http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080612/ENT01/806120314/1036/ENTJohnny Ginger figures he was 6 when he first saw the Three Stooges live and onstage in the waning days of vaudeville. (His family was performing on the same Toledo theater stage.) Years later, when Ginger (real name Galen Grindle) was host of a Detroit TV show for kids on WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) from 1957 to 1968, he downplayed the cartoons other hosts were showing and brought back the Stooges instead. Ginger and the other kid TV hosts nationwide have been credited with reviving the careers of Moe Howard and Larry Fine, the two original Stooges still living at the time. The Stooges (with Curly Joe DeRita) repaid the compliment when their 1965 western spoof, "The Outlaws Is Coming," featured a slew of these local TV hosts in the roles of infamous gunslingers. Ginger, cast as Billy the Kid, shares his memories of the film and the Stooges this weekend when the movie plays at the Redford Theatre. The local TV legend still performs regularly on comedy stages in Michigan and Ohio.
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QUESTION: From a marketing and publicity standpoint, featuring you guys in the movie was brilliant. How did you promote it and what was the Detroit premiere like?
ANSWER: It was at the Terrace Theatre in Livonia. I was in the lobby greeting people in the bellhop uniform that I wore on the show.
Q: "The Outlaws Is Coming" was the last of the Stooge features and probably the funniest. What do you remember about the shoot?
A: It was a fun shoot. Moe was very intelligent, very soft-spoken. Larry was the jokester on the set. One time, we were shooting in the hotel. The Stooges weren't in that scene, but they were on the set. Larry knew how much I liked my booze. All of us had whiskey bottles, and Larry had one of the stagehands put actual booze in my glass.
We were set to do four more movies with titles like "The Pirates Is Coming," "The Gangsters Is Coming," "The Circus Is Coming," but then Larry had a stroke ... so nothing ever came of them.
Q: The movie is also notable for featuring a pre-"Batman" Adam West. What was he like to work with?
A: Great. He had made another movie (1964's "Robinson Crusoe on Mars"), and he had done a ton of TV work. So one day, he came jumping up: "I got a series. I'm gonna be Batman!" Moe said: "If I were you I'd think twice about that. You'll get typecast and never get offered another role again."
Q: Did you keep in touch with the Stooges after filming?
A: Moe would send me handwritten letters, nothing typed, and they would always start: "My Dear Friend Johnny Ginger. How's the family?"
Q: Is there a single scene in the movie that you remember most fondly?
A: I have a scene with Adam West where he's shooting at me and the bullets are ricocheting all over. ... And I'm supposed to holler, "You're gonna hear from me!" We had done 11 takes, and I was screaming at the top of my lungs and nearly blew my vocal cords. So Moe leaves the set, gets driven off in his car and comes back with a little bag. I looked inside and found this tin box with throat lozenges and Chloraseptic spray. ... To me, he was one hell of a nice man.
