Recently I saw a Facebook post about the short-lived television series, “Key West,” shot locally several decades ago, and it recalled the island-wide bitch sessions that erupted when the show premiered.
“Key West” portrayed the island as a refuge of last resort, a bastion of the absurd and the home of wildly offbeat residents. Yet according to an expert local review panel (i.e., whoever had a TV back then), the problem wasn’t that the producers drew us as an island of oddities. The problem was that they chose the wrong oddities.
For example, the show’s characters included a former factory worker and aspiring writer who dreamed of becoming the next Hemingway. Okay, fine.
But at the time the series debuted, our local scene included Ben Harrison, a singer/songwriter who was penning a musical that detailed the lighter side of necrophilia — based on an actual incident that made the island notorious in the 1930s.
Despite his macabre musical-in-progress (which turned out to be fantastic), we all flocked to hear him wherever he was performing. Wouldn’t a fictionalized “Ben” have been a more interesting hero than the show’s literary wannabe?
After arriving in the southernmost city, the hero drove his vehicle into the Atlantic and shot it with a handgun. That seemed extreme — because in the real Key West in those days, anyone bored with their car could just ask local artist Rick Worth to turn it into an “art-o-mobile.”
Rick was famous around town for his vivid mobile murals, each commissioned by the car’s owner. Driving one was a status symbol, and we often spotted cars painted to resemble a roller skate, a toucan, a shark or a colorful coral reef rolling along Key West’s narrow streets.
I’ll never forget holding conversations with Rick outside the old Harris School building on Southard Street, where I was always inspired by his humility and philosophical viewpoint. Why shoot a car when you could have it painted by a Key West legend like Rick?
The cast of “Key West” also included non-human characters. Over at the show’s fictional saloon, loosely based on the Turtle Kraals, “patrons” included a live alligator with a pink bow adorning its head.
The real Key West was mercifully free of barroom reptiles, but four-footed residents did include an all-pink standard poodle named Tallulah.
Tallulah, the canine companion of well-known Key Wester Pat Green, was pink for two very good reasons. When Tallulah accompanied Pat to restaurants and shops, she always got the attention her diva-like nature craved. Plus, when people begged to take photos of the pink poodle, Pat always agreed — “charging” them a small donation for her favorite local charity.
Believe me, the technicolor reality of Tallulah outclassed a fictional gator.
Then there was the show’s local newspaper, the Key West Meteor, run by a blind Telly Savalas look-alike who delighted in creative torture. Yet the island’s real-life daily newspaper was far more picturesque than its television counterpart.
Key West back then didn’t have a lot of serious crime (though there was a string of bank robberies that involved a pitchfork, sardines and a bicycle “getaway car” respectively), so the paper’s crime report was sometimes a little strange. Actual headlines from the era included “Man robbed while sleeping in planter” and “Women argue over ownership of vibrator.” Even a blind Telly Savalas paled by comparison.
Looking back on “Key West,” its biggest fault wasn’t portraying us as an island of eccentrics. The fault was making up the eccentricities, instead of discovering and fictionalizing the abundant supply on hand.
That might not have attracted viewer buzz like the televised “Key West” did … but it sure would have reduced our island-wide bitch sessions.
