and have and find out a little bit more from from us to, we just want to say thank you for delighting us. No, thank you. I was very surprised when you wrote yesterday that it was a huge hit. I've never heard of that anywhere, about the winky. And I don't know which part of the world was it a hit? It's funny, you're obviously a very small part of a much bigger story

you're not aware of and all these other strange characters that exist around the fringes. We did do a bit of research into your writing partner on that song and we found a video on YouTube he put up, I think it was 2012 or 2013. And it was a strange rap, which I believe was about Nosferatu. And when we looked on it, we found out that me and my co-host were the first person to watch it on YouTube

in the seven years it had been on there. And so he, again, we couldn't find anything about him. So we just, again, it was just amazing to find you to speak to about this. I don't have much more to add sorry it's just for me this is this mystery box that I like picking at and I just want to know more. So yes so after the song was released you kind of just went washed your hands of it and moved on? Yeah so you know I don't have so many things to say about it it's not just it was something we tried okay funny things to say about it. It's just, it was something we tried. Okay. Funny things to do. But I'm not talking about the winky thing for 35 years.

Yeah. No, no, but because you wrote, you want to make a documentary about that thing? Yeah, and off the basis of that, I'd love to tell it visually because I just think it's a really beautiful, strange, odd story with so many different factors. So that's the plan from my point of view. Just about the badge or no? Everything.

But I think it has been mainly used on gay community in California oh really this is the thing I don't know it was sold

as a kids toy because in America they had a pet rock and this was kind of an electronic pet rock in that it didn't do anything what you thought it did but funnily enough

considering uh lawrence limb who is dr winkie who was the guy who invented the badge he had a few nightclubs so it's not too far-fetched to think it was a nightclub accessory no but this is the thing there's not much to say but i it's just for my point of view really wonderful that you got uh that we got to speak to you today because i we really appreciate it have you tried to talk to claude tonietti no i have not been able to reach out to him um i left message on a facebook page which i don't i don't think has been used in a while i don't think he has twitter i left a message on youtube but i don't think he's looked at that in 10 years. No, no, I don't think it's a good thing to do because he's very schizophrenic now. He's very mentally...

Oh, okay. Well, that's another issue then. We obviously don't want to... I have not seen him for years and years, but I have received two years ago things mail from him and it was completely illogical, no sense. I was interested to know if you have recently talked to him. two years ago it seemed it was very mentally ill, destroyed. Yeah, we got the impression that that might have been the case. And even though we are a silly podcast, we're not in the habit of pushing things like that. And so we thought if that's the case and if it's confirmed by you,

I'd rather we let it go. Because as I say say speaking to you has been a true gift so thank you very much for helping tell us help us tell a bit more the story no i think you really should to the should see the the video it's it's it's very funny i have seen almost since yesterday i have seen almost 10 times. Everybody loved it. It's so 80s mood, you know, with the clothes and the haircuts. I send it to you, really. It's a pleasure.

That's wonderful, thank you. Because we've, I don't know, it's wonderful. So if you've got anything like that, we'd really appreciate it because it's, I don't know, we've gone quite close to winky. Funny thing is, after you're receiving your mail yesterday, I called my friend who was the singer of the song because I didn't sing the song. Oh, I didn't think to ask that. no no I saw I played the music and that but I didn't want to sing it. it was my best player at that time. so okay come we are doing trying to to to record a funny song and it's a fun joke and he has completely

retired from music now. I had a good news for you you are going to prepare yourself to sing the Winky again. He couldn't believe that. He said, what are you talking about? What's happening on the weekend? I said, well, I just received a call from a guy. There's life in Winky yet, I think, definitely. All right, well, you enjoy the rest of your evening and thank you so much for speaking to me again. Take care. Okay, take care.

Bye-bye. So I kind of feel bad after that, that I didn't really ask him too much about his career because it seems fascinating. He's obviously a dance music producer. That was his main thing, wasn't it? I looked him up on Discogs, and the people he has worked with, he's been vocals for Vangelis. He did vocals himself for Vangelis Records.

Well, I mean, is it Papa Thanacio? Yeah, Vangelis, the guy who did the soundtrack for Blade Runner and who was in Aphrodite's Child, who were a Greek psych rock band. So he did vocals on that and Vincent Malone, who I presume was a French artist. He also worked with Gypsy Kings instruments on that as well. The Gypsy Kings are quite big, aren't they?

Yeah. And then, you know, he's done writing and arranging. He's done kids albums and a few kids shows. And he's also worked with, like then you know he's done writing and arranging he's done kids albums and a few kids shows and he's also worked with like you know musicals he's like he's had a rich mostly instrumental career i think yes he's one of those sort of guys he's not like a pop he doesn't write you know he just is a bit of an all-rounder he sounds like and produce yeah play sing and the fact is i think he was he enjoyed the frivolous nature of making this song i think it was very throw away yeah and that's why it sounds fun and

daft and exciting you know and it's probably much better than it had any right to be but it just seems weird that his friend went to new york saw sherry saw the winky thought i'll buy into this brings it to france and goes right this toy that has just shat the bed financially. I'm going to try and sell it in France. Let's make a pop song. Right. Great. I guess.

Get airplay. It's no less ridiculous than a billboard challenge. It didn't get any airplay, though, did it? Which is a surprise, really. I don't know if it's because it's a bit too silly. Did no one take it seriously? Well, it's a disaster in terms of the marketing again because the toy hasn't even arrived you don't you want the toy to be on the shelves when the single you know i mean yeah it's like releasing

a toy chain but there's no cartoon to go with it exactly exactly there needed to be a winky animated cartoon as well i mean really yeah however and in the video i i presume people listening were just as delighted as us. But when he said, oh, yeah, we made a little pop video, I think I did a little bit of sex wee. That is the most sex wee thing. I think I made a little bit of winky ink. And so, Eli, would you like to see it right now? I so would. This is top winky.

So I'm going to play it to Eli. Eli's going to watch and do a commentary of what he's seeing as it goes. If you want to see it, it'll be up on our website. I recommend you do. Thecheapshow.co.uk But Eli, I'm going to share the screen with you now. Okay. Here is the Winky video. Tell us what you see.

Oh, they're in a nightclub. It's not DVA. This is filmed in France on a budget of nothing, I think. There's some cool people. They're in a nightclub it's not DVA this is filmed in France on a budget of nothing I think there's some cool people they're in some kind of neon nightclub

there's lots of leather oh yeah oh someone's handing a winky across the ladies have arrived it looks like the Lost Boys doesn't it and three Cindy Lopers

in a shopping mall three Madonnas yeah it's Madonnas from Desperately Seeking Susan, isn't it? Totally. There's Laurent just then. Oh, that's him. In the black...

I was going to say in the black jacket, but then I realised they're all wearing black jackets. That's him. That's Laurent, is it? He looks pretty mean. He's like... They're in some kind of shopping mall, aren't they? Yeah.

Wow, cheap video. Oh, look at that. Oh, here comes Winky. A little animation. A little animated Winky. Look at it. shopping mall aren't they that yeah wow cheap oh look at that oh it comes with animation a little animated winky hey look at it oh they're giving a winky conference no they're not giving a winky conference they're doing a rock band they're now he's on a podium there's a podium thing oh she's having a drink they're in a mall, obviously, aren't they? How cheap is this? There he is again, Laurent. But yeah, look. Oh, he's winking.

Look how... This is the most 80s thing I've seen ever. He's winking. He's very on brand. A winky? Yeah, and so he is the guest singer they brought in to play, which obviously explains

why he's not strumming a guitar at all there. He's pretending to play the guitar. And look, another animated winky. Oh, mate, it's breakdancing. That animated Winky is breakdancing. And it is just... And they've gone, look, they've got traffic lights. They're comparing Winky to a traffic

light. So right now we're looking at the three men, and now they're all dressed like black lace against a bank of TV monitors, and it's just 80s. It's got that pink and blue neon thing. Remember that film Chopping Mall? It feels like someone made a pop video on the set of Chopping Mall.

Is it just because of the quality of the video? Or it's all just jump shots? There's no actual movement? No, they just slapped it all together, haven't they? They've made a cheap music video. Because that was probably how they were going to get people to listen to it, because they could say, give it to the French MTV. Oh, he's up there.

He's got a trumpet. Oh, the trumpeteer's on a different level. He's got a vest. Oh, he's shaking his ass. He's shaking that ass. Oh, he's pointing. They're all pointing. They're all pointing.

Everyone's pointing. They're pointing at the Cyndi Lauper's. There's three pointing. They're all pointing. They're all pointing. Everyone's pointing. They're pointing at the Cindy Lauper's. There's three Cindy Lauper's. It's a parallel with the three Jeff's, mate. There's three Lauper's. Six, six, six.

The mark of the beast is Winky. It's all triplets, isn't it? Seriously, this is like a John Hughes movie but just French. Yeah, it's so racist.

There's the winky in the background. I love this so much, though, because you can just tell. They were like, what are we going to do in this video? And they went, we don't know. Just jumping around. Just dance. Oh, look, here. That guy.

What the trumpet guy is giving me the fear and a hard-on. Good. All right, well. He's nasty. All right, well, I'm more fascinated with the Cyndi Lauper's at the moment. They're dancing. They're giving me serious 80s tentage. So I want to see more wink.

Oh, look, there's some animation there. Very poor. And there's two men hugging. And they're all hugging. They're all doing this. I wonder what French moth's mall that is and whether it's still open. Oh, why are there pictures of a duck's face behind the Winkies? I don't understand.

I don't think they'd know if you asked them. They just drew some bloody sketch, some duck heads. They had one night to record. There we go. The video's over. They had one night to record it in the shopping mall. They had two hours after closing time. Music.

See, all these people were involved in it. Look. Veronique, Muriel, Sylvia, Thierry, Fred. They're quite a lot. Son, Imogen, Renan, Levan, Kim. That's amazing. I never imagined that we'd actually uncover the fucking pop video for the Winky song. imagined that we'd actually uncovered the fucking pop video for the winky song the very the very gift of this in its existence amazing is just amazing beautiful and so as a parting gift i

could not be happier with the way this has turned out what it makes me realize as well like the winky badge toy whatever jewelry may have not had a chance of really taking off in America, but from the strength of that video, it had less than no chance. It wasn't even available. I mean, what? No. Crikey. And it's fascinating to me that at the end of the day,

this began because you found a strange little vinyl record in a charity shop. It wasn't a charity shop, Paul. I said at the beginning. Oh, sorry, in a record store. Sorry. You found it in a charity shop it wasn't a charity shop paul i said at the beginning sorry in a record store sorry you found it in a record store and between then and now we've learned about the people's life this toy affected in fact the only thing not really connected to the story is the song in the first place yeah it exists in this bubble i know it's so bizarre and but it's it's

it what it makes me think about is there was so much stuff in the 80s. They just threw so much shit against the wall. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, because it was the era of Reaganomics and the kind of build your own business and fight for yourself. It was like the rejection of society. And it was more like self-independence and self-preservation. And so when it comes to Winky and someone like Lawrence Lynn, it's like, right, I've got the money.

I'm going to burn it on this idea. That didn't work. Fuck it. I'm going to use it on this idea. It didn't work. Right, I'll move on to the next one. Yeah. But the idea itself, the thing itself, the Winky,

becomes this sort of crystallized fossil of all of the kind of cultural trends and things that were going on at the time. It's bizarre. In many respects. It's like a microcosm of just toy trends and fashion trends in the 80s altogether. This one was like a flash in the pan. It was born in the late 84 and died in late 85. But between then, you had life endurances, marriages, famous artists, nightclubs, celebrities.

You had this weird conflation. And yet, because of the fact that everything was so disposable in the 80s and ephemeral, it got lost in time. It's like we pointed out that when we bought one for the podcast and then listeners of the podcast began buying them from the same seller, he reached out to, I think it was Yvonne, and said, did someone mention this badge on the podcast? Because I keep selling it.

I've sold out. And the price went up. It might be more popular now than it even was back in 84, Paul. More people probably know about Winky now than they did in 85 and 84. So, you know, one way or the other, I just thought this was such an amazing story. And I thought, ultimately, it was worth telling this way. And there's still so much we don't know.

We don't know about Lawrence Lim. We don't know who designed it. We don't know how many were sold. I'd like more information on the design process. That's missing. Yeah. Just one more thing in regards to speaking to Laurent is that he mentioned something right at the end of the interview. And I don't know if you picked up on this because I got the impression from him that he thought the badge was meant to be a nightclub thing and he even said maybe it was like originally i

mean this is just him guessing but he presumed it was like a gay nightclub scene and then when i was thinking about it i was thinking well you know like you used to have at university those red light green light nights and this has a red light and green light is it And this has a red light and green light. Is it meant to be a nightclub accessory? Paul, I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with a red light, green light night. Is that like you fancy them, you put the green light on, and then they come and frot-arse you? It was one of those horrible things that you did at university

where you went to a club night, and it was always advertised as a traffic light night or something. So if you wore a red badge or you had the red sticker on it meant don't chat me up i'm just here to hang out sod off if you had an amber you were like maybe oh god if you had a green you were like come on i'll take all comers i will swallow each and every load in this room. Oh, God. That's like a sex party. Why didn't I ever have one of those?

I don't know, but it was a particularly gross thing. We didn't have those in Norwich. No, I can't imagine they did. It's like a phone party. He thought the badge might have been a nightclub accessory. Do you think maybe that was what Winky was trying to do? Like sell it at his nightclub so people could wear it and be trendy? He wanted it to be trendy.

I mean, Paul, look at the facts. He wanted it to be trendy. He wanted it to catch on, didn't he? And he was a nightclub owner and a sort of nightlife sort of person, from what I pick up, wasn't he? Entrepreneur, kind of P.T. Barnum character, a bit of Wizard of Oz, a bit of a Svengali, whatever you want to call it.

Yeah, but it's the club scene thing. He's almost like in the whole club scene, which was big then, you know. I don't specifically think it was like a gay icon badge thing or that was the intention. No. But it does strike me that it could have been a nightclub thing. The idea could have come from there, for sure. We just don't know, though, Paul, do we?

We just don't know. And that's the thing about Winky. In some respects, we'll probably just never really know everything. No, we won't know everything. And, Paul, we might find out more along the road, down the road sometime. Well, if we end up stumbling across something way down on that road, we'll report it to you here on Cheap Show. We certainly will.

And it's almost like the enigmatic Winky is winking at us, enigmatically, to say, oh, you don't know. You know, there's more. There's more. There's more. Come here. There's more. Yeah, that's right.

Winky is the comedian from Ireland, Jimmy Cricket. He's anything you want him to be, Paul. He's anything you want him to be.. He's anything you wanted to be. And also, I'd like to know a bit more if we could get anything on what happened to Sherry. Exactly. There are still so many mysteries,

but for now, June 2020, this is as complete as the story as we can tell. Hey, I'd love to turn this into a proper TV, Netflix-y kind of documentary. So if anyone listening wants to help out with that give me your number I won't end the podcast with that line

because that's just awful I do want to end with some thank yous so first of all, Eli, you brought the gift of Cheap Show to us all, so really you are the gift of Winky say that again you brought me your friend paul

a big gift and that big gift was a nice big winky you brought winky into my life and i've embraced it that my pleasure paul i'm glad to always on the lookout but i i don't know if i'll ever find a record with such a unique and strange genesis ever again well almost you know space boogie that song from the guy who had the the restaurant the chippy victor victory cafe yeah that just happened to clash with winky on that day because otherwise that's also another story we maybe might would investigate one day yes yeah it didn't really it it was like, you know, Careless Whisper getting kept off number one, wasn't it? Because it was... It's Ultravox's Vienna being kept off the spot by Joel Dolce's Shut Up In Your Face.

Yeah. So thank you to Eli. I want to say thank you to Ross Hudson who gave us the badges and gave me some background into the design. I want to thank the usual cheapskates, Yven, Tony, Denny, and PseudoSapien. In all different ways, they've helped me put this show together. Tony with his art, Yven, Denny, and PseudoSapien with links to all the patent information and Winky Doctor information and Lawrence Lin information. So I want to say thank you to them. Obviously, thank you to Jeff, Olan, Penny Penny and Laurent who helped us out with this episode.

And I think that's it. I think that's it. Thank you as well for supporting this podcast, if you have done, for the past five years. Thank you very much. Happy birthday, Paul. Happy birthday, mate. And we can only hope that another charity shop or another record shop or Poundland in the future gives us a story as rich as this. But we just don't know that's

that's the magic and mystery of cheap show and if you'd like to help support us financially in a small or large way you can go to patreon.com forward

slash cheap show and only give if you can afford to don't if you can't if you can't spread the word because that's just as valuable thanks very much if you are

pictures and videos to accompany this episode are on the cheap show.co.uk website. Follow us at The Cheap Show Pod on Twitter. I'm at Paul Gannon Show. Eli is? Eli Snoid. E-L-I-S-N-O-I-D.

We do Twitch. It's called Cheap Show Etc. We're on YouTube. We're on Facebook, Instagram. Just look for Cheap Show. You'll find us. Other than that, thank you to everyone who supported

and listened to us over the past five years. We'll keep on rocking. And, yeah. Oh, I've got no ending for this episode. You don't ever have an ending for any episode. I know how to end it. We'll play ourselves out with us singing Winky. So how about, Eli, you introduce us top of the pop style as we end this episode with a song that began it all.

Winky, but in English. Okay. Well, thank you. That was Dexys Midnight Runners. Now we're going to go to the number one spot. It's those two cheap show boys. What a pair of dickheads they are, but I don't care.

And here they are with their version of Winky. He blinks red and green. He's heading straight to earth Do not panic, he's trying to speak That's the Winky Who, the Winky? The Winky If you're feeling pretty low, he will come and he will go

With his music, he will make your heart glow That's the Winky It's the Winky The Winky Let's go green and move your feet Don't be red and feel the beat Celebrate this creature, electronic future Winky, winky, winky, winky

He's come from somewhere up above He's energetic, full of love A trendy little circuit who knows how to work it Winky, winky, winky, winky Paris, Tokyo, London, New York Contact, contact, you'll never feel alone with the Winky The Winky? Oh, that Winky

With Winky it's simple Stay away from red, go green And it all becomes clear, it's the Winky The Winky? Oh yeah Let's go green and move your feet Don't be red and feel the beat Celebrate the creature, electronic future

Winky, Winky, Winky He comes from somewhere up above And he's energetic, full of love A trendy little circuit who knows how to work it It's Winky, Winky, Winky, Winky Oh, Winky! Fucking Winky! It's that Winky, Winky

Oh, let's do a breakdown. Sexy! Oh, he's such a tease. Funny! Makes me go weak at the knees. Oh, that naughty Winky. Naughty Winky! He makes you laugh, makes you smile. I hope he hangs out for a while. You mean the Winky?

I don't mean the Winky. I meant the Winky. Oh yeah, the Winky. Let's go green and move your feet. And don't be mad and feel the beat. Celebrate the street. And don't be mad and feel the beat. Celebrate the street.

Celebrate the street. Celebrate the street. Celebrate the street. Celebrate the street. Celebrate the street. Celebrate the street. Celebrate the street. Celebrate the street mean the Winkie! I meant the Winkie! Oh yeah, the Winkie! Let's go green and move your feet And don't be mad and feel the beat Celebrate this creature, electronic future Winkie, Winkie, Winkie, Winkie He's come from somewhere up above He's energetic, full of love A trendy little circuit, he knows how to work it

Winkie, Winkie, Winkie, Winkie! Yeah! And that's the Winky song, ladies and gentlemen. Hello. I am Winky. Thank you for listening to my story. Goodbye.