There is also just a bunch of goofy stuff sprinkled in. Much like Crockett himself, we are not scholarly folk, and simply seek to entertain. |
Books: There are countless books out there on David Crockett. In recent years, through the hard work of researchers (and the market for revisionist histories), the real David Crockett has come much more into focus. The legendary "Davy" is today found mostly in children's books and videos.
Films & Plays: In the 1800's he was portrayed as a brash, uncouth "yaller flower o' the forrest," then in the later part of the century as a noble, yet illiterate backwoodsman. In the Twentieth Century he was personified as both, on one hand learning how to read while taking care of his mom in one film, then keeping the world safe for white women in D.W. Griffith's racist Alamo picture... until Disney came along and cleaned him up for the kids watching. Then John Wayne played him as John Wayne, and Brian Keith played him as, well, I have no idea what Brian Keith was thinking. Finally in 2004 he was portrayed as a man trapped in a fiction, trying to figure out: "Am I a screamer? Am I a Congressman? Am I voiced by Nicolas Cage in 'Rabbit Ears'? Who am I?"
Almanacs, produced as mass-market newspapers from 1835 to 1856 in various cities of the United States, were wildly popular across the country. Over those 20-odd years, five different publishers put out 55 issues. They packaged standard almanac information with a series of increasing outlandish, brutal, and finally racist and expansionistic anecdotes concerning the legend of Davy.
Poems & Songs: It was the most famous song about Davy Crockett of all. It became a runaway hit and could be heard everywhere across the United States for years....and it wasn't "The Ballad of Davy Crockett."
Links: The Davy Crockett nuclear warhead; Was David a Mason?: Next of kin; David's writings online; "The Alamo 2"; Everything you'd want to know that's on the Internet.
David Crockett, by John Gadsby Chapman. Oil on canvas. 24 1/2" x 16 1/2". Courtesy Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. This painting is a copy of a life-sized portrait executed by Chapman in 1834 and since lost in a fire at the Texas Capitol.
 | Not born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, Jeffrey C. Hause has been writing professionally (in a very amateur fashion) for fifteen years. Not raised in the woods, so he know'd every tree, he's written screenplays at film studios like Warner Brothers, Disney, Universal, Columbia, and Interscope; and for producers such as Ivan Reitman and Samuel Goldwyn Jr. Jeff has also written for comics and entertainers such as Rodney Dangerfield, Gabe Kaplan, Rick Dees, and Jay Leno. But he kilt him a b'ar, when he was only three. Okay, he really didn't do that, either. But he's basically a nice guy, if you ask people. Some people. |
Copyrights held by various and respective owners.
Music: "Davy Crockett" by The Solitaires (Old Town Records).