The Origin of Indiana-Man

Twenty-two years ago Sterling "Chuck" Jones and I were playing around with my newly purchased camcorder. Hard pressed for a subject to amuse our interest, I went back to my room changed clothes and revealed myself dressed in an Indiana University sweatshirt and sweatpants with a towel draped over my shoulders to fashion a cape. Announcing my entrance as Indiana-Man, the legend was born. Chuck hurriedly cut out a dominoe mask from red felt and then made one for himself, and introduced himself as "Sparky", the Indiana-Lad.
We ventured into the back yard and began videotaping ourselves acting out imagined scenarios for the camera.

Of course such silliness wasn't satisfactory so we contacted my good friend Maurice Broaddus and his friend Darrel and invited them to partake in our first Indiana-Man adventure.
When night fell we searched for a suitable location and found it in a small cemetery on 52nd street between Georgetown and Lafayette Road. The cemetery was illuminated by a security lamp and we needed to do most of our video taping fairly close to the lamp as the camcorder's lux meter was insufficient in low light.
Stephen Kendall did the honors of video taping our ad-libbed antics in the graveyard.
The loose plot of our story concerned Indian-Man and Sparky searching out a vampire in the cemetery and being repelled by the vampire's hired hands. Maurice took on the role of "The Black Muslim", soon to be Indiana-Man's arch foe. Political correctness wasn't a consideration. Darrel chose the moniker of "The White Bishop".
Silly fight scenes with incredibly ridiculous dialogue like "How dare you, Black Muslim? How diabolical, protecting the bloodsucker", dominated the play. In reviewing the video tape the funniest part could be when a car drove by the cemetery and everyone dove to the ground not to be seen by the passerby. Stephen laid the camcorder on its side when he laid down for cover. The video shows the tilted scene at ground level with the audio of our group announcing the car and the declaration to hide.
Indiana-Man proved to be such fun, we soon planned another adventure this time with a little but not too much planning.

Indiana-Man and the Indiana Handsaw Massacre took place mostly at Eagle Creek Park. We actually developed a simple story- A young man (Stephen) and his girlfriend (Darrel with nerf balls placed strategically in his shirt to give him a well developed appearance) go off for a picnic in the park. They stumble upon a deserted cabin in the woods where the young man is slaughtered by a "frightening" figure with a handsaw. My wife's chili was used for the gore effect. Indiana-Man and Sparky just happen to be at the park enjoying a picnic also. They soon stumble upon the body of the young man and must rescue the girl from the clutches of the fiend who turns out to be the Black Muslim in disguise. Again the dialogue was mostly ad-libbed and

Indiana-Man stories quickly took on the form of a parody of the old Batman TV show.It was amazing how many people in the park became onlookers entertained by our exploits. Onlookers at future locations became the norm.

Next up was Indiana-Man and the Swamp Cult. A woman is kidnapped at the main branch of the Indianapolis Public Library and Indiana-Man pursues the assailants. With some help from Sparky, Indiana-Man stumbles upon a cult in the swamp near Eagle Creek Park where worshipers are trying to make the girl a human sacrifice to the swamp-god "Swamp-Allah" who is in fact- The Black Muslim. I remembers attaching various sorts of foliage to Maurice in preparation for his role as "Swamp Allah / The Black Muslim". My wife, Judy was none to happy with tree branches decorating our kitchen as we dutifully applied vines and leaves to his makeup.

The final Indiana-Man adventure was a team up with Rick Lee's character Video-Man, in Indiana-Man meets Video-Man in Bloodlust of the Vampire. A vampire stalks the streets of Mooresville Indiana and the Comissioner (played by Ken Daum) summons the help of Indiana-Man and Video-Man to unravel the mystery. Julie Lee (then Julie Kyle) played the female vampire who is confronted by the dynamic duo while she is shopping.

During the taping of this story a Moorseville police officer drove up to the strip mall we were shooting in. Not sure of what we should do, we approached the vehicle. I'm dressed in Indiana-Man garb with towel cape and dominoe mask and Rick in his goofy costume and Julie in this strange looking black dress. With no better thought in mind I addressed the policeman in true Indiana-Man fashion, staying in character, "Greetings officer, my colleague and I are here fighting crime." I can't remember the policeman's reply but he didn't seem to mind and we resumed the videotaping.

An Indiana-Man event I wasn't privy to was a a surprise arranged by Stephen, Chuck and Maurice on the day of the Batman Returns premier. Chuck had been away at college and Stephen and I were going to set out in front of the theatre early in the day in order to be the first in line. Stephen insisted on bringing the Video Camera and my Indiana-Man suit. As we were sitting out in front of the theatre a car drove up and Maurice came forth silently and shrouded by a hooded robe. He said nothing and presented me with a sheet of paper with esoteric sayings and clues written on it and then he departed. Stephen began making only one statement "I Must Tape Indiana-Man." I finally caught on and began following the clues, bouncing me around locations in the vicinity, which eventually led me back to behind the theatre where Chuck as Sparky was tied to a tree being tortured by the Black Muslim. Astonished to see Chuck I resisted the urge to welcome him but I stayed in character and fought the Black Muslim freeing Sparky. A wonderful surprise concocted by a great group of friends.

The only other Indiana-man video is actually a spin off where I video taped my three year old son, Jason ,as Indiana-Boy in pursuit of a bank robber named Rombat played by my five year old son, Kyle.

My friends and I not only made Indiana-Man adventures but we also made many a horror film. We mostly used old horror comics as story boards and went from there. We even had horror hosts like the crypt keeper introduce the stories. We were making Tales From The Crypt long before HBO aired the series.