Groucho Saves The Day
For the 1969 Fall TV season, ABC tried to make waves with Music Scene, a new music variety show that combined Shindig and Laugh-in. Musical guests included a lot of variety, as well as the A-list likes of Janis Joplin, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jerry Lee Lewis, and James Brown. Unfortunately, the show presented many of these artist in pre-recorded scenes that lacked any real verve.
Originally, the show was hosted by a rotating cast of six comedians (including a young Lily Tomlin), but six un-funny episodes later, only one remained, David Steinberg. His intellectual sarcasm made him a more than affable host, but the format change didn't help the ratings, and the show was canceled after only a few months on the air.
But that lead to a moment of inspired brilliance. For the final episode, Steinberg was able to convince a very good friend of his to appear and co-host the show. Since this was the end of the series, I'm guessing nobody really cared if the co-host had anything to do with the context of the show. And so, much of the last episode of Music Scene was given over to un-scripted moments with the original cultural anarchist: 79-year-old Groucho Marx.
I edited out the music scenes to highlight Groucho's appearance, but after hearing his take on Bo Diddley's name (as well as his hilarious call-out against the magic of editing - since this scene was obviously spliced in), I had to also include this musical moment from the last episode of Music Scene.
That's great, many thanks for posting that...
Posted by: Ergo | July 31, 2008 at 05:22 PM
Great! I recall this brief series. Each week the show was on sugar sugar was the #1 song in the country, which kept the show from being "hip". However, I must state that Groucho was not 74 in this clip, but 79. He was born in 1890.
Posted by: Randall | August 01, 2008 at 12:29 AM
Music Scene was originally slated to be hosted by the counterculture sketch/improv group the Committee featuring Howard Hessman until they spoke out against the Vietnam war on ABC's Dick Cavett Show. They were then replaced by Steinberg and Lily Tomlin. Kind of odd since Steinberg was the reason cited by CBS for cancelling the Smothers Brothers.
Posted by: Listener Kliph | August 01, 2008 at 12:50 AM
That's what I get for not double checking facts posted elsewhere. Age corrected!
Posted by: Clinton McClung | August 01, 2008 at 12:50 AM
I loved this series. I still think 45 minutes is a good length for a show, and networks should explore the idea again.
Posted by: Kevin K. | August 01, 2008 at 09:31 AM
I fondly remember this show, though I haven't seen it since it originally aired. Letting the public decide the playlist is what led Sugar, Sugar to be featured in almost every show. They were creative in having different musicians perform it each week, so it wasn't a complete bore.
My big complaint with the program was their censoring of a Beatles song. John and Paul released a video of The Ballad Of John & Yoko, and The Music Scene was where CBS aired it. There's a line in the chorus that goes: "Christ, you know it ain't easy".
CBS deleted the word Christ.
Funny that George Carlin didn't include Christ in his list of banned words they won't let you say on TV.
Posted by: Taxman | August 01, 2008 at 10:01 AM
And wasn't "The New People" the 45-minute show that followed in that evening's (Monday? Tuesday?)schedule that season? A planeload of people (mostly young, I think)crash landed on an island and had to work out their own new isolated society. Current cultural themes/conflicts dropped bluntly into the story like coconuts off the plot tree. Like Music Scene, "The New People" wasn't a survivor.
Posted by: bzul | August 01, 2008 at 12:32 PM
Please God, may I be as sharp as Groucho when I'm 79. Remarkable.
Posted by: Ethan | August 01, 2008 at 07:32 PM
I think I saw every episode of Music Scene as a kid, and I was THRILLED when it was released on DVD some years ago. (The two DVDs features all of the shows, but they cut out the Beatles appearance, which is not surprising, seeing as it takes an act of God and Yoko to get that kind of permission).
Groucho is just priceless here.
So that's why the Committee never showed up on the show! The DVDs have promos that were made with the Committee and the Rolling Stones, who never showed up on the program either.
Interesting...
Posted by: Tom Tuerff | August 01, 2008 at 07:40 PM
I don't see Groucho anywhere in the second clip.
Posted by: Jeff | August 02, 2008 at 02:34 AM
Just to let you know......the series was aired on ABC, not CBS.
Posted by: Bruce | September 23, 2008 at 04:11 AM