BUILDING A YOUNG DRAGON
a construction biography
Ronn:
Scorch™ is clearly my most popular character, and I’m frequently asked how he came to be. The following is a brief history.
Scorch, quite literally, popped into my imagination back in the fall of 1983. I was driving to work across the Golden Gate Bridge to perform at a San Francisco nightclub. At that time the Ringling Brothers / Barnum and Bailey’s Circus was in town, and the late night talk radio show that I was listening to was mostly silly chatter about a live Unicorn being featured there.
Well, it was CALLED a Unicorn, but most of the callers guessed it to be a big goat whose horns had been fused together by some greedy animal breeder. Still, it was fascinating and fun to suspend belief for a moment, and wonder that this mythological creature had finally given up hiding from humanity and had gone to work in, of all places, a circus; where at least he was admired and well-fed. I started asking myself, where in today’s crowded world would the rest of his mythological buddies continue to hide if they didn’t want to make contact with human beings? Could they be hiding right in front of us? Could, say, that harmless little bag man in the alley over there, be a padded disguise for a reclusive leprechaun? Do Gnomes, Sprites, and Fairies use their magic to assume human form? Do they put on suits, travel around with briefcases and use credit cards?
(Actually, would they even bother to USE a disguise if they were living in Southern California?)
I pondered on. Now let’s say that as a ventriloquist, I wanted to somehow create, in some form, an old-world fairy creature coping in today’s modern world.... What would it physically look like? How would it feel?
I remembered back on Jim Henson’s live TV experiment - the Muppets on “Saturday Night Live”. They did a short-lived reappearing segment called the “Land of Gortch”. It was about an alien planet covered with smoking pits and volcanoes. The characters/puppets who lived there were dark, ratty and borderline reptilian. Jim was never crazy about doing live TV puppetry and he discontinued it. I was disappointed. I personally thought the live Muppets-for-adults were a riot.
My thoughts crossed over to my existing cowboy puppet Buffalo Billy; himself a working metaphor for my childhood years. I offhandedly asked myself the question "if Billy represents the precocious/obnoxious child inside of me, what would the adolescent look like?"
There was a flash in my brain (as corny as that may sound, I really DID see a flash) and in a snap all of my daydreaming about psychology, those awful teen years, and my interest in gothic mythology crystallized and fused. Scorch the Teenage Dragon just popped into my head, looking pretty much as he does now. (...I guess he was a metaphor for how I saw myself at that age.) Anyway, I was VERY excited. Then I realized, Oh Lord, now I had to build the damn thing!
Scorch was really hard for me to draw in three dimensions (3-D), so I started buying up books and art on dragons. I photo-copied the pages and cut out the parts of dragons that I liked. I assembled a photo montage of what I wanted and I drew different perspectives from the montage.
My manager called around and we found a local Special Effects builder named Tony McVey working out of the SF China Basin warehouse district. Tony was quick to catch on to what I was getting at. He re-drew the dragon (those are his drawings above) and he built a maquette (a little model) of Scorch’s head. I loved what Tony showed me so I commissioned 2 full blown puppets and Tony went to work.
| THE FIRST SCORCH: THIS MAQUETTE (OR MODEL) IS ONLY 6 INCHES HIGH. |
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THE FIRST SCORCH: FULL SIZED BEFORE HE WAS PAINTED. |
After about six months of molding fiberglass, welding steel tubing, sculpting foam, and stretching latex, (and of course, painting) Tony completed the first Scorch. I was thrilled. He was unique. He looked magnificent and I knew there wasn’t anything in the world like him. But he was a bit heavy and very wide at the wings. While walking through a doorway I struck the door jam and I snapped off his right wing. I was pretty upset about that. He wasn't out of the shop yet, and I broke him. (All future Scorch puppets would have springs in their wings so I would never break one again.)
I occasionally put Scorch into my existing act. He was a hit of course. Stupidly, I ignored his popularity and didn’t use Scorch as much as I should have. Frankly, he was extremely heavy and I was being a wimp at the time. Then in 1988 the British TV producer John Fisher, asked me to host a prime time Ed Sullivan-like variety show for Thames TV, to be shot in England. He INSISTED that Scorch be the puppet star. I gave in to
John's wishes and started going to the gym.
The 'Ronn Lucas Show', shot
and televised over all of the UK, was a big success thanks in many
ways to the popularity of Scorch. The British public really liked
him; and my British comedy writers loved coming up with new Scorch
routines. Scorch actually got fan mail!
I had the first Scorch duplicated by puppet builder Randy Simper of SIMPLEFX fame. He made me two more dragons and those two newer puppets were not only lighter but they could breathe two little bursts of real flame per show. (Hey, he was still a teenager. That’s all the fire he could muster.)
The 'Ronn Lucas Show' starring Scorch aired for nearly five years with top-ten ratings. We might still be going today but for a most unforeseen event: The Thames TV Network lost its franchise when the British government (who controlled all British TV at that time) auctioned off its guaranteed air time. In short, it was cancelled by the government.Within a year the entire network went off the air!! 'Talk about strange politics.
I returned to the US a little richer for the wear. In 1991 Saban Productions (pre- 'Power Rangers') signed me to a development deal. Well, actually they signed Scorch. They loved him but didn’t immediately understand a need for me. Scorch were leased to CBS and a TV series was developed. We aired after the winter Olympics of 1992.
I want to go on the record and say that I had nothing to do with the scripting of the American TV show, 'Scorch'. Frankly, it seemed too much like ALF, which had already run it’s course. I was not even seen on-camera but that was OK. This was Scorch’s solo moment and I didn’t want to get in his way. Besides, I was actually living the old ventriloquist/dummy tug-of-war. How many dummies, from Charlie McCarthy to Knucklehead Smith, have threaten to run away and have careers without their ventriloquists. Scorch pulled it
off!
I became Scorch's hidden puppeteer and voice. My official union guild approved title was that of "dragon trainer". As a puppeteer I was stuffed into couches, under floors and behind walls. It hurt but it was fun. And, I was never on-camera so I never had to shave.
These newest puppet versions of Scorch had cost CBS three hundred thousand dollars. They were worth every penny (because, hey, it wasn’t my money!). Scorch had to be enlarged slightly to house electronically controlled eyes, ears, brows, hands, and feet. All can be controlled by a tiny computer that is programmed to create combinations of facial expressions and other small natural looking movements. The design and building of all this took a whole year of Randy Simper’s life, for which I will always be grateful. In truth, I think my puppet pal is the most hi-tech and complex ventriloquist ‘figure’ working today. Despite his inherent complexities, these newest hi-tech puppets were built soooo sturdy that I’m still using them in my shows nightly without problems; and it’s now ten years later. My thanks always to Randy Simper.
But Randy... did I mention the newest Scorchs were even heavier than the first one? (Sigh.) I guess it's back to the gym for me.
- ronnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
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Scorch says,"Only dragons should play
with fire; and frankly humans should never smoke."