John Steinbeck allowing Steinbeck to spend a full day on the set of "The Grapes of Wrath" and the next day on the set of "Of Mice and Men." In the 1930s and 1940s, Ed Ricketts strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing. Steinbeck frequently took small trips with Ricketts along the California coast to give himself time off from his writing and to collect biological specimens, which Ricketts sold for a living. Their joint book about a collecting expedition to the Gulf of California in 1940, which was part travelogue and part natural history, published just as the U.S. entered World War II, never
Lenny and the Squigtones credited guitar work by future Spinal Tap member Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest). A photo on the inside cover also includes two band members, "Murph", the keyboard player from The Blues Brothers, and "Ming the Merciless", purported to be Kiss drummer Peter Criss without his famous "cat" costume and make-up, though Criss denies it was him. McKean has confirmed that the drummer in the photograph is actually Don Poncher. Lenny and the Squigtones Lenny and the Squigtones is a fictional musical group headed by Michael McKean and David Lander, the two actors who played the characters Lenny and Squiggy on the