Laughs galore as America's then favorite comedy couple hit the road on the in the comedy classic film, "The Long, Long Trailer." Slapstick shtick, Lucy mishaps, road tripping mayhem and a couple of undecipherable Cuban profanities ( baballoo style) red line the laugh-o-meter. TV network heads said the film would not work. Horrors!! Lucy and Desi in a film where people have to pay money to see them, why they can enjoy their prime time antics for free every week. It's a bust, not a boom, they assured the couple. Desi however, being as stubborn as his redheaded prat fall partner and wife, called their bluff and bet the powers that be, at that time (before Desilu) $25,000 that it would work.
Guess who won? My money is on the Cuban! The film racked up millions in ticket sales, and as a bonus, viewership in the weekly ratings of their show skyrocketed as a residual effect. Desi and Lucy got to pocket their $25,000 winnings from the befuddled studio heads, and I‘m sure a smirky “I told you so“ look emanated from their smiling faces. That’s television for you, radio with pictures it's called, a vast wasteland, and when studio heads get mired in the "smallness" it takes a Desi and Lucy to road map them onto the right media highway.
Wait, there’s more, there's Chevy Chase on the loose in a station wagon, the Fifties version of the pioneer Conestoga, station wagons ho, destination west, to Wally World! Ok, so in reality it was Disneyland with all it's fantasia fanfare, futuristic attractions, Mad Hatter Tea-cup rides, a virginal young girl living in a ménage a trois X two and a half leering deranged dwarfs that were later idolized by Stripe and his gang of psychopathic sociopaths in "Gremlins." There were Storybook Lands, Wall Drug in South Dakota, Dinosaur Parks, Wigwam Motor Courts where you could sleep in a tee-pee then cruise down the road following Burma Shave signs until you got to the blue roof of Stuckeys for a pecan roll and a rubber bow and arrow set and tomahawk and an authentic Jack-a-lope statue suitable for the home office desk or for mounting on the Oldsmobile dashboard right next the plastic St. Christopher statue.
America's asphalt addiction began with in the first decade of the 20th Century. The Ford Model T or Tin Lizzy fueled a frenzy to take to the open road. At first they would pull into what were called Tin Can Camps. The name is referring to the tourists reliance on canned foods while on the road. When done eating the cans were tossed unceremoniously into a common trash pile of aluminum offerings to the Road Gods. Most who stayed at this camps couldn't afford hotels. Eventually motor courts, or motor hotels would open and become legendary as those along America's Mainstreet, Route 66. Names like the Blue Swallow in Tucumcari and a host of Wigwam Motels in Arizona and California as well as other parts of America. Basically simple rooms with a small garage next to it to park the road beast for the night. The blue collar worker busted their ass to kick asphalt, and everybody was geared up for that all important ritual of the working class...the two week summer vacation. An asphalt landscape of cafe's, diners, gas stations, and enough neon to light up Times Square ten times over. The road had many icons. Route 66 for example, and it's prophets like Jack Kerouac and literary characters that symbolized the great asphalt migrations, such Tom Joad.
The world of road travel was also undergoing a metamorphosis in the 1920's and 1930's and created an icon of it's own that still stands the test of time..the Airstream Trailer. The great blue collar heavy metal silver bullet of the highway..the sleek spacey looking aluminum suppository of the highway. It carried it's human cargo faithfully for years, and today is a classic that stands on it's own and was the product of the imagination of two very special visionaries Wally Byam and Hawley Bowlus.
Bowlus, born in pre-aviation 1896 was by later trade an aircraft designer, in fact he designed the Sprit of St. Louis that carried Charles Lindberg, or “Lucky” Lindy as he was known, on his Lindy Hop across the Atlantic to cheering throngs of Frenchmen in this historic first solo crossing of the ocean from North America to Europe.
Bowlus also designed gliders, and trained glider pilots to maneuver those eagles of silent flight across the wild blue yonder. For recreation he and his friend Lindberg would take wing in gliders under a brilliant California sky. The actual Spirit of St. Louis is on display at the Smithsonian Institution and the replica, used in the film of the same name with Jimmy Stewart is suspended from the ceiling in the airship section of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
Bowlus then started designing recreational trailers for the burgeoning vacation industry. The sleek design of the Airstream trailer bears all the aeronautical benchmarks of design that you would expect from an artist of his design caliber.
Meanwhile, Wally Byam was designing and making trailers out of masonite, in his backyard in Los Angeles, and publising a how to magazine for a eager public who wanted to buy his designs to build their own. By the mid-1930’s The Bowlus Company was facing hard times, and Byam couldn’t by-pass a golden, or in this case, a silver aluminum opportunity so he bought the company, lock stock and barrel.
The first production creation released in 1936 - 37, based on a Bowlus design was the “Airstream” Clipper as in Clipper Ships that roamed the Pacific skies. It had that familiar shape we recognize toady and it’s design was to reduce wind resistance and to increase fuel efficiency. Airstream hit a snag, as most US companies did during WWII due to aluminum shortage and it wasn’t until after VE and VJ day that the company once again went back into production to meet a war-is-over boom in the exploding travel trailer industry.
Americans hit the road in increasing numbers heading to the Golden State of California to Disneyland…down into Florida for a taste of the Sunshine State and it’s tourist industry..the Grand Canyon…Montana…Colorado..you name it and the “wagon trains” were on the move with a new pioneer spirit fueling the industry as never before…eateries, gift shops, motels, and the ever popular tourist traps like wall Drug in South Dakota where jack-lopes roam and rattle snake eggs abound!
Being an astute promoter, Byam organized road trips with Airstream owners on an itinerary that was planned with promotional care. They would travel to national parks for example, arrange the trailers for a photo op with something like Mt. Rushmore in the background. It was a Madison Avenue dream come true. The photos were published in magazines and the public couldn’t get enough, in fact ..they wanted to visit these locations themselves, and if you’re going to do it..dammit..do it in an Airstream!
Today there are Airstream get togethers, much like classic car shows, and there are Airstream RV Resorts and Campgrounds of Airstreams only, but some will allow “outsiders” in as well..proving that class warfare exists even in the arena of Recreational Vehicles..power to the RV people..no matter their color, shape or manufacturer, heavy metal origin or which motor home god they choose to worship.
Airstream did have a flashback period returning to it’s lofty parentage of flight. In 1969, returning moon landing Apollo 11 astronauts were housed and quarantined in a modified air tight Airstream. To be checked for any space aliens that may have hitched a ride to the Big Blue Orb. NASA also used Airstreams to ferry astronauts to the launch pad, giving birth to the name Astrovan to the Airstream Excella model.
The Road..the Joads and Kerouac...and you the interstate replaced the old two lanes...and the culture has drifted into obscurity. Cafe signs hang loose on rusted hinges, rusted gas pumps stand as lonely sentinels frozen in time and relics of old autos and trucks would sit silently in fields of weeds, a sepia toned image of time long past. But the Airstream lives on! Three…two…one…ignition..Blast Off and Kick Asphalt