Pancho Claus reads this blog

Richard Reyes (aka Pancho Claus) has commented on a post I wrote about him some time ago.

With all due respect to any other famous people reading my blog, having Pancho Claus drop by is easily this blog's greatest moment (even better than when I encouraged Huw to drink a gallon of milk in an hour).

Some day when I get time, I will take it upon myself to write the Wikipedia entry that Pancho Claus so rightfully deserves.

Wikipedia drops the ball

Am I the only white person in the world who remembers Pancho Claus? He was a Mexican lowrider-Santa-Claus-fella in Houston who showed up everywhere when I was a kid. When my family moved to Minnesota, I was shocked and appalled that people there had never heard of him.

There was at least one TV special featuring Pancho Claus bringing toys to all the cool girls and boys. His elves were a mix of Pachucos and cholos and at some point there was a mariachi band*. Most of Pancho Claus' actions involved standing at an angle and flipping a silver dollar. I remember, also, that at some point a kid laments that he will not see Pancho Claus because his family's house doesn't have a chimney.

"I don't use chimneys," says Pancho Claus. "I'm not getting this suit dirty."

Apparently he's still around, but I couldn't find anything about him on Wikipedia. Every minor Star Trek character to get 15 seconds of screen time is documented, but Pancho Claus gets nothing. There's something inherently wrong about that.

*Not really related to this, but not worth putting into a post of its own, my all-time favourite use of a mariachi band came when Michael Moore's short-lived "TV Nation" sent one to drown out a KKK rally.