A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
From Iowahawk the Classive TV Show "Chutch"
Still reeling from Vietnam, and with Watergate and OPEC looming on the horizon, 1972 was a turbulent time for America. Nowhere was the zeitgeist more reflected than on ABC Thursday nights, with the debut of "Chutch." Starring Jan-Peter Bronston in the title role, the fast-paced action series centered on the adventures of a mystic, Indian-like professor at fictional Boulder University. Based on the rugged hippie anti-hero Bronston portrayed in a skein of popular low budget drive-in biker films (including 1968's "Tenured Losers" and 1970's "The Angry Ones"), Chutch battled against injustice and The Man with a lethal arsenal of martial arts, mystic dialog, dirt bikes and his faithful mountain lion, Zapata.
The show's unique combination of serious social commentary, folk music and violent desert dirtbike action sparked a brief but intense popularity among young viewers, spawning the memorable catch phrase "you heap big dead, paleface" -- uttered by Chutch whenever a villain questioned his Native American bona fides.
Read it all hereEPISODE 106: BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED EGO
OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE
Mystic flute and chime music; soft focus lens shot of a young Chutch standing in candlelit sweat lodge of his Tribal Master, Marcuse
MARCUSE: Are you ready for your final test, Angry Turtleneck?
YOUNG CHUTCH: I am ready, master.
MARCUSE: Then try to snatch the grant proposal from my hand.
Chutch deftly grabs the binder from the wizened master.
MARCUSE: With this ankh medallion I now grant you the ultimate power, Angry Turtleneck -- a Master's degree from Sangamon State University. I pray you will use it wisely.
Cue action music by Quincy Taylor Horns; split screen montage of Chutch driving Jeep, kung fu fighting, grading quizzes, playing acoustic guitar for mountain lion.
ANNCR: Chutch... in color, man!
ACT ONE - RAP SESSION ON THE CAMPUS QUAD
CHUTCH: ... and that's why the Japanese needed to make that statement -- they were speaking out against The Man's imperial colonization of the indigenous Hawaiians.
FEMALE STUDENT #1: Groovy! You really know how to stick it to The Man, Professor Churchill!
CHUTCH: "Professor Churchill" is what The Man wants you to call me, little one. In my classroom, my name is Chutch. Why do you laugh?
FEMALE STUDENT #2: Because, well... we're not in a classroom! We're outdoors!
CHUTCH: Haven't you been listening? "Classrooms" are only cells in the big global prison run by The Man. The Man didn't build "buildings" to keep rain out, The Man built them to keep you in. See? That's why I'm holding today's rap lab outside, in the natural harmony of nature. It is the classroom of my people, the Arapazowee people. My desk is this grass, my chalkboard is this stick, my filmstrip is that sky.
MALE STUDENT #3: Far out, Profes... I mean, Chutch. Do all the other Arapazowees have red hair like you?
ZAPATA: Rowwwr!
CHUTCH: Easy, Zapata, the boy is young and ignorant. Billy, the path to wisdom means learning, but also unlearning. You must unlearn the Indian stereotypes fed to you by The Man. Not all Indians live in teepees, and do rain-dances, or have brown eyes. Among my people, the Arapazowees, there were redhairs, and blackhairs, and blondhairs with pattern baldness, even the Freckled Ones. We lived in peace and harmony with the elk -- before The Man came and killed all the Arapazowee except me.
BILLY: I... I didn't know...
CHUTCH: You couldn't have known, Billy. The Man covered up the massacre in the media, and that's when I swore my revenge. Think of it this way -- if I'm not an Indian, why am I wearing this Indian hat and fringed buckskin jacket?
FEMALE #1: I think Billy has watched too many episodes of Johnny Nuance!
BILLY: Hey!
Everyone laughs, as the class is approached by Dean White.
DEAN WHITE: Chutch! I've been looking for you all over campus... teaching outside? This is outrageous!
CHUTCH: Mellow out, Dean. Real learning means getting out of that artificial plastic kaleidescope circus tent war machine you call "education." It means sitting cross-legged out here, soaking in the sunshine of truth.
DEAN WHITE: Perhaps the students love your highly unconventional methods, but they leave me exasperated!
CHUTCH: I thought you wanted to talk to me about something.
DEAN WHITE: Indeed I do! You've really done it now, Chutch. The alumni are in an uproar, the Board of Regents is grumbling, and the state legislature wants your hide! I tried to talk them out of it, but after you exposed the Eisenhower-Hitler connection, they swore they were coming to take your Arapazowee sacred Talisman of Tenure!
CHUTCH: So The Man wants a little showdown, eh? Let this be the Arapazowee's last stand.
BILLY: Chutch, over there -- here they come!
Sudden sound of motorcycle engines; biker gang appears on quad, astride filthy choppers. They roar across the green, up a ramp, and vault in midair over the heads of Chutch and his students. Freeze Frame.
COMMERCIAL SPOT #1A