Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502220100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER NOTE: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Stand at the corner of Campbell Avenue and Jefferson Street in downtown Roanoke, look to the east, and you can see exactly what's going wrong with this country.
No, not the First Union Tower. A little more to the right.
There it is, atop what has been downtown's most obvious vacant storefront: a monument to America's moral decline.
The national debt clock, running along at a clip fast enough to make you dizzy if you try to read the numbers? Your share: $18,585. Oh, that's pretty bad, too. But now another eye-popping, mind-boggling, stomach-churning landmark shares the rooftop: Big Boy.
Not the Big Boy we grew up with, mind you, the cherubic-faced little fellow who stood in front of roadside eateries and peddled double-decker burgers back in the good ol' days when men were men and unafraid to gorge themselves on red meat until their bellies sagged.
Hate to be the one to break the news, but now even Big Boy's gone bad.
Real bad.
Look closely and you'll notice this Big Boy is dangling an earring from his left lobe.
And sporting a tattoo on his arm.
For goodness sakes, he's even bleached his black hair blond.
Roanoke restaurateur Roland ``Spanky'' Macher - who's about two weeks away from opening his long-awaited Star City Diner on the site - salvaged this particular Big Boy from an antique shop in Georgia.
But what in the world possessed him to hire Roanoke sculptor Shaun Carroll to give Big Boy such a radical fashion makeover?
``We're in the '90s, and people are hip,'' Macher says.
Hip?
The only thing hip about Big Boy down through the years has been his ample posterior. But now Macher's got plans to turn Big Boy into the pitchman for the brassiest, campiest, gaudiest restaurant Roanoke has ever seen, the kind of place that will be chattered about by all of Roanoke's Beautiful People - and the rest of us, too.
``I paid $1,200 for him, but he's probably worth $5,000 for what he's going to do and the attention he's going to generate,'' Macher says. ``When people come downtown at night, they're going to relate. They're going to think that earring is as bad as can be.''
Certainly, they're going to think something. They already are.
Big Boy, in case you haven't heard, is merely the beginning. You know the famous Big Man statue that stands guard outside JR's Service Center on Williamson Road? Macher has a model of his ne'er-do-well cousin, who's now decked out in a soda jerk's uniform. Macher named him Big Lick, because he's dishing up ice cream.
And then there's the giant fiberglass waitress on roller skates - complete with a flashing neon hula hoop - who's scheduled to join Big Boy and the debt clock atop the roof Friday. She doesn't have a name yet.
But for now, it's Big Boy who has people talking.
People like W.L. ``Tony'' Whitwell, the Hollins College art historian who is chairman of Roanoke's Architectural Review Board.
``Yes, it's in bad taste,'' he says as he paces up and down the sidewalk, studying the adornment from ground level. ``Yes, it's sort of vulgar. Yes, it's kitsch.''
But that's precisely why he loves it.
Yes, you read that right: The man charged with preserving the historical authenticity of downtown actually endorses rooftop Big Boys with tattoos and body piercing.
``Anybody in town knows my predilection for this sort of thing,'' he says. Architecture, Whitwell says, is too staid, too serious, too boring. It needs to be more fun, more humorous. ``I like the whole Las Vegas bit,'' Whitwell says.
You think it's bad when people keep saying we need to be more like Charlotte; along comes someone who says we ought to imitate Las Vegas.
Of course, Whitwell is careful to point out, the commercial property along this stretch of Jefferson Street was ``gerrymandered'' out of the downtown historic district back in 1979, so there's absolutely nothing he or anyone else in Roanoke can do about Macher's plans.
``He can do whatever he wants,'' Whitwell says. ``That'll stir up a storm. People in this conservative community will go crazy. That's why it's so great. All those dudes in the new tower can look down on that and curse and swear. I think it's wonderful.''
Indeed, not everyone is enamored of the new and improved Big Boy.
Not Valerie DeCilles, a lunchtime passer-by who does a double take when she catches a glimpse of Big Boy. ``I liked him better the old way,'' she says. ``I think it's defacing an old cultural icon.''
And certainly not the folks who still own the trademark rights to Big Boy.
The Big Boy statue was born in 1936, the creation of California restaurateur Bob Wian, who specialized in a sandwich he advertised as Bob's Big Boy.
The restaurant chain that bore his name was franchised nationwide in the 1950s. Today, the international rights to Big Boy's name and likeness are owned by Elias Bros. of Warren, Mich., which tries to keep close tabs on the 600 or so statues now gracing America's landscape.
``Policing it is a very difficult job,'' concedes Bill Morgan, Elias vice president. Franchisees sometimes come and go without notice, and their statues go with them.
And that's not all. Every now and then, college pranksters carry off a Big Boy for a few days. ``The publicity is so great, we normally do nothing,'' Morgan says.
Occasionally, he'll even get requests from eccentric types who want to buy a Big Boy of their very own. ``One guy in Dallas wanted to put it on his front lawn. I thought he was out of his mind.''
But never, in all of his 40 years of restaurateuring, has Morgan heard of someone doing to Big Boy what Macher has done to Big Boy.
``Oh geez! An earring and a tattoo? Oh my God! Oh my God!''
So what does Morgan intend to do? ``I'll let the legal beagles speak to that. I fear he's changed it sufficiently that maybe there's nothing we can do. But it seems a shame. I've never heard of anyone doing that to one of my beloved Big Boys.''
by CNB