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Interpretations:Mr. Klaw

From This Might Be A Wiki

The lyrics are a reference to the theme song of Mr. Ed:

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.



This is probably just a coincidence, but the superhero Iron Man used to have an occasionally re-occuring villain by the name of Ulysses Klaw, who went by the villianous nom de cleure "Klaw". He had some kind of sonic powers (a talking Klaw...?) and one of his arms terminated into a sort of satellite dish shaped thing with a bulb in the middle. Unfortunately, Mr. Klaw is probably not that famous, and there's a good chance no one else will get what the hell I'm rambling about. _________________________

I'm going to take the liberty of posting an interpretation by Christopher Stangl, a guy who used to frequent the newsgroup. I'm pretty sure this is the most thought out, well researched and very very likely correct interp...-Jordan (hallofeyes@aol.com) :

I insist the song is about Irving Klaw, a '50s photographer, most famous and renown for discovering and propelling to stardom the beloved cult icon Bettie Page. Irving Klaw was a pin-up photographer, and he shot burlesque movies. That's the key to the song. Not only did Mr. Klaw take cheesecake photos for a living (and the occasional, infamous, celebrated bondage pictorial or two... or two dozen), but he was *proud* of that. And he made his models proud of that. They felt good about their work, and that's why the product that came out of Klaw Productions was so much better than the rest of its ilk: There was an honesty and joy and innocence about it. "A Klaw is a Klaw". Mr. K never made any bones about it: He shot pretty girls in various states of undress, and the pictures were what they were (and flashbulbs look as much like lightning as anything- "Mr. Lightning Bulb"). He also made films. Mostly silent loops, and dozen upon dozen of them were devoted to the heart-stopping Ms. Bettie Page, and had nondescript titles like "Betty's Cute Clown Dance". Page also later was featured in some low-budget burlesque/ vaudeville films (hell, there's no other kind of burly-q film but low-budget) like "Strip-o-Rama" and "Varietease", which were thought to be lost for many years. These were sound productions. Prints have surfaced in recent years, and are available from Something Weird Video, but at the time "Mr. Klaw" was written, well... "Nobody has seen a talking Klaw". Klaw was, by most accounts, a pretty nice guy. But he was not terribly attractive (bald, pudgy, short- "Mr. Dental Flaw"), and this was occasionally joked about, as he was, ironically, constantly around some of the loveliest women of the '50s ("Mr. Vanity Klaw"). 

               -Chris Stangl




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