DADDYO, GILLIGAN, AND RAT FINK: The Trival Story Of How DaddyO Became DaddyO

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Details lost in the annals of online history, specifics shrouded even in the fogged mind of the principal, the screen moniker DaddyO is of murky origin. Somewhere, at some time and in some circumstance, I was faced for the first time with the requirement to come up with what was then called a Screen Name. I never needed one before, but if I wanted to participate in whatever online community drew my interest, it was necessary for me to create one.

It was clear some prolonged, deep soul searching was required to crystallize my existential essence for the world out there. I don’t know, perhaps one of our three children burst into the room, or I was feeling particularly paternal, but after pondering things for at least five seconds it occurred to me that I was a father, a Daddy. That’s deep, right?

Then my mind went into a mode it often does, free association. If I let my thoughts wander without direction through the labyrinth of my meandering memories, something is bound to pop up. It always does, often from some random recollection that I hadn’t retrieved since Methuselah died, one I had no idea I had retained until that moment.

“Daddy.” “Daddy…” Hmmm. I must have probed for at least another five or ten seconds before free association with that name generated a response, like the punch card that used to spit out from early era computers. “DaddyO.”

Where, you might ask, did the “O” come from? I notice many at SSI refer to me simply as “Daddy,” perhaps assuming my first name, or my last name, or some other identifier starts with an “O.” No, my friends, not so. The name “DaddyO,” spoken as one word, jumped from my wandering because I am a child of the early ‘60’s (born in 1955), because of a long-forgotten, obscure corner of my childhood that decided in a flash to emerge into the light of day.

The early ‘60’s were the days of beatniks, Mad Magazine, and drag racing. Plastic models built from kits were big. So were cardboard card collections-- baseball cards, but also long before Pokemon, cards capturing whatever was the rage at the time. All these things played a role in the spitting out of the particular punch card, “DaddyO.”

Let’s start with the beatniks, because I believe that would have been my first exposure to what years later would become my Screen Name. There was a much-watched TV sitcom in that era called “Dobie Gillis.” It used to start with the title character sitting in the classic pose of “The Thinker.” Dobie Gillis was a college aged young man obsessed with two things, success and dates with girls. The show featured monologues of Dobie’s thought life as he made the final transition from teenager to adult in the world around him. Dobie was a classic example of the upwardly mobile middle class. Juxtaposed as his sidekick was a character his complete opposite, a bumbling, idiotic beatnik played by Bob Denver and called “Maynard G. Krebs,” who sometimes, despite himself, got things right. If you remember Denver as “Gilligan” in “Gilligan’s Island,” simply transfer that character to the circumstance of “Dobie Gillis” and you have Maynard G. Krebs. Since real-life beatniks, to whom I had no personal exposure, sometimes referred to companions or adult men as “DaddyO,” so did Maynard. It was, you know, cool! Somewhere in the recesses of my brain that trivia was stored.

Moving on, Mad Magazine was an institution among boys of that era, and it featured stylized, exaggerated cartoon characters. At the same time the early days of drag racing were in full swing. In the L.A. area you could watch them on Saturday afternoon TV, the superstar at that time being Don Garlits, commonly referred to as “Big Daddy.” And there was another contemporaneous “Big Daddy,” Ed Roth, a cartoonist, who started to make outlandish renderings of drag racing vehicles with exaggerated, beastly drivers. Their eyes would bulge to incredible size with grotesque eye veins. They caught on as a fad, and so “Big Daddy” Roth collector cards were born. Every boy in L.A. had some, even a straight arrow like me. The storage shed of my mind connected this with “DaddyO” and Maynard G. Krebs. Ask me why, I couldn’t tell you.

The pastime of building plastic models is the final element in this complex molecule of memory. Like watching “Dobie Gillis," reading Mad Magazine, and having some “Big Daddy” Roth cards, every boy spent time and effort in his garage or bedroom with model kits. You separated all the little numbered parts from a plastic “tree,” if you had enough money (and I usually didn’t) you painted them with as much care as an eight-year-old boy can muster, and you painstakingly glued it together with Testors plastic cement, hoping against hope that you correctly followed the complicated directions. You would build a World War II battleship, or a submarine, or a tank, or a car, or a monster like “Wolf Man” or “The Mummy.” Or, you could avail yourself of the “Big Daddy” Roth plastic models. I did, building a fantastic “Rat Fink” (see title picture of this post), Roth’s best-known character. Another reminiscent filing was created and connected to what I have already explained.

Back to the original subject. Taken all together, in one supreme moment of fascinating insight, when I considered the profound choice of a Screen Name, all these elements combined and came to the forefront of my mind, with but a single conclusion: I would forever be known online as DaddyO. Not Daddy "O." but DaddyO.  Which is curious, because I was (and am) the farthest thing from a beatnik or a drag racer. Didn’t matter. The choice was ordained.

You might be wondering if it was really worth it to spend so much time and effort reading about this utterly trivial matter. Frankly, I wonder why I spent so much time and effort writing it this late-September Thursday morning. Ah, but now you know the story. If you are old enough, this might trigger a few memories of your own. If you are not, you have had a brief glimpse into the world of a boy in the early 1960’s. Is that so bad?