#ron daise

30 years ago today Gullah Gullah Island premiered on Nickelodeon!!!

History at Risk, Blast from the Past:

Season 3, Episode 4 - Gullah Geechee

This video explains the inspiration of Gullah Gullah Island.

Join us in celebrating culture, community, and those carefree childhood days. Stay tuned for updates, and let the adventures begin! 🥳 #GullahGullahIsland #Nostalgia #ChildhoodMemories

This is so weird to me. In a good way.

Ok, So when I was in college my friend Kory and I were mesmerized by a children's  program called Gullah Gullah Island. (The show stars Ron Daise and Natalie Daise as "Ron" and "Natalie," along with their fictional children Shaina and James, niece (Vanessa), non-fictional child Simeon and fictional tadpole, Binyah Binyah Polliwog. The family lived on an island off the coast of South Carolina. (with outdoor shots featuring Beaufort, South Carolina and Fripp Island.)

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The show was hyper energetically acted and extremely centered on African culture.

It was a good show... just extremely -- overly enthusiastic. Especially the acting by the actor who plays the dad.

Many years later I have a child of my own and while flipping through the childrens channels I see that Gullah Gullah Island is STILL on tv! Roan, too, was mesmerized by the show and it's big talking polliwog.

But one of the things I always remembered, then and now, about the show was a name I saw in the credits at the end. Fracaswell Hyman. What a name, I thought. Fracaswell Hyman. The name just stood out to me for some reason and I often found myself thinking about it during the day... "Fracaswell"  hmmm.

Later Roan became interested in another extremely cute show, "Little Bill" based on stories written by Bill Cosby.

I fell in love with Little Bill, as did Roan. One of the best childrens shows I'd ever seen. But at the end... there was that name again! Fracaswell Hyman! It had to be the same Fracaswell Hyman. Could there possibly be more than one Fracaswell Hyman? As I tend to do I said his name aloud from time to time... "Fracaswell!" Then Roan picked up on this, "Fracaswell!"

We enjoyed every episode of Little Bill and learned many important lessons.

Roan's outgrown the show by now but neither of us have forgotten that name. Fracaswell.

So... Roan starts kindergarten two months ago. We meet all the parents and kids. One day our Room Parent is announced. He's a nice man with a daughter named Jamaya. HIS name is... FRACASWELL HYMAN. Except he goes by "Cas."

Now, in LA it's not rare to meet any and all sorts of celebrities or people behind the scenes who make the world of entertainment tick. That's not really the point here at all. In my time in LA I've attended parties with Denzel Washington, Barbara Streisand, Eddie Murphy, John Travolta. One of my best friends is Stephanie Courtney, or as you may know her, "Flo" the Progressive Girl.

I could go on and on and on and "name drop" as ANYONE who lives in LA and does anything in the entertainment industry does.

That is NOT the point here with Fracaswell. The point with that is I saw a RANDOM NAME over and over again and it made an impression on me. Then, 20 years later the owner of that name is my Son's ROOM PARENT in kindergarten.

It's just so... Random!!!

I expressed all of this to Fracaswell in person before school one day and he got a kick out of it. But then asked me what I did. "Well I'm part of this Improv Company, the Groundlings."

"YOU'RE a GROUNDLING???" he said. 

"Yes, but anyway.. Gullah Gullah Island!!!" I said.

"Yes, but THE GROUNDLINGS!" he said.

Last weekend we attended Jamaya's birthday party. And Cas, as I now know him, showed all the kids a wonderful time.  There was a "Mad Scientist"

The warmest most uniquely intelligent humorous wonderful people we have met at Roan's new school. And Cas is right up there at the top. And it really ends up not having anything to do with his fantastic name or the fact that he helped create Little Bill.

PS

Upon seeing this post I told Roan, "You know Jamaya's dad? He created Gullah Gullah Island AND Little Bill!"

Roan said, in a cowboy accent,