"Rare Visions" takes to Sin City like an Elvis to velvet

The 12th season of "Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations" begins at 7:30 tonight on KCPT, and once again the tireless hunters of folk-art treasures from Kansas City Public Television are going where they have never gone before.

To high-definition TV.

And, to Nevada.

In 11 previous seasons the "Rare Visions" minivan had managed to visit every other state in the lower 48 west of the Hudson. Somehow, though, their relentless pursuit of the offbeat and oddball never took them even near Las Vegas.

"We went north, south, east, west, but somehow we kept missing Nevada," said KCPT's Randy Mason, who has done the driving all these years (it's that or be carsick, he claims).

Among the highlights of season 12:

• Mason, Mike Murphy and Don Mayberger (aka the Camera Guy) tour the jaw-dropping home and memorabilia museum of neurosurgeon and former Nevada lieutenant governor Dr. Lonnie Hammargren. Mason: "He quite a character. He's built like four extensions on his house. He's a collector of all things Las Vegas. And he plays in a band called the Dummkopfs. He's our kind of guy."

• A trip to El Paso brings us to one of the more gorgeous art installations in the show's history: Casa de Azucar (House of Sugar), an elaborate construction by Rufino Loya Rivas. "This guy worked at the Levis plant, came home and worked on spires in order to make El Paso more beautiful."

• Eliphante, a three-acre compound south of Sedona, Ariz., with multiple art installations built by hippies.

• The Steel House, near Lubbock, Tex., a domicile shaped like an armadillo that its creator, Robert Bruno, spent 33 years constructing. "People asked him if he was disappointed because he had planned to move into it in the 1970s and he said, 'No, I got to work on something for 33 years! What's wrong with that?' It's great to meet people like that."

• Nevada's Rolling Thunder monument. "I'd read about it for years and years," said Mason. "This guy was so intoxicated by Native American ways, he built this gigantic thing out in the mountains, even changed his name to Rolling Thunder. He recently died, but his son showed us around. It was one of the last great folk art destinations we hadn't been to see."

You'll get to see Rolling Thunder, plus these other sites, in super-sharp high definition for the first time. HD is so new around KCPT, that Mayberger actual had to read the manual of his tricked-out new camera (a moment captured in the opening minutes of tonight's episode.)

The "world's biggest ball of
video tape" is a fixture on the show.

Along with these out-of-state programs, the boys also produced two new programs devoted to local folk art, one from Kansas and one from Missouri (which includes a visit to one of my favorites, Leila's Hair Museum in Independence).

Though the production "Rare Visions" was completely paid for -- once again by the show's longtime angels, Fred and Lou Hartwig and the DeBruce Companies -- KCPT has no budget to advertise "Rare Visions," so the show remains dependent on word-of-mouth. In January, the show will be offered to other public TV stations nationwide, and Mason continues to hear from far-flung fans of the show.

After 12 years, has the formula for making "Rare Visions" changed?

"No," said Mason, "The formula is to have no formula. Get in the van. Go the places where you want to go -- places you would kick yourself if you didn't get to see them -- and then find some other things along the way."

Many of the show's subjects are accustomed to media coverage. Some, like Ran Horn of the Van Horn art gallery in Texas, have minor cults of celebrity around them. But Mason said that artists often tell them that being interviewed for "Rare Visions" is one-of-a-kind experience.

"People tell us, 'You guys just come in and let me talk.' It's a cool experience where, when you do it with us, it's more fun."

That's because "Rare Visions" does this little trick where the producers, aka "the TV weasels," put all the silliness on their backs and treat their sometimes oddball guests with Midwestern earnest and respect.

"I'm from a small town," said Mason. "It's important for me that when someone is a little different, you not make fun of them, even if they're a little goofy. If that comes through on the show, then I'm happy."