I met Syracuse's beloved TV personality Mike Price only once. I think it was some time in the early '90s. Price was looking for help with a universal remote control, and his search brought him to the retail outlet where I work. While I was speaking with Mike, my co-worker David Murray said to him, "Hey, Mike!" As Mike looked up in response, Dave pointed to me and said, "He's a big fan, Mike. Do the Baron for him."
The Baron. If you grew up in Syracuse in the 1960s, you damned well knew Baron Daemon, the kitschy, campy TV vampire created and played by Mike Price. As I wrote in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):
"My home town of Syracuse, NY is best known for its snowfall, its college basketball, and its foolproof plan to turn the area into a tourist Mecca by building a really big shopping mall where a bunch of oil tanks used to squat. What could possibly go wrong?
"But in the early 1960s, Syracuse gave the world Baron Daemon, the willfully goofy TV vampire host of Baron Daemon's Buddies on Channel 9. Believe me, if you were a kid around here at that time, Baron Daemon was as big as the Beatles to you.
"In the fifties and sixties, many local markets had their own flamboyant vampire kiddie TV host. Only Syracuse had Baron Daemon. From 1962 to 1967, the Baron and his cohorts cavorted in televised escapades and performed schtick between cartoons and Flash Gordon serial adventures, live (or undead) from the Channel 9 studio in the basement of the Shoppingtown shopping center. Every kid in Syracuse was a fan of Baron Daemon."
And standing in my store in the '90s, decades removed from televised black-and-white dealings with cool ghouls and bloody buddies, the great Mike Price responded to Dave's request and said to me in the Baron's unforgettable mock-Transylvanian accent, "Oh, but that vas so long ago...!"
Today, Syracuse mourns its favorite vampire. Mike Price had a long and successful career with Channel 9, racking up a résumé that went far beyond just the bloody Baron. But the Baron could never be just a footnote. The Baron was too big for that.
Our area has produced its share of stars, from Richard Gere to Tom Kenny, David Muir, and so many more. They're all great, and we're proud they came from the 315. But Syracuse has never produced a bigger star than Baron Daemon.
I can't add much more beyond what I wrote here about "The Transylvania Twist," the fantastic rock 'n' roll novelty 45 credited to Baron Daemon and the Vampires. Godspeed, Mike Price. This bloody buddy will never forget you.
RIP you will be missed
ReplyDeleteNice write-up in the P-S.
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