Bing Ding and the Tings

Four boys. One "Beige Beast." And a quest for the "World’s Biggest" slice of the American dream. In the insulated "cocoon" of Hilltown, Massachusetts, 1961, the future looks as predictable as the morning milking, but for B.H. "Bing" Ding and his buddies, high school graduation is the "beginning of the end"—a pivot point where endings and beginnings become indistinguishable. Inspired by their music teacher's warning that no artist can truly create while living a "sheltered life," the group transforms into Bing Ding and the Tings. Armed with nothing but tight doo-wop harmonies and a 1954 Chrysler New Yorker, they embark on the "World's Biggest Tour," a daring marketing gimmick designed to appeal to the civic pride of small towns boasting the world’s largest teapots, pencils, and donuts. Yet, as the miles roll by, the journey becomes more than a search for fame. From the unmasked racism of the South to a profound spiritual awakening in Kentucky, and a courageous confession of identity in the desert, the boys encounter the "adventure, danger, drama, and love" they were promised—at a cost they never expected. Don Bliss’s Bing Ding and the Tings is a nostalgic, bittersweet odyssey through a vanishing 1960s America. It is a story of four friends who lead each other out of the "cave" of their youth, only to discover that the world is far more beautiful, and far more tragic, than their small-town dreams ever allowed.