Since “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” wouldn’t make a terribly good audio-only post, the next best thing is a word or two from the Mind of Jean Shepherd. This episode from his daily WOR Radio program on October 31, 1972 fills the bill quite nicely as far as Americana and the Ritual of Trick Or Treat.
In case you have no idea who Jean Shepherd is, here’s some background to give you some idea who you are listening to (stalwarts and those who know Jean Shepherd by heart can skip this part):
Jean Parker Shepherd Jr. (July 26, 1921 – October 16, 1999) was an American storyteller, humorist, radio and TV personality, writer, and actor. With a career that spanned decades, Shepherd is known for the film A Christmas Story (1983), which he narrated and co-scripted on the basis of his own semi-autobiographical stories.
Shepherd’s oral narrative style was a precursor to that used by Spalding Gray and Garrison Keillor. Marshall McLuhan in Understanding Media wrote that Shepherd “regards radio as a new medium for a new kind of novel that he writes nightly.” In the Seinfeld season-six DVD set, commenting on the episode titled “The Gymnast“, Jerry Seinfeld said, “He really formed my entire comedic sensibility – I learned how to do comedy from Jean Shepherd.” Seinfeld was interviewed at a tribute to Shepherd held at the Paley Center for Media on January 23, 2012, confirming the importance of Shepherd on his career and discussing how he and Shepherd had similar ways of humorously discussing minor incidents in life. The first name of Seinfeld’s third child is “Shepherd”.
Shepherd’s life and multimedia career are examined in the 2005 book Excelsior, You Fathead! The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd by Eugene B. Bergmann.
Shepherd’s 7-step approach to “compassionate humor” in storytelling is described in the appendix to the 2024 book You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! Life Lessons from the Movie A Christmas Story, by writer and communication professor Quentin Schultze, who taught with Shepherd.
Shepherd was an influence on Bill Griffith‘s Zippy comic strip, as Griffith noted in his strip for January 9, 2000. Griffith explained, “The inspiration – just plucking random memories from my childhood, as I’m wont to do in my Sunday strip (also a way to expand beyond Zippy) – and Shep was a big part of them”.
In an interview with New York magazine, Steely Dan‘s Donald Fagen says that the eponymous figure from his solo album The Nightfly was based on Jean Shepherd. Fagen devoted a chapter of his autobiography, Eminent Hipsters, to Shepherd.
Though he primarily spent his radio career playing music, New York Top-40 DJ Dan Ingram has acknowledged Shepherd’s style as an influence.
An article Shepherd wrote for MAD issue no. 32 (March–April 1957), “The Night People vs Creeping Meatballism”, described the differences between what he considered to be “day people” (conformists) and “night people” (nonconformists). The opening credits of John Cassavetes‘ 1959 film Shadows include “Presented by Jean Shepherd’s Night People”.
In 2005, Shepherd was posthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, and in November 2013, he was posthumously inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame.
Okay – now you know. Press play, dive in and you’re never too old to go Trick or Treating.
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