There’s this anecdote about Tiny Tim which, like all anecdotes, may or may not be true.
Tiny Tim, if you don’t know him, was a musician popular in the late 60s and early 70s, mostly known for his falsetto and ukulele rendition of this old 1920s song, Tiptoe Through the Tulips as well as his many TV appearances on shows like, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson – which he appeared on a total of 22 times – he famously got married on air – as well as Laugh In and Hollywood Squares, among others.
He was a character.
Anyway, as the story goes, in 1971, just as Tiny’s popularity was really beginning to wane, his management was desperately searching for ways to reignite public interest. Their solution, one of them, anyway, was to hold a Tiny Tim look alike contest.
Now, again, in case you’re not aware of him, Tiny had a very distinctive look. Long curly hair parted on the side – dirty and tangled, although he bathed many times a day. A notably large, exquisitely arched nose, with these exceptionally long nostrils. A large mouth just stuffed with teeth. More than is normal, you’d think, by the looks of it. The teeth were pushed out by these huge gums. And then he had this flaccid, Cheeto shaped body that he held with the confidence of a chubby, polio struck kid on roller skates, balancing a triple scoop ice cream cone. He’d started perilously, upsettingly thin, but had expanded with his fame, so that he looked like he’d been stung by a wasp and desperately needed a shot from an epi pen. And he would have been conspicuous just based on all of this, but he also slathered his face in pancake makeup, filled in his eyebrows, and wore ill fitting, out of date, wrinkled suits in patterns that bumped up against each other like delirious bums fighting over a street corner in a bad neighborhood. Sometimes he wore a velvet cape. He came off like, royalty – genteel – but of the inbred, anemic variety.
Like I said, he was a character.
So they decide to put on this contest to revitalize his career. It will be held in Brooklyn, where Tiny is from, at a VFW hall, and it will be judged by Tiny, his soon to be ex-wife Miss Vicki – the one he married on the Tonight Show, and Isadore Fertel, Tiny’s friend and protégé, who was pretty close to blind. He wore these giant coke bottle glasses and sang songs about women’s lib. They alert the national and local media. They hand out flyers. They put up posters. This is going to be a BIG event.
And then – on the big day – just about no one comes . . . and literally no one enters. No one. There is literally not one person at this moment in all of New York or seemingly the world that wants to be Tiny Tim – who was, only a few years before, one of the biggest names in show business.
It’s kind of tragic, really.
But, eventually, someone would come along who DID want to be Tiny Tim – still does – or at least he felt and feels compelled to be. His name is Lyman Sundry. He’s a Tiny Tim impersonator. Has been since 1996 – the year the real Tiny died.
On today’s episode of The Irrationally Exuberant, we have his story, told in his own words.
It’s called, Good Things In Tiny Packages. Enjoy.
(sound collage)
(Fade into: Crowd/bar noises)
Voice Over: My name is Lyman Sundry.
Hello my dear, wonderful friends! (Feedback. Yelling. Booing)
VO: I’m 56 years old.
Oh. Ah, can we ah, can we get the levels, ah . . . no?
VO: And I’m a professional Tiny Tim impersonator.
Well, let’s begin (uke strumming)
Fuck you! (Bottle smash)
OK, I’m done.
(Crowd/bar fades into uke strumming, into song)
You want me to play a tune? Alright um . . . “They Always Pick On Me”
The first time I saw Tiny Tim was the same way everyone else saw him – on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1968.
(Tonight Show clip)
And , you know, I didn’t think much of it at the time, I guess. I was 17 and I had other things on my mind, as you do. I thought he was kind of odd, but also kind of funny and nice and then I didn’t think much beyond that.
I was living with my parents in Dilworth, Minnesota – we just didn’t have any connection to all of that Hollywood business beyond Johnny, and even then it felt like it was being beamed in from another planet, like Pubetron Fergleven or something.
And then I saw him on Laugh In – and I really thought that was great.
(Laugh In Clip)
But again – I had my life to live. I was getting ready to go to college. I had all of these friends. Girls. I didn’t dwell on it too much. And of course I’d see him around on the television here and there from time to time doing this and that, but then he kind of just, you know, disappeared.
And I went about building a life. I became a lawyer. I was pretty good at it. I married the love of my life, Jeanie, my ex-wife – she was so beautiful – and we had 2 kids, Terrell and Ashley – great kids. I was in excellent shape – I ran in those Iron Man marathons where you have to swim and bike in addition to running the 26 miles. We had a good life. We were comfortable, bordering on affluent.
(I’m A Lonesome Little Raindrop or Bunny Nose)
(Bowling alley sounds)
And then . . . and then one day in 1994 I was at the bowling alley, Lucky Strikes – for league night. I was on a team with some of my lawyer friends and my brother in law, Nick. We called ourselves Striker, Striker, and Spare, Attorneys At Ball. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was on fire. We were in the 8th frame and I had a perfect game going. Everybody was ecstatic. That doesn’t happen very often. We were all right, but no professionals, you know? And just after I’d rolled that 8th strike and had slapped everyone’s hand, I excused myself to go get another beer. And the bar – it was attached to the bowling alley but you had to go through a door to get to it. And I opened that door, and there was Tiny Tim, like a vision, singing Mickey the Monkey by ________ on this kind of makeshift stage to maybe seven people.
(Mickey the Monkey)
And it knocked me on my ass. He was older, of course, and fatter than I remembered, but he was dressed just the same. And he looked so . . . so sad, even though he was smiling, like in his eyes. He looked sad. And it was transfixing. I couldn’t believe he was still doing it. I was transfixed, that’s the only word for it. Each song bled into the next without a pause, these wonderful old songs – so innocent, just like him.
(song)
I sat down maybe four feet in front of him and I must have been sitting there for 15 minutes before he noticed me, and then he just kind of winked and smiled at me and kept going and I kept sitting there. Eventually my brother in law came into the bar to find out what was taking me so long. It had been my turn to bowl for awhile. And I wouldn’t come. He was laughing and talking to loud and kind of disrupting the show since we were so close to Tiny. Nick didn’t even know who he was. And I was just trying to get him to be quiet. I wouldn’t even look at him. And eventually Tiny became agitated and stormed off. I went back to my game and rolled 8 gutter balls in a row. Nick said it was like I was in a trance, and I suppose I was.
Tiny had triggered something inside of me. When I looked at him it felt like I was looking into a mirror and seeing my true self for the first time. It was horrifying and deeply confusing. But also wonderful. From that day on, I was a Tiny Head, though I didn’t know that term yet.
Interviewer: Can you play another song?
Oh, of course Mr. Reid.
(song)
So, after that, everything changed pretty quickly. I significantly cut back on my hours at the law firm and kind of retreated from my family in my pursuit of all things Tiny. It wasn’t easy to find the records and posters and articles and what not in those days, because personal access to the Internet was pretty new, so I spent a lot of time in libraries and on the phone and travelling to Tiny Tim concerts. Eventually I got connected with the Tiny Heads – they were a group of about 18 people who were totally dedicated to Tiny, and they were a huge help. Here let me show you some of the things in my collection.
(Shuffling)
Here is a first pressing of the God Bless Tiny Tim! LP. That was his first album. Just an absolute classic. I’ll play you a song, the fidelity is amazing.
(On The Old Front Porch)
That’s Tiny duetting with himself.
And this is the second album, called Tiny Tim’s Second Album.
Let’s see, we’ve got very rare copies of the controversial Santa Claus Has Got the Aids single. They only made like 1000 of these and nobody wanted them, so there are really probably only two left.
Just so many singles . . . they were all issued either independently by Tiny or various other kind of fly by night labels over the years, he’d basically just record with whoever would have him.
Oh, here’s the split EP he did with GG Allin. That one’s kind of interesting. GG was a huge Tiny fan and Tiny, I guess, didn’t really know who GG was and was sort of horrified when he actually heard the music.
Let’s see – a VHS copy of Blood Harvest – the horror movie that Tiny starred in in 1987.
A video of Tiny getting married to Miss Vickie on the Tonight show, of course.
Here’s a poster for Tiny’s show at Luna Park in Australia where he beat the all time continuous singing record when he sang continuously for 2 hours and 18 minutes, and here’s a bootleg copy of that performance.
I’ve got magazines, and photocopies of newspaper articles – I had the Howard Stern interviews, but I threw those away out of respect for Tiny. Howard was so rude to him, it was terrible.
I’d say I probably have the world’s biggest Tiny Tim collection, really. I’m not sure I really have competition even.
(song)
Anyway, so I was spending all this time collecting Tiny stuff and all I talked about was Tiny and I played his music constantly and at the same time my appearance was really starting to change, like, almost immediately. It was very concerning to my friends and family. I gained an enormous amount of weight very quickly, like 100 pounds in three months. I started to grow my hair out – it had always been very trim and neat before and I started to just kind of let it do it’s thing aside from that patented Tiny Tim side part.
And I began wearing these colorful suits that didn’t fit so well even though they were very expensive to have made. Like the one I’m wearing now – the theme of this one is The Love Guru. It has pictures from the Mike Myers film The Love Guru all over it.
Isn’t it beautiful?
Reid: Yeah.
I went in – without telling anyone – and got this experimental dental procedure done – reverse braces. A dentist had come up with it because he thought that, like, Anglophiles would want it or something, but, of course, no one did, so I was the first. The braces went behind my teeth and pushed them out. It was very painful – still is actually. It kind of destroyed the structure of my jaw. But, you know, it makes the look more authentic.
And that same day I went in and got my nose elongated and had my hairline lazed backward.
When I came home, it was like, my family treated me like some kind of monster. And I realized that they were strangers to me and that this was natural. I WAS a monster and they should have been treating me this way all along. You know, I’d never really been judged and persecuted before and it was exhilarating, especially at the hands of these people who supposedly loved and cared about me.
So, I had to move out, obviously, and into one of those weekly rate hotels, just like Tiny lived in.
It was kind of like – you know that movie The Santa Clause? With Tim Allen? It was kind of like that – that rapid – except at the end of it I wasn’t this beloved, gift bearing, mythical man. I was Tiny Tim.
(song)
And I lost my job, of course. There was no way a jury was going to take my side looking like that.
Reid: How is your relationship with your family now?
Well, I only really saw them once after that. I convinced my wife to take a family vacation with me . . . this was just a couple of months after I moved out. I was feeling intense guilt about how things were working out and I thought I should just give this – my family – one more chance.
So, we agreed to meet at Spooky World in Rhode Island. My idea. It’s this Halloween themed theme park. We – the family – we’d always loved Halloween – had really gone all out with decorations and costumes, so it seemed like it was a good place to start patching things up and getting them used to the new me.
And when we got there – I met them there – everything was going . . . fine? I guess. As fine as it could until they found out that Tiny was playing three shows a day at the parks Scareoke stage and that was that. They left immediately and the divorce papers were waiting for me when I got back to the hotel I was living at.
(song)
But, you know, before that, at the park by myself – that was incredible. I got to see three Tiny Tim shows a day for three days. I even got mistaken for him a few times, which was a real thrill.
And then, then I came face to face with the man himself. Just for a minute. I got his autograph – had to stand in line for almost an hour to get it, that’s how popular he was at the park – and when I stood in front of him he looked at me and smiled – and I swear I could see recognition in his eyes. I don’t know if he recognized himself in me or if he remembered me from the bowling alley, but he recognized me. And he said – I’ll never forget it – he said.
“Try switching to Retinal Moisturizing Cream for face in the white and black container, that Oil of Olay Regenerist stuff will dry out your skin.”
He knew exactly which kind of face cream I was using! Just incredible.
So that really strengthened my resolve. That was a real sign that I was doing the right thing. And the next day I bought a ukulele.
(song)
Well, it didn’t feel right to impersonate Tiny while he was alive. But I’d heard – and he said himself – that his health was fading because of the diabetes and his – just his lifestyle. As much as he took care of his skin and worried about germs, his diet was terrible. So, I kind of just hunkered down and spent my time learning the songs.
(song)
And then, a year and a half later, on November 30, 1996, Tiny Tim died. He was playing Tip Toe Through the Tulips, believe it or not, at the Women’s Club in Minneapolis and had his second heart attack and that was it. It was a real tragedy and I really excpected to cry – to really take it hard, but you know what? The minute his death was announce I just felt a sense of purpose. I felt the Holy Spirit entered me. I hadn’t been religious before, but Tiny sure had, and I can only believe that his spirit entered me and brought Jesus with it, and he’s been in my heart ever since, thanks be to God.
So I said a prayer, picked up my ukulele and walked out onto the street, and that’s when I performed as Tiny Tim for the first time.
The response was . . .mixed. The few people that knew he had died kind of gave me sad smiles and nods and the people that didn’t either ignored me or scowled at me. One guy called me a faggot.
And the next day they had an open mic night at a bowling alley, The Pin Pad, which I thought was appropriate since a bowling alley was where this all started, in a way. And I went and I played some songs as Tiny and – thanks be to Jesus – the response was just incredible. The news of his death had gotten around and people were just so nice. They were cheering and – oh, I just can’t help but smile thinking about it.
So that gave me the confidence I needed to take the next step. A week later I was on a Greyhound headed for Los Angeles.
(song)
I had . . . some money. Maybe $15,000. Jeannie took the rest – I didn’t fight her. I figured that and whatever money I earned performing as Tiny Tim would be enough to live on. Which, you know, live is probably too strong a word.
I moved into the Oakwood II, which is basically just a cheaper, worse version of the Oakwood – that hotel where all the aspiring kids and their parents stay – and it’s in North Hollywood, which is a good stretch away from, you know, real Hollywood. It’s mostly filled with people that couldn’t afford to stay at the Oakwood anymore. Kids that are no longer kids and still holding onto the dream.
On the plus side, junkies are a captive audience.
And I met my manager there. Irwin Grendel. He runs Ape Magnet Productions and calls himself The Ape Tamer. He specializes in celebrity impersonators, which I guess is what I am.
It feels like more than that, though. Like I’m a continuation, not an imitation.
(song)
I met Irwin after a couple of months at the OakII and, listen, is he the most upright fella I’ve ever met? No. Is he, in fact, kind of a weasel? Yes. Does he have my best interests at heart? No. Does he wear exactly the right amount of hair jelly and not a drop more? Also no.
But, I’ll tell you, I don’t know what I’d do without him. Nobody else would touch me. It was brutal in those months before him. I had no idea where to start. I just walked around outside, strumming and singing and I don’t think I came across one person that was happy to see me. I was depressed.
And then I thought, “What would Tiny do?”
And the answer to that was obviously to sign a ridiculously exploitative contract with a shifty manager. He did it a million times in his career. I mean, Roy Radin got murdered and chopped up and nobody shed a tear. They all figured he had it coming, and they weren’t wrong.
I could definitely see Irwin getting chopped up.
Anyway, he was staying at the Oakwood II . . . too. I saw him in the hall with a guy who looked to be a white Steve Urkel impersonator with a black eye. And when I walked by he yelled, “Tiny Tim! Tip Toe Through the Fuckin’ Tulips!”
And that just set me off. I started weeping. It had been so long since anyone had shown me anything but disdain.
So he took me by the arm and led me into his apartment – told white Urkel to get fucked – and he explained who he is and what he does. He has this massive roster of celebrity impersonators . He’s got a Peter Criss, a Mr. Belvedere, a Toucan Sam, a Dennis DeYoung, ah, a Ronald McDonald that he has to call Red Donald the Hamburger Clown to avoid a law suit, um, Mary Todd Lincoln, a John Cougar Mellencamp, a Johnny Cougar, and a John Mellancamp . . . Chris Gaines, Delta Burke, the list goes on and on. He figures if he has enough people he doesn’t have to rely on any one of them getting consistent work, which they don’t. Did I mention that he has a Delta Burke?
So I signed his standard contract – 50 dollar a month retainer regardless of whether he gets me any gigs and 30% of anything I make. I also made him write in a clause that he’d try to get me a record deal.
That’s the goal. Like I said, I don’t want to just be a tiny impersonator, I want to continue what he started.
These aren’t easy shoes to fill. They’re not shoes you’d probably want to fill even if it was easy. They’re old and the soles are wore out. The seams are barely holding together. And they stink like any number of foot powders. They don’t even have laces. It’s like . . . they’ve been sitting in a bin by the front door of a Goodwill marked “Free” but they’ve been there for years and nobody’ll take ‘em.
Interviewer: So . . .why do you do it?
I guess . . . I mean, sometimes I don’t know. But I guess in the same way that God called Herbert Khaury to become Tiny Tim . . . I got that same call. And does it complicate matters that my call came late and kind of secondhand? Sure. But the Lord . . . you know how the saying goes. And that goes for Tiny Tim as well. The lord and Tiny work in mysterious ways . . . yes they do. Mysterious and sad and tiresome ways.