Downtown Maplewood Has Everything!

I am not from Missouri, but I would like to think if I was, I would have been a fan of Pete Parisi. He created this wonderful show called World Wide Magazine that ran from 1986 to 2001 on Public Access in Missouri. There he made history with a program that can best be summed up in the sentence, “Downtown Maplewood Has Everything.”

In 1993, Pete visited Maplewood, the “City of Progress.” He speculates on the many beauty parlors, talks to a woman named Buffy, and interviews local business people. It is a picture of vanishing small-time America that is both sad and humorous at the same time. I will leave it up to you which you think dominates by the end of the video. One thing for sure though, but in the end, you will be singing, “Downtown Maplewood Has Everything!”

My first watching of this video was probably about two years ago. As soon as I hit play, it all came rushing back to me. With videos as ubiquitous as they are today, I don’t think we will ever capture the tone of this video again. So enjoy.

Remember folks. Downtown Maplewood Has Everything

Or at least, at one point, it did.