Another great Vegetable Soup interview. This time, Jude managed to talk with one of the guys from the ‘Long Ago’ segment, the sequence with the skateboarders who skate back into time!
It’s great to meet you, Kingman! You contacted me to try and find episodes of ‘Long Ago,’ which appeared in Vegetable Soup Series II. You were the youngest skateboarder, the Asian boy. What made you contact me out of the blue?
Well, it was because I was thinking about Vegetable Soup the other night, so I decided to do a Google search and see what would happen. Not a whole lot, though I did find that discussion board and saw your name come up rather frequently. Since some of those messages go back a couple of years, I figured the matter of getting the tapes was resolved by now. The next logical conclusion for me was to see if something was being offered on eBay.
Sure enough, it turned out to be the same Jude Barnes I’d been reading about. The last time I remember Vegetable Soup airing (in the NYC area anyway) was in the early ’80s. So, arguably, I’ve been waiting more than 20 years to view them again. I knew the tapes (or prints) had to exist in somebody’s hands, but I never knew where to begin to search for something as obscure as this.
How did you get involved with Vegetable Soup‘s ‘Long Ago’ segments?
Let’s see then. It’s the summer of 1977. I was 10 years old, and Star Wars had just come out in theaters. My sister, who would have been 25 at the time, was very interested in show business and heard that they were looking to cast an Asian boy for a TV show I’d never heard of.
I came down to Manhattan to audition, and I remember their initial impression was that I might’ve been a little too young for what they had in mind. Ultimately, though, there was something they liked about me, so I was aboard. I think I was already starting to get into skateboarding by that time, so maybe that was an extra factor that helped me get the part.
Some of my recollections about doing the show are a little sketchy now. Some memories still stand out very clearly to me, while others I’m sure have been forgotten. It seems like Long Ago wasn’t a part of every VS installment, and I don’t think they began airing until 1978.
I remember a thank-you letter from the studio at the end of the summer (of ’77), with a listing of air dates at the bottom, and my episodes circled in pen. I remember my sixth-grade teacher proudly announcing that someone in class was going to be on TV, and all her students were encouraged to watch. It was funny because, even back then, people had largely never heard of Vegetable Soup. It came on quite early in the morning, and in those days, of course, to miss it was to never see it again.
Some of my classmates did make it a point to tune in, which relieved me because otherwise, you’re full of crap, and there’s no one to back you up.
What do you remember about the other people you were working with?
All of the cast and crew were from the NYC area, and I was the youngest member of the cast. If I was turning 11 that summer, the other kids were probably 13 or 14. That was a big difference to me because they were all teenagers, and I was still a kid.
There were days when I’d see the other cast members and other days when I was the only kid around. By the end of that summer, I grew really close to the other kids and remember feeling very attracted to the two girls in the cast.
How about the sets?
The studio where most of the interior shots were done was in an old office building on Broadway, just north of Times Square. Since the kids got separated by the time travel, I was only called in to work on days when I was actually needed.
I remember seeing the model for the Outerscope ship, as well as the puppets lying around in an open storage container, though I never got to see that stuff in use. Perhaps Long Ago was scheduled to use the studio on certain days, and Outerscope II on others.
I remember filming an episode there involving me and this Black kid meeting a magician and being put into a wicker basket and made to vanish. The wicker basket appeared again in another episode, where I was supposed to be rescued from off the side of a cliff. That episode was filmed on location in the woods somewhere.
I also remember a scene where I helped another character haul the basket down a slope. That was tough because the basket was nearly as large as I was, and I was helping an adult haul it downhill.
The opening shot you see of the kids skateboarding back through time was shot in a corridor of a museum up in Albany. That was a fun day—I remember there were no lines to memorize and no pressure to act, just shots of us kids skateboarding down this slick hallway. Some of the voice-over work (the narration you hear in the episodes) was also recorded in that museum for some reason.
At 11 years old, I had a hard time with that because something was funny to me the whole day, and I couldn’t stop laughing.
Any memories with any cast members who were/are well known?
There was one day I remember doing an episode with Larry Hama, who would later be better known for writing Marvel Comics like GI Joe and Punisher: War Zone.
This episode was about the Chinese being used under slave-like conditions to build the transcontinental railroad. A scene I remember was inside a train tunnel (in an old factory or warehouse somewhere), where Chinese laborers were conspiring to strike. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen that episode for myself, but I do remember being down on those tracks. It was spooky in there.
After watching the sequences I sent you, what memories came back to you?
I think I had completely forgotten about the episode where we met Hiawatha in the woods. I remember having a serious crush on my co-star during our scenes together. Seeing the footage again makes me wish I could go back and live forever in the summer of 1977.
The actor who played Hiawatha (I didn’t hang out with the adults much) was quite good, and I feel like I’m seeing that episode for the first time.
Overall, though, the acting and production values on Long Ago really varied—some mildly engaging, others God-awful. Even when Vegetable Soup first aired here in the ’70s, I remember looking forward to seeing the adventures of the Outerscope kids as much as I did my own Long Ago segments.
Seeing lost footage of myself 26 years later got me very emotional, I must say. You can’t imagine what it means to me to have a document of this memorable moment in my life.
There was one particular shot of me turning my head in profile, and I looked exactly like my father, who passed away nine years ago this week.
I want to express my deepest thanks for putting this tape together for me. There’s one more little thing you could do for me, though. At the end of each episode in Series 2, the names of the Long Ago kids, including me, are listed. I wonder if you could make a note of their names because I would love to follow up on what they’re up to now. I’ve long since forgotten their names, but it would be great to find out where they are now. How funny would it be to reunite the cast of that show, eh?
What do you think about Vegetable Soup now that you’re seeing it again as an adult?
To some, the show might seem dated, bizarre, creepy, or kitschy, but it had an important lesson for young people about the value of cultural diversity.
I was already a huge Star Trek fan at the time Long Ago was being made, so I understood the cultural, moralistic, and idealistic messages in VS and Big Blue Marble.
I would actually be interested in what the creator of the show had to say.
