An Uncommon Comic

Kelly Tjaden could be -- in a word -- hilarious. We had many a belly laugh from our free-wheeling repartee as we huddled around the council fire at the Owl Farm. He was funny, and his incisive wit took him places very few dare to venture. We would also role-play, and he could assume characters easily, like his French boss, Waldo (pronounced Vahl-do), on the zip line construction caper.

As Kelly was stationed in Germany in the Army, and I studied German in college, two of our favorite characters can only be described as whiny, high-pitched Germans -- Nazi stereotypes from “The Eiger Sanction,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Kelly’s Heroes."

We assumed other roles on occasion, such as “Blackie” and “Brownie,” two down-on-their-luck bookies from “Where The Buffalo Roam” featuring Bill Murray as Hunter S. Thompson, and Martian Princess Marcuzon (Marilyn Hanold, a 1959 Playmate of the Month) and her right-hand man Dr. Nadir, who travel to earth to kidnap women for new breeding stock, from “Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster.” Why? Warum nicht?