The Arts / Performance

‘Wonder Bread Years’ looks back with nostalgia

By David Burke | Wednesday, August 13, 2008 | () comments

Comedian Pat Hazell brings “The Wonder Bread Years” to Maquoketa, Iowa’s Ohnward Fine Arts Center on Saturday. (PATHAZELL.COM) Buy this Photo

If you remember Clackers, Lawn Jarts or the Kellogg’s cereal Fun Paks, Pat Hazell says you’re in the target audience for his show, “The Wonder Bread Years.”

“I realized there was a common denominator for most Americans, a collective youth when there were three television stations and so forth,” Hazell, 47, said from his office in Austin, Texas.

Hazell, a former stand-up comedian who was on the writing staff for the early seasons of “Seinfeld,” brings “The Wonder Bread Years” to the Ohnward Fine Arts Center in Maquoketa, Iowa, for a performance Saturday night.

Much of his stand-up performance was already devoted to reminiscences of his youth in Omaha, Neb., when an auditorium manager in Lincoln, Neb., convinced him 12 years ago to turn those memories into a special for PBS, and later to tour with it.

“In stand-up, you can do non sequiturs on any number of topics anywhere you please,” he said. “In this, I focus on our sense of wonder, how we lost it and where we can get it back.”

He shopped the performance to theaters, but it didn’t begin to take off until after Sept. 11, 2001, when, he said, Americans were looking for a sense of comfort through nostalgia.

“We use it as a way to thwart the terror out there,” he said. “We shut the doors for 90 minutes and find some common denominators.”

Hazell uses a back porch set, filmstrips and slideshows of his own memories to help tell his story.

“It sparks a different part of the brain that stand-up doesn’t,” he said of the visual aids.

The advent of the online auction site eBay helped baby boomers gain a portion of their past, he said, as they bid on the items they remember from when they were children.

“People are looking at nostalgia as a way to refind their youth,” he said. “That intrigued me.”

There are several different versions of “The Wonder Bread Years” touring the country, with extended stays previously at or planned for the future in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.

Hazell, who also produces four other touring musical and/or comedy shows, auditions and directs each actor for the roles, allowing them to weave some of their own experiences into the text.

He handles more of the touring, one-night performances.

“I’m not eager to do it everywhere as much as I want it to be funny and favorable and leave the audience with a sense that there’s something hopeful out there,” he said.

IF YOU GO

What: “The Wonder Bread Years,” with Pat Hazell

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 16

Where: Ohnward Fine Arts Center, 1215 E. Platt St., Maquoketa, Iowa

How much: $25 in advance, $28 at the door

Information: (563) 652-9844 or OhnwardFineArtsCenter.com on the Web

Also on the Web: WonderBreadYears.com

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.