4 forgotten Paul McCartney videos

Here's a sampling of Paul McCartney music videos. The man clearly wanted high production values, even in the days before MTV existed. This must go back to the experimental films he was making in his London apartment in the late 1960s.

-Coming Up: the big single from "McCartney II" was made with an elaborate video featuring several Paul's, all dressed as other people (Buddy Holly, Mick Fleetwood, that guy from Sparks). This premiered in the U.S. on an episode of SNL, in which Father Guido Sarducci yells at Paul from outside of his apartment, eventually waking him up in the middle of the night. I've always been surprised at the lack of crappy early 1980s videotape/green screen artifacts in this one. Very well done.

-Waterfalls: another single from "McCartney II," this song did well in the UK but stiffed in the U.S. For many years, the picture sleeve for this single was thought to be very rare (and thus, valuable). That is no longer the case (sadly for me, since I bought a garage full of them). This video has a slightly different mix of the song, which is one of Paul's finest.


-Ebony & Ivory: Paul's duet with Stevie Wonder was a huge hit at the dawn of the MTV era (spring, 1982), and features more well-done green screen work.


-Not a video, but the opening sequence to the ITV TV show, "The Zoo Gang," with Brian Keith. Looks like an interesting concept, but I like the graphics and the tune (which little kids also seem to like, due to the many animals). This song (in a longer version) was released as the b-side to "Band On the Run" (UK-only) in 1974.
#snl4kidz

Art Carney wins and Oscar... and America's hearts

Art Carney could not have been more endearing when he won an Oscar in 1975 for "Tonto & Harry" (despite the fact that he beat out Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, and Al Pacino).  Take THAT, Sandra Bullock: CARNEY is America's real sweetheart.

Robin Williams and Billy Crystal

It's almost Oscar time, and here one of the most famous Oscar hosts (Billy Crystal) pays tribute to his friend (and Oscar winner) Robin Williams, shortly after Williams' death on August 11, 2014...

Hudson PTO celebrates 60 years of the Pancake Breakfast

This year’s event will be held Saturday, March 4th at Hudson High School from 8am to 12pm. Enjoy delicious Perkins pancakes with sausage donated by GFS, milk and juice provided by Hudson's Restaurant and Lake Erie Island Coffee from Caruso's while listening to wonderful music presented by students in grades 4-12. There will also be artwork displayed from students in every grade. Plus, there’s fun, games and face painting in the Game Room along with a pancake eating contest! Purchase your tickets for your chance to win the 50/50 raffle or one of our fantastic prize packages including an iPad Mini, gift cards to many Hudson restaurants, a Kalahari weekend getaway, and ice cream for a year. 

The Annual Pancake Breakfast has grown immensely since it started in 1957 as a PTO sponsored fall fundraiser for the schools. By 1964, tickets were $1 for adults, and 50 cents for children. The next year, the PTO raised just over $1000 from the event. A decade later, the breakfast was moved from October to March of each year. In the mid-70s, the PTO’s take was about $2,000, and students participated in a pancake-eating contest to win tickets to see Alice Cooper or John Denver. Throughout the 1970’s, the PTO held raffles as part of the breakfast, with prizes such as bicycles and toys. By 1989, with tickets at $3 per adult, the raffle had grown to include a vacation getaway.

In 1993, the PTO Pancake Breakfast moved to the new Hudson High School, which had opened the previous year. By the mid-1990s, the Pancake Breakfast was generating more than $11,000 for the PTO from more than 3,000 tickets sold.

However, by the late 1990s, those numbers had dropped. Laura Gasbarro began co-chairing the breakfast and added the art show, expanded the entertainment options and sought more donations for the products used. “None of these areas were concentrated on prior to us co-chairing the event,” she says. “More parents began attending thanks to the new attractions, and “the event went from making $8,000 to an all-time high one year of $29,000.”

Gasborro adds that the breakfast provides "grants to classroom teachers for items, programs and new ideas that are not funded. It is great to know that so many Hudson kids have benefited from the profits of the breakfast."

Holding the breakfast in March, though, has its own challenges. Gasbarro remembers the year after they raised $29,000, “we had a snow storm. Not just a storm; this was a blizzard. The co-chairs [arrived] at 5:30 [and] we could hardly get to the high school. Good thing for pre-sale tickets!”

Bruce Hubach got involved in in 2001, just after being elected to the school board. He started in the kitchen as a “flipper" for about 6 years. After the 50th Pancake Breakfast, he took over as Chairman for the kitchen crew. Hubach remembers having a pancake eating-contest about 10 years ago, during the shift change in the kitchen. “Pancakes were coming right off the grills and onto the plates!”

When he started, pancake batter would be mixed as needed throughout the day. Today, Perkins Restaurant supplies the batter, and helps mix about 175 gallons the night before (this gives the batter time to rise). "Perkins is very particular about how the batter is made to ensure the same fantastic taste you get in the restaurant," Hubach says.

In recent years, he notes the PTO has offered gluten-free pancakes for customers with dietary restrictions.

“Gluten-free” wasn’t even on the radar back in 1976, when first-grade teacher Pat Armbruster got involved. She remembers a problem with lumpy pancake batter that year. “Although it was mixed following the directions, the batter was clogging the ‘bloppers,’ which drop out a measured volume of batter onto the grill. Everyone sprung into action and there were many attempts to solve the problem through experimentation, adjusting the mix with the batter at times being too thin and running out of the blopper onto the floor. After about an hour, the problem was resolved and we then worked frantically getting caught up in our pancake production so there would be enough for the crowds that were coming.”

Armbruster, who now works with REACH students in the Hudson Schools, says she misses "retired teachers who are no longer involved, and parents who I worked beside who have moved away as their children graduated from Hudson schools.” She says that sums up her favorite aspect of the breakfast: the people.

"Getting updates from older students that I have followed since they were very young elementary school students is a joyful experience. Watching former and current students performing in the orchestra, chorus or jazz band is a real treat for me. This yearly ritual feels like a family reunion.”

One of those students this year will be fifth-grader Sunita Bhatia. She volunteered as a server last year with her Girl Scout troop. “It was fun because we got our own pancakes afterward!” This year, she’s looking forward to performing with the East Woods Orchestra. “I'm excited because parents who come will get to hear songs from both of our school orchestras.”

Proceeds from the PTO Pancake Breakfast go right back to Hudson students. Since 2003, the PTO has given away $304,291 in grants and senior scholarships; 85 percent of that comes from the Pancake Breakfast. The PTO gratefully acknowledges this year's Executive Sponsors: Discovery Tours, The Hudson School of Music, Great Clips and Chervenic Realty. Come celebrate 60 years of the Pancake Breakfast! 

Tickets and more information are at http://hudsonpto.org/pancake- breakfast.htm Presale tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for kids 12 and under, $8/$6 the day of the event, and volunteers are always needed to make this event a success.

Will Ferrell, Ellen DeGeneres and Norm Macdonald on SNL

Going back almost 20 years, here's an SNL Weekend Update segment about Ellen DeGeneres coming out of the closet on her sitcom, "Ellen," as well as in real life. Many people forget that her career seemed like it might be over after the show was cancelled a year later.  It would be a while before she was making regular talk show appearances, then voicing Dory and finally getting her daytime talk show.

The reason this is so notable is not only Will Ferrell's reaction, but also Norm Macdonald's ad-lib after the segment... sadly, the excerpt linked above doesn't include Norm.

2 Minutes of The Simpsons and The Shining

Winter is winding to an end, which reminds me of The Simpsons' brilliant take on "The Shining" from the 1994 Halloween special.  I don't usually go for their "Treehouse of Horror" shows, but this segment is great...


As a bonus, here's a clip of Homer looking for Lisa (season 9)...


...and Homer trying to enjoy chips amidst a litter of puppies...

#snl4kidz

Like Father, Like Son starring THE LORD OF THE RINGS GUY

In the summer of 1989, while held captive at a sleepover, I saw -- nay, witnessed -- the film "Like Father, Like Son."  The movie actually came out in 1987. But watching at that sleepover, it seemed like it was brand-new. So ahead-of-its-time was this movie, that it was able to transcend its origins and appear to be from 2 years in the future. The 1987 filmmakers nailed what life would be like in 1989 so well, I was floored.
For serious, it's a goofy movie about a workaholic single father (Dudley Moore) and his son (Kirk Cameron) switching bodies. Hi jinx occur and, at the end, they switch bodies back and everyone has a closer relationship with eachother, while Dad also gets a new hot girlfriend.
Variations on this formula seemed to be all the rage in the late 1980s, in movies like Big (Tom Hanks), 18 Again (Charlie Schlatter and George Burns, and named after an old Burns musical number), Vice Versa (Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage) and The Last Emperor (zzzzz).
Back to LFLS (as my inner-thigh tattoo calls it), the movie looks good on paper.
Writer David Hoselton seems to have worked on the movie with two guys who subsequently went into Witness Protection (while Hoselton wrote/produced "House"). Director Rod Daniel was fresh off WKRP and "Teen Wolf."
Dudley Moore is a comic legend, and Cameron does a passable job (and was riding high thanks to the terrible "Growing Pains," from two latter-day WKRP writers).
The movie also features soap star Margaret Colin, Catherine Hicks (who would destroy the WB along with Christianity on "7th Heaven"),  Michael Horton (Jessica Fletcher's nephew on "Murder, She Wrote"), character actress Maxine Stuart, the always gruff Patrick O'Neal, Larry Sellers (the "weird, naked Indian" from Wayne's World II) and... SEAN ASTIN.  Yes, Rudy aka Samwise plays the goofy best friend in LFLS.
How's the movie? Fine. Not the horrendous abomination Siskel & Ebert (or even the bitter, aged Rod Daniel) would have you believe, but also not even as good as a below-average episode of "King of Queens" or some other middling sitcom.
There are a couple scenes worth watching, though, wherein Dudley Moore shows glimpses of his former brilliance (at this point, he was battling booze and early MS).
One is below.... his hilariously inept seduction of a colleague's wife. Keep in mind this is after the switch, so Moore is playing a 17-year-old...

The music in that scene (compete with monkey sounds) always slays me. If anyone knows what it is, please comment!

In my search for that music, I found the entire soundtrack to LFLS, including another distinctive tune.
There's a scene earlier in the film at a bar, and the song in the background is "I Ching" by Marc Jordan. It's quintessential '80s. Enjoy.
Marc Jordan, by the way, has had some chart hits in his native Canada, and also seen much more success writing tunes for other artists (like Diana Ross and Rod Stewart, who are currently slated for a UFC matchup next month).

Roger the Alien and the DVR

What does one do when their show has been erased from the DVR?  I don't usually care for "American Dad," but this reaction from Roger the Alien (aka Paul Lynde) is spot-on.


#snl4kidz

Five examples of late night television run amok

A collection of bizarre or hilarious moments from late night... the most interesting part of television...
-A well-known blooper of Chris Farley's intentional "accidental" mooning of the audience (1995)...


-Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and Jack McBrayer visit The Weiner's Circle in Chicago. Notice how the crowd is mostly over-privileged young punks? I wonder if the staff didn't quietly relish yelling at the customers a bit more on nights like this (Saturdays). I would always go HOPING for a tongue lashing, but they were always so nice to me.


-Gerry Todd on SCTV: This is mislabeled on YouTube, but it's a long sketch featuring Todd going "vudeo" (becoming a VJ) at the dawn of MTV. Much of this is altered/excised on the SCTV DVDs due to music rights issues. It turns out that no one bothered to ask for clearances back when the show was on (1976-84), and so renewing those (nonexistent) clearances has proven impossible for Shout! Factory. Much of this material survives, though, thanks to Nick-at-Nite reruns from the late 80s/early 90s, as well as NBC's own reruns of SCTV from 2001-02 (the period after "Later with Cynthia Garrett" ended, and before "Last Call with Carson Daly" began).


-"Zany DJ's" on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder (1978?): Includes the ultra-hip Frazer Smith (KLOS Los Angeles), Johnny Walker (WFBR Baltimore) and John Lanigan (WGAR Cleveland). This is from an era when DJ's were getting more and more obnoxious in the name of comedy, and would lead to "shock jocks" going mainstream in the 1980s. Ironically, Smith would eventually concentrate more on music, and Lanigan would be more even-keeled in the '80s.  I don't know enough about Walker, except that he helped Ira Glass get his start, and then passed away in 2004.  I have to say that Langian's outfit does NOT help Cleveland's image... then or now.


-Evolution Of Mom Dancing: this is the original with Jimmy Fallon & Michelle Obama (there have been other iterations of this, both with and without Mrs. Obama)...

Prank calling a restaurant

Some of the most elaborate (and well thought out) prank calls I've ever heard are from his group.  And somehow they manage to be both mocking AND not racist.  Far more cerebral (and explosively funny) than the Jerky Boys.  Well done...

Nerding Out for Music Sounds: Technics SL-P350 CD player

My family's first CD player, the Technics SL-P350, still going strong after 26 years. One of the last players before everything went to plastic, and the 1-bit oversampling craze took hold.

Remembering Wayne's World

"Wayne's World" was released 25 years ago today, and is still the best SNL-related film ever made in my opinion.  (It easily equals "Animal House," which I am not counting as an SNL-film just because John Belushi stole the show).

I wrote about my favorite scene from the under-rated "Wayne's World 2" here.  Looking back at the original, here's the classic opening sequence with "Bohemian Rhapsody," which put Queen back on the map with U.S. listeners after a decade of apathy (and 4 months after Freddie Mercury's death):

I remember Hollywood Records (owned by Disney) had recently acquired the rights to the Queen back catalog around this time, and quickly rushed a "Classic Queen" CD into release when "Wayne's World" came out.  However, it included "Bohemian Rhapsody" and a lot of 1980s Queen hits (a time when the band did well in Europe, but not the U.S.), to prevent overlap with the older "Greatest Hits" LP compilation.  Disgruntled American customers eventually forced the re-release of the older compilation, which included hits like "We Will Rock You," but for a while there, "Classic Queen" was the only game in town for CD/cassette buyers.

There are so many great scenes in "Wayne's World," including one that parodies the opening to "Laverne & Shirley." Below is the original, followed by Wayne & Garth...

 #snl4kidz

Rodney Dangerfield and Steve Martin

I posted a segment of "60 Minutes" the other day, so here's one from that other great primetime news show, "20/20." This recording is from June 9, 1988 -- the show's 10th anniversary special. But it dates from 1981... a brief snippet of two comedy legends meeting face-to-face. Sort of.

7 Snoopy-centric Peanuts Clips

Charles M. Schulz passed away 17 years ago today, just after retiring from drawing his strip (and pulling the first of many "retirement+immediate death" career moves, setting the stage for Andy Rooney). Here are some clips to remember his work...

-Schulz jumped on the latest trend in 1983 with the special “Flashbeagle,” which has been derided in recent years but is actually pretty cute in retrospect. The soundtrack (impossibly rare) is pretty catchy, too.


-Snoopy’s favorite show-within-a-show is “The Bunny Wunnies.” Here, he enjoys it a little too much on a flight to England (en route to France) in “Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown.” I always wondered why they announce the other movie on the flight as “Naughty Marietta.” Sounds scandalous, and not appropriate for an audience on an airplane, which could include many kids. Note the Paramount logo (which was removed after the Peanuts gang moved to Warner Bros.).


-A very elaborate number, "Suppertime" is from the special "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown!" It’s catchy enough, but “hearing” Snoopy’s voice for the first(?) and only(?) time is incredibly jarring. I have since gotten used to it.


-This sequence from the under-rated Peanuts Thanksgiving special (1973), is based (I believe) on a newspaper strip. The whole segment (to the song "Little Birdie") always make the kids laugh.


-Snoopy’s alter-ego of Joe Cool is on display in this series of clips. The Joe Cool theme was finally released on CD a few years ago, complete with Vince Guaraldi’s great vocal.


-For years, I thought this arm-wrestling clip of Snoopy (the Masked Marvel) v. Lucy at summer camp was from "Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown!"  Instead, it's from the Sept. 27, 1969 special, "It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown."  Too bad that summer of 1969 couldn't have lasted a few decades longer.


-Here's something which, I believe, only ever aired once: the opening to the Wednesday night edition of the week-long special, "CBS: On the Air," celebrating 50 years of the CBS TV (and radio) network. This open starts with Dick Van Dyke and then gets wacky with Peanuts. The green screen effect is pretty well integrated for 1978 (Van Dyke remembered his training from "Mary Poppins," I guess).

#snl4kidz

Must See TV?

As if you needed more reasons to dislike Don Ohlmeyer, he's also the one who decided to coin every NBC show "Must-See TV" in the 1990s. Everything -- whether it was a half-written, laugh-track-drenched episode of "Veronica's Closet," or a rerun of "Dateline." Here's some random clips from NBC sitcoms before Ohlmeyer's reign...
-From the pilot for "The Fresh Prince," Carlton sings "Silly Love Songs" in the shower. His medley of racial harmony is pretty good, but I can't find it online.


-A meme before memes, of Al Rosen (the old man extra with an occasional line) on Cheers, pledging his devotion to Frank Sinatra. Watch Ted Danson cover his face while trying not to laugh.  This is not an outtake.


-A compilation of clips from "Taxi," all featuring Louie. This is actually the second of three compilations someone has made. Granted, the show aired on ABC for its first four seasons (1978-82), but it DID join NBC for one last year (1982-83).


-From The Cosby Show (episode 18, season 2), "A Touch of Wonder," this is the climactic scene with Stevie Wonder. Interesting how Cliff (Bill Cosby) leaves at the beginning so as to give Stevie the spotlight. Or to avoid having to share it. Or MAYBE to buy time while he finds some roofies. Either way, he must have had some affection for Stevie, as evidenced by this parody/tribute from 1968, "Little Ol' Man" (aka "Uptight").

Mantan Moreland and The Beastie Boys

If you know the song  "B-Boys Makin’ with the Freak Freak" from the Beastie Boys' "Ill Communication" LP, you'll remember the sample about mashed potatoes.  Well, here's where it came from: a bit by chitlin' circuit comedian Mantan Moreland, from his "party record" (i.e. dirty jokes), "That Ain't My Finger."



I've never understood why the music is dubbed under Moreland's routine.  I assume it's on the record like that, and not dubbed in by some lame YouTuber.  Anyhow, Moreland's other big claim to fame is playing manservant Birmingham Brown in the Charlie Chan films.  Below, you'll find two scenes from Chan pictures in which Moreland recreates his vaudeville/chitlin' routine of incomplete sentences, with comedian Ben Carter (who would sadly die young despite a promising career).  A model of classic comic timing.

John Lennon and The Lost Lennon Tapes

From January, 1988 until March, 1992, Westwood One produced "The Lost Lennon Tapes", a weekly, hour-long exploration through the archives left behind by John Lennon. The show was hosted by Elliot Mintz, a journalist and friend of John & Yoko's, and she entrusted him and producer Norm Pattiz with hundreds of reels, cassettes and acetates dating from the 1950s through the final days of John's life. As noted in this exhaustive episode guide (taken from original Westwood One cue sheets), most of the best stuff aired in the first two years of the show. And as noted here, bootleggers helped themselves to high-quality reproductions of rare Lennon, turning out 35(!) volumes of "The Lost Lennon Tapes" on vinyl LPs. Did Yoko not realize that FM radio+rare stuff+Beatles=bootlegs?! Or maybe she did...


The pic above features an original, Westwood One-produced edition of the show, as sent to radio stations. Below, you'll see one of the 35 botleg LPs from Bag Records (Volume 6, featuring a cover photo from the session that produced the photos used on "The John Lennon Collection").

The 35 LPs were later compiled onto 22 CD sets (some of them, double-sets). And the best of the material supposedly came out on the 1998 "John Lennon Anthology". I say supposedly because, as with every boxed set ever made, ever -- they probably missed a few things that would have otherwise made the set perfect. I don't know, because I wasn't allowed to stay up late enough to hear the show when it was on! I did get to hear the successor show, "The Beatle Years", produced by the same team, hosted by Mintz, but featuring only released music (although I seem to recall a couple shows from 1994-95 with either rare BBC tracks, or outtakes such as the original version of "Norwegian Wood"). "The Beatle Years" started the first week in April, 1992, immediately after the final "Lost Lennon Tapes," and ran until 2011!

The Lennon Tapes episode guide also includes a rundown of a 50th birthday special from 1990; I have to assume that's also a Westwood One production. Not listed is a different special, "John Lennon: His Final Interview, His Greatest Music," which took sections of an interview conducted the morning John was killed, and intersperesed them with music, all hosted by the hilariously named Jimmy Fink. I believe this was a Westwood One/Norm Pattiz special as well... anyone know?

Finally, below is a photo of a six-audio-only-DVD boxed set (obviously bootleg) of the entire series, although the cover states 218 episodes, not 219; it also says "DVD-A," which is technically a different format, which some DVD players apparently can't decode (it was meant as a competitor to SACD; we all know how great that turned out for everyone).

Robert Klein Festival

It's Robert Klein's birthday!  He doesn’t get his due these days as a pioneer of stand-up. Mainly, I think, because since the 1980s, he’s mostly stuck to the stage or to smaller film roles. Part of that is apathetic management (see Richard Zoglin’s book for more on that), but he’s still funny today (as evidenced on this episode of “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”). Here are three pieces from the 1980’s.

-The HBO special “Child of the 50s, Man of the 80s” is an encapsulation of his most well-known material of the 1970s/80s, and is named for his hit 1973 comedy LP (the title track of which is brought to life at the beginning of this special).

-“Robert Klein on Broadway”: Klein’s next special after “Child,” it’ a bigger production and also starts with a brief sketch (auditions for the “role” of Robert Klein) including Fyvush Finkel.

-Here’s a brief clip from “Child of the 50s…,” the song “The Bronx Is Beautiful.”

#snl4kidz

Mike Wallace retires from "60 Minutes," but not really

A young Mike Wallace appeared as a guest on the radio quiz show "Information Please" on this date in 1939.  That seems to be his first major radio exposure.  Here's a look back at his career (no mention of "Information Please," however) from when Wallace (semi-)retired in 2006.  He seems to be the only correspondent in recent memory who didn't either pass away on-the-job, or pass away 10 minutes after retiring.

Two Rare Rolling Stones singles...

Here's two alternate single mixes from the Stones' peak....
(NOTE: These seem to get removed and re-posted all the time, so if the links aren't working, just search again on YouTube)...

This mix of "Sway" keeps getting misidentified as the one in the film "Gimme Shelter." It may be similar, but clearly not the same. This does not appear to be on the 1971-2005 Singles box (I say appear because I'm going by printed listings, and have not actually heard the set)...


And here's the raucous mix of "All Down the Line," which is neither better nor worse than the LP -- just different and awesome. This DOES appear to be on the 1971-2005 box. And unlike the "Sway" 45 above, the mix of "All Down the Line" was quickly pulled in 1972, making it very rare. It may have even only been on promo copies!

Celebrating Superbowl XX (1986)

It's Superbowl Sunday! Let's flashback 31 years to the Bears killing the Patriots.
-"New England, the Patriots and We"... has their ever been a more weinerly football song? The song sucks, the video sucks and the pseudo "in the studio" scenes are ridiculous. The engineer saying "take one" at the beginning is fitting, since this sounds like a first take. The intro "VJ" holding a gun on the bear would never fly today. This particular recording is from V66, a low-budget New England UHF station (WVJV) that tried becoming a sort of "free MTV" for a while in the 1980s. Today, it's the Univision affiliate.


-Jim McMahon and William "The Refrigerator" Perry (Chicago Bears) for Coke and New Coke; who would have guessed that Perry would go on to have a weight problem.


-Jim McMahon for Honda scooters; I hate this ad.


-Mike Ditka's much-classier response (for Pontiac) to McMahon

Karen Carpenter RIP (1950-1983)

Karen Carpenter passed away on this date in 1983.  Here's a mini-tribute...

-The duo did several TV specials in the 1970s to try and reinvent themselves (and stem declining record sales). This plan was the brainchild of their new manager, Jerry Weintraub… and it didn’t quite achieve what they wanted (for a number of reasons, including changing musical trends, and Rich and Karen’s health). The first special featured this lengthy, green-screen-laden drum medley by Karen. Even though this is clearly “lip-synched” (aka mimed), people forget that she was an amazing drummer...

-The 1994 film “Tommy Boy” includes this hilarious clip, featuring “Superstar”
#snl4kidz

KBTime: Sara Hume, Kent State University Fashion Museum

Sara Hume is Curator of the Kent State University Museum, focusing on fashion, the history of dress and their underlying relationships to economic and political change. Current and upcoming exhibits include "Fashions of Southern Africa" and "The 1980s: An Age of Excess."


#KBTime

7 great clips of David Letterman's Late Night and Late Show

In honor of the 35th anniversary of the premiere of "Late Night with David Letterman"...
There's been so many Letterman retrospectives over the years (Dave's anniversary shows on NBC, news shows on his retirement, etc), but I rarely see any of the following clips excerpted. Here now are some interesting bits of "Late Night (and Show) with David Letterman"...

-The ninth NBC late night episode (02/15/1982) opens from Dave's point-of-view.


-On Late Night's second International Night, Dave welcomes "The Steve Martin of Peru," Mel Cochita (which I've also seen written as one word, "Melcochita" or as "Mel Conchita"). His androgynous stylings make some of the jokes even funnier. Stay tuned after the interview for a hilarious Larry "Bud" Melman bit. (#320, 11/30/1983)... I wonder if anyone has ever noticed that the very first episode of SNL (10/11/1975) had closing credits in which everyone's name had "Bud" inserted as a nickname (Al "Bud" Franken, for example). Lorne Michaels has said he did this as a gentle poke at the then-seemingly-over-prevalent nickname of "Bud." Could Larry Melman (real name, Calvert DeForest) have been named in a similar fashion?


-Solid Gold dancer Darcel Wynne appears in 1983 to dance the Top 10... Most Wanted Fugitives. This was a parody of the segment on her show when dancers would writhe rhythmically to snippets of the Top 10 songs each week. On "Solid Gold," though, each of the 10 segments was taped separately. Here, she has to dance continuously throughout... and the segment seems to last for a looooooonnnnnng time. Poor Darcel is clearly getting out of breath about halfway through, but she does an excellent job. And just the concept here smacks of Merrill Markoe's art-school background. The post-interview features a clearly smitten Dave trying awkwardly to flirt. Oh well.


-This starts with an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger (lame) but move past that to the 5:00 minute mark to watch a re-enactment of the death of President Zachary Taylor. Classic. (Show #1451, 06/27/1991).  You can click here to get right to the good stuff.


-Martin Short showed up on 08/2/1991 (#1468), with a great re-enactment of his appearance alongside Bette Davis on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."


-Late Night's 7th Anniversary (02/02/1989) included a healthy selection of funny guest clips that don't always show up in retrospectives.


-Soon after moving to CBS, Dave hosted Phil Hartman, who starts with some good prop work with a cigarette. (02/17/1994).


-A quick clip (from 1994?) of an attempted recurring character: Donnie, the page who likes to suck up (played by a post-Ben Stiller/pre-NewsRadio Andy Dick).


-"Paul Shaffer: Behind the Music"... one of the most elaborate, cameo-packed and sharply written taped pieces from the CBS years (May, 1998).


-Not from Dave's shows, but from the short-lived 1981-82 ABC sitcom, "Open All Night." Dave does a meta-cameo here ("Terry Runs Away," 01/09/1982) in between his two NBC shows. Despite what he has always said about not being able to act, he's hilarious in this scene (written by the great team of Ken Levine and David Isaacs).  This episode also featured Ian Wolfe, aka Hirsch the Butler on WKRP.  By the way, I give "Open All Night" high marks in the "Worst Theme Song" contest.