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Special Effects circa 1974

On our swim team, the grandest event of the summer was the “Smith Open” Ping Pong Tournament. Oh, sure, we had swim meets to compete in, including the infamous Air Capital Meet, the Regional Championships, and for the fast people, the National Championships. And folks who did well at those events received medals, trophies, and adulation for their accomplishments. But to truly become a hero to the team, you had to win the Smith Open.

The Smiths were the only family who had six kids swimming on our team. That’s right, six kids – and they were all pretty good swimmers. But it was not just the sheer volume of Smith genes in the pool that made them inescapable – it was the Smith household that did it.

They had an open door policy. Really, I mean it – the door to the Smith home was always open. No one was expected to knock, just to walk in and make themselves at home. Visitors would always find food in the kitchen, music on the stereo, and someone who was up for a friendly game of pool in the front room.

It was a nice house, but certainly not a mansion. Still, there was room for plenty of activity. The ping pong table in the basement was in a bit of a cramped space; a free swinger would occasionally impact the hanging beads that were draped across the doorway to the laundry room, but you could still put in a good game.

The Smith parents were beloved by all the kids on the swim team. Eccentric, but beloved. The dad’s name was Duane Rollo Smith, but everyone called him Duaner. Mom’s name was Patricia, but most just called her “Pitter Pat”. Duaner referred to himself as “the King” of the household, and enjoyed issuing mental challenges to anyone he encountered. Pitter Pat simply spread massive amounts of love upon everyone who walked through the doors.

The Smith’s eldest son, Steve, proclaimed himself to be the greatest Ping Pong player on the face of the earth. My college roommate and best friend (Mickey) was quick to point out just exactly how totally full of crap Steve was. The gauntlet had been thrown.

And as these things usually go, once word got out of the upcoming epic Ping Pong duel, more pretenders appeared from the woodwork. Seemed as if there were quite a few swimmers who felt their athletic skills extended beyond the aquatic realm. A tournament was proposed.

There was not even a question about who would host the thing. The only problem was to find an additional table – the Tournament would simply take too long if all the games had to be contested on the single table in the Smith’s cramped basement. Glenn Nyberg volunteered to swipe, er, I mean borrow, a table from his neighbors.

I was assigned to the table pickup task force, along with Steve Smith and his brother Doug. Duaner drove his wood-side-panel monstrosity of a station wagon over to the Nyberg’s.

In our current modern age of mini-vans, most young people have never experienced riding in the rear seat of a station wagon. The front two seats of the vehicle were exactly like those in a regular sedan, but behind the second seat was a third that faced backwards. It could be folded into the floorwell if one wanted to carry cargo rather than passengers, but provided adequate comfort for three when unfolded. The kid on the starboard side of the car had to contend with a bulging panel that hid the spare tire (which were full-size, in those days), but the other kids had nearly normal space to sit in. Most of these rear seats had no seatbelts, and I believe the Smithmobile was no exception.

Facing backward provided opportunities that conventional seating did not. For example, you could stare directly into the eyes of the driver of cars behind you. You could play with the electric rear window – put it down to allow seatmates to dangle their feet out the back, then roll it up to try to guillotine their unsuspecting legs. And if Duaner wasn’t paying attention…

While his dad was distracted by traffic in front of the car, Doug climbed out the rear window and got a secure grip on the luggage rack on top of the car. Staying low to avoid wind resistance, he crept forward and waited for his opportunity.

Now, Duaner was quite attentive to the rules of politeness and propriety. He rarely swore at all, but I think everyone in the county heard what he said next. “JEE-JUSSS CHRIST!” he shouted when Doug suddenly appeared upside down directly in front of the driver’s side windshield. Not only had Doug launched his entire torso down the front of the car, but he had put on his best bug-eyed, tongue-protruding, maniacal demon face at the same time.

Try it. Suddenly appear upside down in front of an unsuspecting family member. Even though they may know your face well, and love you with every fiber of their being, I guarantee that such a sudden, inverted monster-faced appearance will totally freak them out. It certainly did with Duaner.

The car was stopped and discipline applied. After Doug was safely back inside the wagon, we were emphatically informed that we were henceforth forever banned from operating the car’s rear window. Oh, well, it was worth it.

At the Nyberg's, putting the Ping Pong table on top of the car was not that hard; after all, we were athletes in our prime, and feats of brute strength were welcome challenges. We opened the rear car doors and looped Duaner’s long rope around the table to secure it.

When Duaner emerged from the house after talking with Mr. Nyberg, we were ready to mount up and return to the Smith’s house. The kids climbed into the car and closed its doors.

Except they wouldn’t close – the rope was in the way. I’ll never forget Duaner’s expression; a perfect Spock eyebrow half-grin. “Ah,” he said, “two loops of rope – one for each year of college.” None of us said much as we unwound the rope, closed the doors, and wound it again – through the open car windows. Then we sheepishly climbed into the car (through the open windows, since we now couldn’t open the doors), and rode home in silence. We could tell that Duaner wanted to continue laughing at us, but to his credit, he was remained silent.

Once the table was set up in the living room, Doug and I started scouting camera angles. We had decided that the tournament would play an important role in the kung fu film we were making. The plot called for an epic Ping Pong battle between good guy “Mr. Roper” (played by Mickey) and the evil overlord “Mr. Spanman” (played by Steve Smith).

As a show of his strength, Mickey was supposed to crush a ping pong ball under Spanman’s nose¹. Seems like a simple effect, but it took us a long time to figure out how to do it. We found that it is nearly impossible to actually crush a ping pong ball in one hand – so we mashed one with a hammer. Well, through the lens of the camera, it just looked like a blob, so we decided to crack a ball into shards and then insert a closeup after Mickey opened his hand. It worked better than the mashed ball, but on the final Super-8mm film product, it didn’t look any different than if we’d have had Mickey crush a single Dorito® chip (which would’ve been a lot cheaper than the several dollars we spent mutilating real ping pong balls). Sigh.

Anyway, the game scenes were exciting, and so was the dramatic fight scene where Spanman had Roper “wasted” after the tournament. Everyone who attended the Smith Open Tournament that year also showed up at our movie premier, and applauded wildly during the dramatic scenes of ping pong competition.

Well, when I started this piece, I was planning to talk about some of our other special effects as well, including the jet-scorching laser we created, the head-crushing leap from a high rooftop, the 10-story plummet in the parking garage, and the dramatic hotel window escape climb. But those stories will have to wait until another time.

And, by the way, Mickey won the tournament that year. Steve Smith won the next one, I believe, and the two continued their epic battles for years to come. I’m not sure when the Smith Open Tournament was last held, but if you ever see that it has been resurrected, don’t you dare miss it.


¹ - The movie was called “The Tiger and the Dragon”. We modeled it after Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon”, and the ball-crushing scene was an homage to O’Hara breaking boards before his fight with Lee.