BARRY COURTER: Lisa, have you ever seen a 30-foot model of Lookout Mountain with a working incline? Or how about a giant wooden television set with a larger-than-life Bob Brandy cutout? This TV is big enough that real, live people can climb inside and be on the tube.
LISA DENTON: I never got to appear on "The Bob Brandy Show" back in the day - or on "Funtime" with "Miss Marcia" Kling, for that matter - so this sounds like the next best thing.
Lisa Denton and Barry Courter
BARRY: I was on the Brandy show in first grade. I won some Little Debbies. Anyway, you and everyone else will get the chance to see these things and more on Saturday when the Chattanooga Fun House on Rossville Avenue hosts a grand opening for Wayne-O-Rama. There are also huge puppets depicting Bessie Smith, Chief Dragging Canoe, Samuel L. Jackson, Adolph Ochs, Emma Wheeler and several other famous Chattanoogans.
We've written before about this year-long collaboration between Emmy-winning artist Wayne White and the Shaking Ray Levi Society, but this is the big reveal. There will be a ribbon-cutting, presentations and a proclamation naming it "Wayne White Day of Art and Education." It will take place from 2 to 7 p.m.
LISA: White, of course, is a Chattanooga native best known for his work on "Pee-wee's Playhouse." He is an exceptional talent, and this project is a win-win for all involved. The city gets to enjoy this awesome art installation, and White gets to feel appreciated in his hometown.
White gave a sneak peek of his creations during the Glass Street Live festival back in September with the giant puppets of Civil War Gens. Patrick Cleburne and William Tecumseh Sherman.
BARRY: I've been over to the place a couple of times, and we also did a Facebook Live sneak peek there. You can watch it at www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=wayne-o-rama%20lesley. It's pretty amazing.
On another subject, James Rogers let me know a couple of weeks ago that he would not be doing his annual Christmas show at the Colonnade in Ringgold, Ga., this year but will instead do one at the Alhambra Shriners Temple to benefit the Shriners Hospital for Children. That show is Thursday at 7 p.m. He will do some Christmas material but mostly the stuff he used to do in Pigeon Forge for all those years.
LISA: And local attorney and historian Sam Elliott will give the last program in the Moccasin Bend Lecture Series tonight at 7 at The Camp House. His topic intrigues me: "Ten Little Known Facts About the Civil War in Chattanooga." This is a Civil War history-loving town and, if he's got 10 things that aren't already widely known, I'm impressed.
Get event details every Thursday in ChattanoogaNow or online anytime at www.ChattanoogaNow.com.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354. Contact Lisa Denton at ldenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6281.