(Home | Order Bananafish | Midheaven Mailorder | Revolver USA | Bananafish #14 )

Excerpted from Bananafish #15

MAL SHARPE: The one that really offended them was filmed in the backyard of a fancy estate in Beverly Hills with a swimming pool. Coyle was in the pool with a shower cap on, and I called up a delicatessen in downtown Beverly Hills and ordered a bunch of sandwiches. A little Jewish man showed up in the back yard with this bag of corned beef sandwiches and chopped liver. I told him that my brother has some kind of mental problems and thinks he's a seal. I pointed to Coyle in the pool, yapping like a seal, “Aaarn, aarn, aaarn, aaarn,” and I said, “You have to feed him. I can't get near him because he hates me.” And the little guy was like, “Well, I don't, How do I” And Coyle was lunging out of the water because he's hungry, “Aaarn, aaarn, aaarn, aaarn.” Finally I got the guy to take a sandwich. He was leaning down, Coyle going “Aaarn, aaarn,” trying to grab the guy's hand.

S. GLASS: What's so offensive about that?

MAL SHARPE: Coyle came across as a genuinely mentally defective person. They said, It looks like you've got this spastic person in a pool who's really sick. We don't think it's funny. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if it was on the air today.