Mad Charles, the World’s First Singing Karate Robot!

by J.A. Goins

When is the last time you have seen a Karate Robot? I can tell you the last time I saw one, or rather, heard one. It was about thirteen years ago. I was in downtown Somerville, New Jersey, hitting the junk shops, looking for records (Sorry folks, MP3s suck), but more specifically, I was looking for singles from a particular record label, Somerville’s own WGW records.

So, what’s the big deal about WGW records? First, when you consider how many thousands of independent record labels operated from the late fifties into the sixties (a fair share of them in NJ), you begin to realize that each label is an encapsulation of the local talent in a particular place and time—in this case, the greater Middlesex County area. Second, since WGW was considered cutting edge in its hey-day (Early to late ’60s), its roster is chock full of some of the wildest psychedelic acts and garage punk bands that NJ had to offer. In fact, judging by some of NJ’s counterculture input, I’d venture to say that more than a fair share of your uncles and fathers out there might have taken the “brown acid”; growing their bangs in their eyes and firing off all that pent up teen angst from the business end of a pawn-shop guitar.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?

WGW’s most famous disk is probably “Love’s a Fire” by Somerville locals the Werps—a wild snotty punk record (with trumpet!) cut way before it’s time in ’67, popularized by its inclusion in the popular ’80s Crypt Records compilation series “Back from the Grave”; operated, incidentally, by New Jersey native Tim Warren. But fame, as they say, is a fickle mistress and “Weird” is the coin of the realm in this rag. Enter the Karate robot!

So, there I was in Somerville, still bleary eyed from the night before when, elbow deep in a milk crate full of Barry Manilow I saw that familiar WGW label, but it wasn’t the Apostles and it wasn’t the Werps, two WGW stalwarts who’s singles I had since grown accustomed to seeing with some frequency. The title was one I did not recognize: “Mad Charles” by the enigmatically named UGE.

Unlike other records released on WGW, this one single had a photograph printed on the label. This tiny aggregate of blurry dots appeared, upon close scrutiny, to be a cross between a home gym and a vaguely anthropoid pile of garbage. I had no idea what this thing was, but needless to say, I couldn’t wait to hear this cut.

As soon as the needle hit the grooves I could tell this record was from outer space! Even though the copyright said 1974, the music sounded older, a strange swirl of mechanical beeps and hisses outlining a stilted march of sorts while an echo-laden guitar peeled off shrill chords—something more akin to the most drug-addled psychedelia of the sixties as opposed to the progressive era it supposedly hailed from.

“My name is Mad Charles,” the metallic voice intoned, “I am the world’s first Karate Robot. Bullets cannot stop me. Fire will not destroy me. Humans, in no way, can harm me. I am indestructible.” To which Charlie, threatened by a cast of unsavory underworld types, proceeds to “karate chop!” the living hell out his aggressors, laughing maniacally as his vanquished foes scream in agony, a maddening tangle of guitars grinding away in the background.

Normally, like most novelty records, that’s where the story would end, in the dead wax. But almost as soon as the track was over—and through about a dozen subsequent replays—the thought occurred to me: Not only is this one of the weirdest records I have ever heard (And I’ve heard weird records before), but that picture on the label is not just some collection of junk…that’s a picture of Mad freakin’ Charles, in the flesh, so to speak! Could there really be an honest to goodness “Karate Robot” secreted away in the suburbs of New Jersey somewhere, ready to strike at the slightest provocation with the all-mechanical precision of a cold, calculating killing machine? I had to know.

I began by searching out the performer on the record, the mysterious UGE. Scouring the Internet, all of my initial inquiries came to a dead end until I eventually stumbled upon a missive regarding the owner and proprietor of WGW records of Somerville, the colorful and enigmatic Eugene Viscione, better known to locals as Geno, the “Perry Como of Manville,” singer of the popular ’60s combo Geno & the Encores.

The Encores are the typical story of “local boys done good” with the emphasis on “local.” Comprising various musicians from neighboring central Jersey towns, the Encores cut several singles on Eugene’s own WGW records (helps to be the boss) including “Loves Encore,” “Fading Winds,” and “Love’s Hidden Island,” before denting the national charts with their 1960 opus “Rita, My Love”—a cool, crooning tune throughout which strains of the Duprees abound. In addition, Viscione used his clout with WGW records to host local record hops in his native Manville, of which Geno would serve as Master of Ceremonies. Featuring appearances by such early ’60s staples as the Catalinas, the Cellos, the Vibrants and the aforementioned Duprees, these hops were the height of the social scene, with Geno looking down from the pinnacle.

So, it would appear that I had found my mysterious “UGE” after all. Now that there was a name to this face details would be more forthcoming.

Mr. Eugene ‘UGE’ Viscione (Sometimes called Geno or Mr. V) was quite a character to the townsfolk of Somerville. Besides being the chief talent behind WGW records—Gene pretty much wrote and/or played on every track he produced—Viscione was also the local barber, known for wearing a “Tin Foil Helmet” around town when not crooning, guitar in hand, to his customers between haircuts, though that hardly encompasses the vast expanses of knowledge and talent within that tin-foil clad head of his. From E. Viscione’s press release and bio: “Mr. Viscione has researched and studied in depth, many topics including methods of preserving bodies, pathology, entomology, cell cultivation, cloning, cryo-preservation, archaeology, meditation, astral projection, astronomy, microbiology, lost civilizations, raki, dimensions, quantums, time warps, time travel, the anatomy of humans, animals and insects and other subjects.”

Cloning AND time travel!? That’s quite a resume, his omission of musicality and robotics notwithstanding.

But what of Mad Charles? Did this robot creation of Eugene Vicione’s really exist—a crazy aggregate of resisters, vacuum tubes and solenoids—or was Charlie just wishful, if not slightly eccentric, thinking on the part of a local entertainer?

It had occurred to me that somebody who had taken the time to invent a karate robot and then write/record a song about it would probably have had the forethought to register such a brilliant idea with the federal copyright office. And it was this line of reasoning which brought me to the following rev-elation: Appl. No. 26438.9 Karate Fighter. Inventor: Eugene G. Viscione, 21 Franklin St., Somerville NJ Filed: June 19th 1972 Awarded: April 16th 1974 United States Patent: 3804406.

Having now crossed over from pure science fiction into the realm of possibility, Mad Charles was not just some comedic device pitched in a novelty record—a psychotic pipedream of the local color of Somerville, NJ. No, Mad Charles, then nicknamed “Chop-Chop”, was now a “Plan.” More importantly, Charley had a practical purpose: Teaching people how to defend themselves through the ancient art of Karate: United States Patent: 3804406. Abstract: “The invention comprises a mechanical man having two pairs of separately movable arms and one pair of separately movable legs which are constructed to carry out karate moves. The mechanical man includes electronic circuit Brought back to the states by servicemen serving in Okinawa, Japan in the 1940s, what we take for granted as Americanized karate was, in the 1960s, an exotic eastern exercise with little foothold on the US imagination.

Sure, there were martial arts movies in the preceding decades, but where now you see a Tiger Schulmann dojo in every strip mall from here to Atlantic City, at the time, adherents would be want to find any local establishment to ply their skills. This fact would become all too apparent to a visionary like Viscione, who sought to remedy the problem with a little ingenuity (Henceforth known as UGEnuity) and a modicum of imagination.

Far from being just an autonomous robot monster, Charles was a mechanized sparring partner for karate students both novice and advanced. Sporting padding in key strike zones, Charles was designed to hone the skills of his attacker, though with a little electronic manipulation on the part of the operator (a hard wired control box kept just out of sight), the robot was capable of striking back in kind—a series of four padded mechanical arms (Both vertical and horizontal) and two kicking legs striking wildly, further proffering the idea that the best offense is a good defense, especially when an eight-foot tall robot is beating the living crap out of you with six metal appendages not unlike your average aluminum baseball bat.

It really begs repeating—the potential for egregious bodily harm which Charley is capable of, especially when one considers that each of his six extremities is run off of a compressed air cylinder operating at a maximum of 240 PSI (pounds per square inch), almost twice the amount of force required to break a human bone or cause severe blunt force trauma! Yet as potentially deadly as Mad Charles might be, his simplicity of operation was as a pinball machine, having all of the personal charms of a tin robot from America’s atomic past.

It begs the question why, with such a sensational concept, is the world at large unaware of Uge and his Karate Robot? I can say with some clarity that it wasn’t through a lack of trying. On the contrary; Mad Charles got quite a bit of copy in his day. For starters, Charley was a fixture in the community of Manville and Somerville NJ, frequently appearing at karate demonstrations and in local parades to the delight of area children. Charlie was also the subject of a half hour promotional/training film featuring a polyester clad Gene demonstrating various sparing techniques, as well as a crude music video in which Mad Charles, again, beats up various characters to that familiar WGW records refrain, “I am Mad Charles. I am the world’s first Karate Robot. I seek peace, but will destroy all that is evil.”

There is even a segment where Charles romances a certain lady robot named Charlene (A female extra clothed in cardboard boxes painted silver), serenading her with the flip to his 45 rpm single, ‘Mad Charles Love Theme’. Incidentally, the original single was released with two different B-sides, the first of which, ‘Sophie the Polish Chicken Hen (!?) is probably the scarcest.

The climax of this short promotional film sees UGE, dressed as a Roman soldier—replete with sword and shield—fighting Mad Charles; the ends of his robotic arms now fitted with knives (x2), an ax and a chain mace in an effort to illustrate Charley’s deadly effectiveness!

Watching this epic battle, it becomes apparent rather quickly that Charley poses a very real danger to his opponent; knives and ax blows raining down on Viscione and cleaving the air in earnest, the two horizontal appendages bouncing off Viscione’s head as he desperately tries to ward off the blows with a prop sword and shield.

After much flailing and dramatic music UGE is finally vanquished by Mad Charles, but not before he drops to the floor, blood streaming down his face and into his helmet, Charley having slashed his creator right above the eye. If ever there was a more fitting equivalency to Dr. Frankenstein and his creation I have yet to hear of it.

Besides the 45 record(s) there were t-shirts, a proposed sci-fi novel, car-toons and various other promotional items. Mad Charles also appeared along with Viscione on a 1974 episode of What’s My Line, as well as NYC’s Wonderama, featuring a then up-and-coming puppeteer named Jim Henson. Sadly, these segments are now lost to history.

Even the National Enquirer got in on the action, scooping the New York Times who would eventually run their own piece on this fantastic machine: New York Times: “His (Viscione’s) karate man has a box-shaped torso and head. The limbs are aluminum tubing covered with sponge rubber to protect human adversaries. One pair of arms swings horizontally and the other pair moves verticality in chopping motion. Rubber clubs, knives and other simulated weapons may be attached to the limbs to permit instruction in defensive techniques…Viscione also is building a prototype vending model that will operate upon insertion of a coin and register good blows by gongs or lights. Other models are planned for studio, gymnasium and household, with electronic controls what will follow set patterns or respond to blows.”

Yet, despite all of the fanfare, society by and large was just not ready for a Karate Robot from New Jersey (Is anybody?), and Eugene Viscione and his mechanical progeny, for all of his vision and “UGEnuity,” faded into obscurity, wearing, one assumes, his titular foil helmet and a handsome scar above his left eye.

But what of Mad Charles? Was he still hanging around in some garage somewhere, unceremoniously covered with a tarp, mice slowly devouring his delicate innards, or had Charley been callously scrapped, drawn and quartered in one of New Jersey’s scenic landfills and sold for pennies on the pound? All of these questions and more would be answered when Loraine Zdeb, daughter of Eugene Viscione, contacted Weird NJ and was gracious enough to invite us into her home to go over all the nuts and bolts concerning UGE and his infamous creation, Mad Charles. Little did we know at the time that WGW records and Mad Charles were only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the mad genius of UGE.

A pair of Mad Charles’ recently spotted in a Somerville antique shop. (Photo courtesy of Jason from @abandonedinnj)

Read the full interview in Weird NJ issue #41.

The preceding article is an excerpt from Weird NJ magazine, “Your Travel Guide to New Jersey’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets,” is available on newsstands throughout the state and on the web at www.WeirdNJ.com. All contents ©Weird NJ and may not be reproduced by any means without permission.

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