R.F.R.I.P.

[ed. - melancholy today, as it is the third anniversary of the the death of my hero, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. This is a eulogy I wrote for CNS on the occasion.]

When I read the news it felt like a cold sting. Ed "Big Daddy" Roth - pioneering hot rodder, artist, American icon and my hero - dead of a heart attack at 69.

For most people, the name may only ring a faint bell. Some may remember his mind-boggling custom cars or the plastic model kits based on them; more may remember his slyly subversive alter ego "Rat Fink," or the wild, tire-smoking monster t-shirts produced by Roth Studios. Bookish types might recall him as the subject of Tom Wolfe's The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamlined Baby. For the curious, here's his story.

Ed Roth was born in Los Angeles in 1932, the son of German immigrants, and the location and time would prove to be serendipitous. An embryonic hot rod society had already emerged in California, young men who raced their "gow jobs" ("hot rod" being a relative neologism) across the dry lakebeds of Muroc and El Mirage.

By the time Roth reached his teens, Southern California hot rod culture was in full bloom, fueled by the easy money of the booming postwar economy and the ready availability of used Fords with flathead V-8s.

Like thousands of other LA high school boys in the late '40s, Roth pieced together a souped-up short - a '36 Ford coupe - much to the consternation of his Teutonic father.

Beyond hot rods and girls, though, he had little direction. While he had some artistic talent - mostly confined to notebook margin doodles - his grades were limited by his penchant for daydreaming and clowning.

After graduation he spent a stint in the Air Force, entertaining his buddies with his wild cartoons and tales of the exotic roadsters he and his friends back West had constructed for "drag racing," another term unfamiliar to most Americans in 1950.

After his discharge, Roth returned to California and soon married. Now a family man, he looked for honest work but honestly couldn't bear it. Instead, he teamed with a hot rodding friend, Tom Kelly, who suggested starting a car-painting business.

Joining them was Kelly's grandfather - "The Baron" - an inscrutable 80-year old Hoosier who had mastered pinstriping, apprenticing in a 19th century farm wagon factory.

The team was a hit. In the late 1950s, the Baron, Kelly and Roth garage in Bellflower was overflowing with area hot rodders, seeking a Baron pinstripe, a Kelly scallop or a Roth 'flake - a technique where crushed shells or metal is added to the paint to give it various degrees of glitter.

During slow times, though, Roth would amuse some of the customers by painting wild monster cartoons onto t-shirts using the shop's spray paint equipment. This also proved to be a bonanza, and hundreds would request one of Big Daddy's weird designs.

After a falling out with Kelly and Baron, Roth struck out on his own as "Roth The Crazy Painter." He traveled to car shows where he perfected his technique and sold $3 monster shirts to a hungry market of adolescent boys eager to impress their friends and outrage adults.

It was also at these early 1960's car shows that Roth became determined to push the creative envelope in car customization. With limited metalworking skills, he was at a disadvantage against customizing masters like George Barris, Darryl Starbird or Dean Jeffries. Was, that is, until he discovered Fiberglas.

There has seldom been such a natural click between artist and medium; Roth would buy the gooey stuff by the barrel, pouring it into plaster molds that he had created by hand - literally. Without benefit of tools, plans - even a tape measure - Big Daddy would simply knead the plaster into the desired shape, letting the car happen, like a gearhead Jackson Pollock.

And when the molds were cast off, they revealed some of the most stunning sculptural statements ever to sprout four wheels. Using his unique method, Big Daddy produced a steady wave of outrageous asymmetric show cars festooned with bubble tops, cantilevered third-eye headlights, pearlescent three tone fuchsia paint and blindingly-chromed engines (sometimes two or three). He christened them with names every bit as exotic; Outlaw, Beatnik Bandit, Orbitron, Rotar, Mysterion, Druid Princess.

The wild creations were a hit wherever they were shown, and the Revel Company produced millions of replica scale models kits that finally made Roth financially secure. Each box pictured the car with the disembodied head of Big Daddy floating gleefully above it, flashing his ever-present subversive goateed grin.

About the same time, he also developed his trademark "Rat Fink" character, a satiric take on Mickey Mouse with Roth as his demented Walt Disney. A drooling, obese, fly-infested green rodent leering in a red tanksuit, Rat Fink somehow managed to maintain an odd, non-threatening sweetness.

He also continued to develop other business interest, selling millions of mail order monster t-shirt that would inevitably be confiscated by disapproving parents. To keep coming up with fresh designs, Roth Studios employed talented artist such as Robert Williams who would go on to fame in the "serious" gallery world.

By the early seventies, though, it appeared the zeitgeist had left Roth behind. Model and T-shirt sales declined, as hot rod culture seemed a hopeless anachronism when gas lines stretched around the block. Once celebrated by some intellectuals an important influence on Pop Art, he was far too 'outside,' too guileless to get an invitation to the next art world paradigm shift.

Worse for Roth, he found it increasingly difficult to maintain a presence in the hot rod world. Never fully accepted there (many hot rod builders objected to his use of fiberglas and allegedly shoddy workmanship), he was shunned by some car shows for building "noncars" - car/motorcycle hybrids, electric cars and the like. Even among outsiders, Big Daddy was an outsider.

Frustrated, in 1969 Roth sunk his fortune into "Choppers," an ill-fated outlaw motorcycle culture magazine. He was unable to find a distributor, and mainstream car magazines such as Hot Rod refused to take advertisements from "the supply sergeant for the Hell's Angels." He suffered a financial disaster, and eventually retreated into exile as a sign painter at a California amusement park. He became a devout Mormon and moved to Utah, distancing himself from the metalflake cartoon culture he created.

His exile would be short lived, however. By the mid 1980's, a collector market sprung up around Roth memorabilia and a new generation rediscovered the joy of his eccentric vision. A burgeoning "Low Brow" art movement fully embraced Big Daddy as one of their own.

He was discovered by many on the Internet, where hundreds of sites are devoted to the him, his art and his cars (the official site is www.ratfink.org). Roth appreciation continues to grow, and with the annual Rat Fink Reunion in Santa Fe Springs, California, it has finally been institutionalized. Sadly, the next reunion will have to carry on without Big Daddy presiding as its clowning eminence gris.

While he may not merit a half-page obituary in the New York Times, there are some of us for whom Roth will always remain an icon: the wild 1960s subversive who truly loved American culture and celebrated its excesses. To a kid from that era, he was the world's coolest grown up; a favorite uncle with a sly smile, a cool car and an uncanny ability to draw the most hideous cartoons of your teacher.

Was his stuff really art? I don't know art, but I know what I like. And I loved Big Daddy Roth. Goodbye, Ed, I'll miss you.

Comments

[spd rdr]

That was great. Thanks.

[iowahawk]

Thanks, but one quick correction -- Roth's shop was on Bellflower Boulevard in Maywood, CA.

[Darren]

If I had any talent, this is the column I would have written on my blog today. I still remember my dad rolling his eyes at the sight of hundreds of rat fink stickers adorning the one good wooden chair in the house. My handiwork, of course, circa 1971. Thanks Hawk.

[jimmytheclaw]

whoa i think i had some of those models as a kid and probably the t-shirt too i do also remember the stickers too

[xasa]

Thanks.

[Paul]

Correction to a correction: Roth's shop was on Slauson Avenue in Maywood, California, just east of Atlantic Blvd.

[Davis]

Where can I find a complete list of Roth t-shirt designs? I am looking for the one I had when I was in high school, "Big Bad Competition Coupe."