The Art of Manualism on Display at TVland.com

Have you ever squeezed your palms together to create a flatulent sound that can modulated so as to create the effect of musical chords? Most people are only good enough at this to create the kind of music that may be accompanied by backup singers belting out "Beans, beans, the musical fruit..." There are those living among us, however, who can actually and truly create music from between their farting palms. For instance, over at Tvland.com they have utilized the talents of the Alf Clausen of palm farting to create videos that show this guy using his hands to, and I am not kidding here, recreate the theme songs of such classic TV shows as All in the Family, Green Acres, and the Addams Family.

Technically speaking, palm farting is actually called Manualism. (And doesn't that sound it should be referring to something else that is probably appearing on at least a million computer screens as you read this?) R.A. Wilson is Tvland.com's resident manualist and he is truly a genius. If you were alive in the 70s you may remember there was another guy would pop up on variety and talk shows and display his own form of manualism, but his forte-if I recall correctly-was mostly classical works. R.A. Wilson's manualistic genius arrives in the form of being able to genuinely make those classic TV show themes recognizable. One of the videos available under the What the Heck tab on Tvland.com's video section has Wilson discussing manualism and he even mentions the appearance of John Toobey on The Tonight Show in 1972 as his inspiration for taking up the creative art of manualism. If you are interested in becoming a professional manualist yourself, that particular video also offers advice and tips and demonstrations on how to turn that sad little fart into musical gold.