By Jim Varagona

When Pete Parisi left us in January of 2002, succumbing to complications from insulin-dependent Diabetes, the city of Saint Louis lost a genius, although most probably didn’t realize it. Parisi was the man behind World Wide Magazine, a public access program that ran for 15 years in the Saint Louis area entertaining its inhabitants, hoosiers and all.

One of the taglines for the show was fittingly “50,000 Hoosiers Can’t Be Wrong.” The show averaged about a new show a month during its run and aired three-four times a week on what was known as Double Helix at the time (later dhTV and now KDHX-TV).

Parisi originally worked on the show while driving cabs.  I don’t recall setting aside the time to watch WWM, at least at first; it was such an odd program that it drew you in and halted your channel surfing. It can’t really be classified as a certain genre. There were goofy skits involving the wild cast of characters that Pete always managed to find, but at its best it was a documentary of the side of life that we all know about but don’t really see on television like a visit to the Elvis is Alive Museum that used to be located in Wright City, which I’m sure the local news made it out to, but Pete happened to take the tour with a group of mentally handicapped people.

Parisi had a knack for finding strange people and places and creating interesting situations. He had a cast of regulars that his viewers grew to know like kooky members of our own families. Well kind of. Through the years we got to meet Watt Davis (and his magic feet!), Vladimir “The Mad Russian” Noskov, wrestlers “Dumptruck” Dave Perry, The Giant Assassin, and Big Daddy, Hung Wei Lo, Uncle Nunzio, the Feeney Brothers, Mike Perez, the Hoosiermooners (Ruth and Big Mike), the Horner brothers, “Little Songbird” Vanessa Vargo, Miss Kathy, and Pete’s girlfriends Denise and later Linda.

There were Vince and Marty, a couple of portly guys that were paired together in skits and doing commentary. We’d see them in grass skirts dancing with a hula girl or giving a somewhat correct history lesson while walking over the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. Don Wayne, known as Black Jesus, was a gravelly talking man that Parisi would put in outrageous stereotyping situations for a black man. He would discuss going back to his homeland of Africa to visit his family while grainy black and white footage of tribal people would be playing.

For those not accustomed to the WWM way, that may sound racist, and surely it was, however Parisi did it all tongue planted firmly in cheek, showing the absurdity of life. When the Parks Department was amassing and escorting him off the grounds of the 1991 VP Fair (now known as Fair St. Louis), Pete edited it by intercutting it with footage of Nazi soldiers marching. Strangely enough, now stored at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is World Wide Magazine’s coverage of the ’91 fair (scroll to #248 on this list: http://www.nps.gov/jeff/historyculture/av_collection.htm).

People hear the term “Public Access” and they think of boring programs of dark sets with a couple of potted plants. They think of talentless people looking for an outlet. You may not agree with Parisi’s style, but the man was a great entertainer. His editing skills were impeccable, mixing in old film and commercials and laying a fantastic jazz soundtrack throughout. Many people that lived in St. Louis during the time the show aired would instantly recognize “Tiger Rag” by Fletcher Henderson as the theme of show (actually the second—“China Boy” by Red Nichols was the first).

The South Side Fellini, as Parisi was sometimes known, made a great series of shows during the Great Flood of 1993 going places and talking to folks that the local news stations weren’t getting to. Mike Perez, who was a cameraman for Pete, suggested that those tapes be put in a museum as a historical document along with WWM shows covering white supremacy groups. St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Jeff Daniel suggested after Parisi died that we “elevate World Wide Magazine from controversial cult phenomenon to necessary historical document.” I’m working on it, Jeff.

I actually met Pete once back in 1997. A few friends and I went up to a WWM picnic in Carondelet Park. I shot some video of Tom Horner, drunken with white makeup wearing a cowboy hat with a pacifier dangling from it. A group of people including my friends convinced him to roll down a hill in a dirty park trash can—twice. Someone saw that I had video and took me to Pete. It was like meeting the Diabetic Godfather (I too have Type 1 Diabetes). He told me he’d give me a call and we’d meet up to get him the footage. I ended up going to his apartment with two buddies and we chatted for a couple of hours about the show and working with video as he chomped on a cigar. It was very surreal.

Late in 2002, I made a documentary on Pete, entitled “P.E.P.” for a project at Webster University. I interviewed The Mad Russian, Big Mike, and The Feeney Brothers, as well as Pete’s mother and sister. It ran late at night a couple of times on KDHX-TV, but won’t go much farther than that. All of Pete’s material has copyrighted music, so it’s difficult to get air time or make a DVD aside from underground copies.

If you search for the show on YouTube, a lot of those were posted by me, and some were pulled due to copyright infringements. I’m not the shows biggest fan, as far as the amount of shows I’ve seen or can recall, but I am it’s and Pete’s biggest advocate. I’ve tried to compile as many video clips and news clippings that are out there on my WWM fan sit (http://wwm.diabetoboy.com –pay attention, it’s not www) and in the past year, the fan page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/worldwidemagazine) has grown and become more active. I even own his ¾” tape decks and video mixer.

I understand that Pete Parisi may have been an offensive, grumpy old man to some, but he captured an angle on an era that no one else did in a way that no one else did. His style was before his time and that has been reinforced by witnessing the popularity since him of the extreme comedy of Tom Green, the Direct Cinema documentarian Michael Moore that gets involved with his subjects, and reality television in general. This reality TV certainly had its own South Saint Louis flavor to it, with the humor of an Italian from New Jersey. It captured simple moments that sum up a lot like when Pete was at Grand and Gravois asking people in traffic about what makes St. Louis so great and three hoosiers in a truck scream “KSHE 95 rocks your ass!” (Thanks to Johnny Vegas Moynihan for reminding me of that moment.)

My hope is that the hoosiers come out of the woodwork to talk about the show, share mementos and clips, and Pete Parisi gets some overdue accolade, whether it be a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame or an exhibit on classic local TV in Saint Louis at the History Museum complete with cardboard cutout of Pete with cigar.