In France they're lauded with headlines like, "Hanson...groupe de l'heure!!!" In Germany, the boys show up on shows like "Geld Oder Liebe." In Portugal, it's "Hanson!! Hanson!! A banda que e sucesso no mundo inteiro!"
In Tulsa, the hometown public hasn't laid eyes on them in nearly a year.
That's because once the Hanson album hit the shelves in the spring, these three youngsters hit the road (well, boarded the plane) and haven't looked back.
With "Middle of Nowhere" and its hot single "MMMBop" still resting comfortably in the Top 20 in a majority of the world's time zones, who needs to go home? Europe is absolutely batty for them, and this week the boys are sowing the seeds of their adoration on the western edge of the Pacific.
Indeed, these three tykes form Tulsa have gone from zero to hero faster then Disney's Hercules himself, and while Tulsans shouldn't get their hopes up about a hometown performance probably in this century, the boys' bubblegum sounds are certainly taking over the world. Here are some curious bits of news about Hanson's international impression.
Early in July, the Tulsa World receivedthis desperate plea through e-mail from a teen-ager in Australia: "I have had mounting annoyance at the people that think I am Jordan Taylor Hanson. I have been receiving faxes, e-mails and so forth at all times of day and night. Due to this I am totally distressed and hope that Hanson goes away! Nothing personal, but I'm furious. WHat do you suggest I do???"
His name is J. Taylor Hanson.
Not only does he share the name with Hanson's soulful, androgynous, 14-year-old singer, but this Hanson also happens to hail from Tulsa. He's in Australia for six months, and the rabid fans have tracked him down via the Internet thinking he's the famous Taylor.
When J. Taylor left Tulsa, the Hanson touring schedule was still a list of private parties in south Tulsa. Now the group is an international phenomenon, much to J. Taylor's dismay.
"The trouble really began when 'MMMBop' went to No. 1," J. Taylor said through an Internet interview last month. "It was really weird. People would ring - mostly of the female gender - and I'd be like, 'Who is this?' and they would be going, 'Is this Taylor Hanson?' and I'm like, 'Yeah. You are?' but they'd usually hang up. I had no idea what was happening."
The his e-mail address was mentioned in Hanson online circles as the famous Taylor's personal address, and the messages began pouring in "hundreds at a time," he said. Messages like this one: "Hi! Oh my god, i can't believe this is your e-mail!!! I love u sooooooo much, you're sooo SEXY!!! I LUV ALL OF UZ!!! I LUV your music 2!!! So yeah, if your not 2 busy E-mail me!!! I luv u babes!!!!"
J. Taylor has had to change his e-mail address twice and his phone number once.
"When I'm in a good mood, I'll just laugh at most of them, although there were a few insulting ones which I found scary," he said.
Last week a woman phoned the Tulsa World also pleading for help. She claimed that MTV had braodcast the wrong phone number for the local Hanson hotline. Instead, Hanson fans from around the world were dialing her parents' west Tulsa home at all hours of the day and night.
Lackeys at MTV couls not confirm whether ot no they had ever broadcast a phone number in relation to Hanson, and officials at Mercury Records said they were 99 percent sure that a phone number --correct or incorrect-- had not been given out.
The phone at the Hanson home in southwest Tulsa features a regularly updated recording with information on the trio's current events. Kids may be misdialing the number and getting this woman's parents instead.
"It's been going on for two weeks," she said. "They've got Caller ID, and they're seeing numbers flash up with area codes from around the country and all over the world. I had no idea."
Organizers of the city's "Take Me Back to Tulsa" centennial homecoming festivities originally had Hanson inked onto the big weekend's schedule. They were going to do a show Sept. 20 at the River Parks Amphitheater, but the boys have backed out in favor of yet another jaunt to Europe.
A friend of the Hansons' father contacted the homecoming committee and proposed some kind of live satellite remote for the day while the band was in Ireland, but according to Paula Hale, the centennial coordinator, the project would not be feasible for the event.
"It's unfortunate because we really wanted to have something for the younger kids to enjoy during this celebration," Hale said.
Perhaps they'll drop us a line for the state's centennial in 2007.
Ah, the life of a superstar. Ever the close-knit family, the Hansons still manage some quality time while touring the world. It just requires a bit of cloak-and-dagger to pull off.
While in Australia last week, the Hansons stole away to a private room at the Sydney Planet Hollywood so they could celebrate Hanson sister Jessica's ninth birthday, In order to divert the wild throng of fans, an announcement was made that the boys would be visiting the Sega World theme park that day. Psyche!
They may not come home much, but simply being from Tulsa has helped spread the city's name around the world -- a nice treat for our centennial year.
Tom Dittus, owner of the Blue Rose Cafe in Brookside -- site of a Hanson patio performance that helped secure their record deal -- has been basking in the glow of Hanson's stardom.
"We've gotten a lot of mileage out of this," Dittus said. "Entertainment Weekls did a big story on them and mentioned us, and we were mentioned on Casey Kasem's 'Top 40 Countdown' show. The story gets embellished a little bit each time, but I'm not worried."
Feature stories and photos of the boys in Tulsa media, from yours truly to several Urban Tulsa stories, have been reprinted in fan zines -- online and otherwise -- across the world. Urband Tulsa's Jarrod Gollihare (**author's note: Yup, the same Jarrod Gollihare from Admiral Twin...I have his autograph! He signed my Official Hanson book...hehe**) and I now have the creepy distinction of having our work appear without permission on a Danish web site dedicated to Hanson drooling. (**author's note: surely I don't creep them out...**)
And everywhere they go, in every breath in ever interview, the boys say "Tulsa." After they went on at some length describing Tulsa as an oil town in a recent interview for French radio, the translator piped in: "The only real attraction in Tulsa are the Hanson now. You are the new oil."
What was that Dittus said about things getting embellished?
With Hanson causing major prepubescent hysteria in Europe, journalists from the mother continent have begun taking an interest in writing every possible detailof the boys' existence and history. That means coming to Tulsa to check out the hometown and report the local color. How Tulsa will translate through, say, the Dutch media is anyone's guess.
Last month, a German journalist showed up out of the blue in the Tulsa World newsroom. Claiming to represent a series of publications with a circulation of 6 million, he was after all the information he could scrape up on the boys -- knocking on the door of their house, quizzing locals who knew them and some who didn't, and snapping photographs of Tulsa World editors, for some reason.
Five other European media organizations have called to determine whether it would be worth their time and effort to travel here and write about Tulsa. Be prepared to give directions to someone with a Eurpopean accent.
