THE NUTTY NUT NEWS NETWORK SHOW COMPILATION #2

This compilation of material from early programs of the Nutty Nut News Network is an 18 minute presentation, half of which contains rare audio from the Sons of the Desert's First International Convention held in 1978. The clips from this event include presentations by Grand Sheik Hal Stanton of the Night Owls Tent of the Connecticut Valley, Laurel and Hardy author and Boston Brats Grand Sheik Scott MacGillivray, Philadelphia's Two Tars Tent and a cleverly performed skit by the Bacon Grabbers of Chicago. This is all hosted by the late Al Kilgore, cartoonist, filmmaker and a founding Sons member who famously drew the Sons' crest.

The compilation opens with audio clips from the Connecticut-based From Soup to Nuts Tent at one of their 1983 meetings and a picnic with Grand Sheik and Nutty Nut News Network Show creator Guido Cipriani. Due to the primitive nature of the recording equipment at the time, our voices occasionally sound higher than normal, very much in keeping with the style of our tent's hi-jinks.

Interspersed among the usual silliness is a greeting from Graham McKenna, Grand Sheik of the UK's Laughing Gravy Tent of Tingley. There's also two expressions of appreciation for both The Nutty Nut News Network Show and the then new release of LeRoy Shields' "The Moon and You" by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, these coming from Dwain Smith of the New York Founding Tent and Grand Sheik Leon Smith of California's Do Detectives Think Tent.

This is followed by the 9 minutes of historical audio from that first Sons convention in Chicago.

We are happy to make available another exclusive presentation from The Nutty Nut News Network website, celebrating the audio series which provided intra-tent communications in the early days of the Sons of the Desert.

Three of the Sons of the Desert founding fathers Al Kilgore, Chuck McCann and John McCabe

AL KILGORE

Born on 19th of December 1927 in Bloomfield, New Jersey, Al Kilgore was an American artist who worked as a cartoonist and filmmaker.

Kilgore attended Andrew Jackson High School where he played basketball with a young Bob Cousy who went on to play point guard with the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Boston Celtics from 1951 to 1963. He also met Dolores Preusch at this time, who he went on to marry in 1958. During World War II, he served in the United States Army Air Forces.

Al was an artist on the short-lived Rocky and Bullwinkle comic strip.

He appeared as an actor in Louis McMahon's serial parody Captain Celluloid vs. the Film Pirates. This four-part, semi-professional production paid homage to Republic Pictures and its adventure serials, while kidding the antique-movie subculture of the 1960s.

He was awarded the National Cartoonist Society Special Features Award for 1983 for his Elvis the Paper Doll Book. He drew the escutcheon for The Sons of the Desert that can be seen to your left.

Al Kilgore sadly passed away in 1983 from an embolism.