2009 Top One Hundred Countdown # 66: "Sunshine" / Fred Spicer
I found this at the Adamstown Flea Market. There actually were quite a number of dealers there with photographs. I ran in to one of my Internet dealers who was there as a buyer----I would guess that since the demand is there, the dealers put their photographs out, knowing they have a market. Down here in the Southland, perhaps there are fewer people looking, and thus a dearth of material.
The dealer who had this photo asked me what I liked about it. I just told him it had something special going on. It's great that it's beat-up---that means it was looked at and valued. Thel nickname is great, and the up-from-under angle of the photo is great. Sunshine looks a little bit like Buddy Ebsen. I first got to know Buddy Ebsen when he played Fess Parker's sidekick in Disney's Davy Crockett series. I know he had been around before that, but that was my first encounter with him. He had an aw-shucks, good-ole-boy naturalness to him that I liked. I never liked him quite as much on the Beverly Hillybillies---he was playing a broad stereotype that always seemed hokey, but I'm sure it paid the bills.
Buddy Ebsen was a big-time conservative and Ronald Reagan supporter. Let me tell you, if they ever try to put Ronald Reagan up on Mount Rushmore, I'm getting my dynamite out of the storage shed. But still, I like Buddy Ebsen---he's the kind of solid stock that made America, and Sunshine looks like he fits right in.
He's wearing a baseball cap, but the light and the shadow it makes makes the cap look like a western hat. That's my favorite thing about this photo, besides the creases and the nickname and the angle of the photo. Heck, I like everything about this photo. I'm going right down to the Board of Elections and change my party registration tomorrow.
2009 Top One Hundred Countdown # 66: "Sunshine" / Fred Spicer
I found this at the Adamstown Flea Market. There actually were quite a number of dealers there with photographs. I ran in to one of my Internet dealers who was there as a buyer----I would guess that since the demand is there, the dealers put their photographs out, knowing they have a market. Down here in the Southland, perhaps there are fewer people looking, and thus a dearth of material.
The dealer who had this photo asked me what I liked about it. I just told him it had something special going on. It's great that it's beat-up---that means it was looked at and valued. Thel nickname is great, and the up-from-under angle of the photo is great. Sunshine looks a little bit like Buddy Ebsen. I first got to know Buddy Ebsen when he played Fess Parker's sidekick in Disney's Davy Crockett series. I know he had been around before that, but that was my first encounter with him. He had an aw-shucks, good-ole-boy naturalness to him that I liked. I never liked him quite as much on the Beverly Hillybillies---he was playing a broad stereotype that always seemed hokey, but I'm sure it paid the bills.
Buddy Ebsen was a big-time conservative and Ronald Reagan supporter. Let me tell you, if they ever try to put Ronald Reagan up on Mount Rushmore, I'm getting my dynamite out of the storage shed. But still, I like Buddy Ebsen---he's the kind of solid stock that made America, and Sunshine looks like he fits right in.
He's wearing a baseball cap, but the light and the shadow it makes makes the cap look like a western hat. That's my favorite thing about this photo, besides the creases and the nickname and the angle of the photo. Heck, I like everything about this photo. I'm going right down to the Board of Elections and change my party registration tomorrow.