WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Chaka Khan Vs. the Bee Gees

Now that Simon Pegg has gotten somewhat of a foothold in American consciousness, thought it would be a good time again to bring up his great late 90's UK sketch series Big Train. We posted a clip a couple years ago where Chairman Mao rises from his death bed to inexplicably (and quite convincingly) front Roxy Music; here's another of a Wild West shoot out between Chaka Khan and the brothers Gibb.

Besides Simon's ascent to movie stardom, this show should also be lauded for the sheer genius of people like Kevin Eldon, Mark Heap, Julia Davis (whose lead in Nighty Night may have been the single most screwed up character in a show oddly imported by Oprah's channel), and Catherine Tate (currently enjoying her own sketch show on BBC now, here's a clip); this crew all filtered into other great shows like Brass Eye, I'm Alan Partridge, Look Around You and Smack the Pony. May they all continue to thrive, and not move to Los Angeles to be harrassed by Courtney Love.

The Married...With Children Theme Music is Wrong on Hulu

There I was just cruising Hulu to see how my dad's favorite television show holds up 15 years down the line.  Kelly is still hot, Bud is still a dick, Al is still stuck in the shoe store etc etc but THE FUCKING THEME MUSIC IS DIFFERENT!  It's supposed to be the VOCAL VERSION of "LOVE AND MARRIAGE" but now it's some goddamn terrible royalty-free bullshit MIDI instrumental impression of a song that might sound like "Love and Marriage" if you are Tiny James and had been stuck inside a Regular Size Vodka Peach for four days.

What the HELL??

Don Rickles: Here, There and Everywhere

Don Rickles is back in a big way of late. An autobiography, an HBO documentary, appearances on Kimmel, Letterman and all the others, plus no less than thirty live gigs a month, the old man is a throw back to a lost era of showbiz. If you haven't seen him live, you should... if only for the novelty of seeing him sing(!), tell sentimental tales of The Rat Pack, and close his act with the weird dedication to "our brave boys fighting overseas so we can enjoy a bit of comedy here at home." Here's a gallery of links to Don Rickles all over the television dial.

Don Rickles Variety Special with Otto Preminger (1975)
Don Rickles on Later with Bob Costas (1991)
Don Rickles on The Twilight Zone (1963)
Don Rickles on Frank Sinatra's 80th Birthday Special (1995)
Don Rickles on Laugh-in (1968)
Don Rickles on The Dean Martin Show (1969)
Don Rickles Roasts Evel Knievel (1973)
Tonight Show with guest host Don Rickles (1970)
Don Rickles on Johnny Carson's 10th Anniversary Special (1973)
Don Rickles and Michael Landon on Johnny Carson (1974)
Don Rickles and Frank Sinatra on Johnny Carson (1976)

Don Rickles on Johnny Carson (1984)
Don Rickles on Johnny Carson (1992)
Don Rickles on Larry King Live (1987)
Don Rickles on The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder (1996)
Don Rickles with Johnny Cash and June Carter on The Mike Douglas Show (1981)
Don Rickles on The Merv Griffin Show (1985)
Don Rickles and Nina Hagen on The Merv Griffin Show (1985)
Jim Carey impersonates Don Rickles (1991)
Tonight Show with guest host Don Rickles and guest Carroll O'Connor (1979)

Commercial Fever Dreams Part 2

The alternative reality of television commercials have a way of sneaking up on you..and you can't help but wonder if the world you experience is real or imaginary. Let's explore.

If you lived anywhere near New York City between 1974 and 1988, then you knew one simple fact: "Some women just look that way…"  For more, read this glorious essay on the Ritz Thrift Shop commercial.

Meanwhile, Rochester's House of Guitars offers an altogether different experience.

Chicago has long felt the awkward power of the omnipresent Moo & Oink, perhaps the funkiest meat market on the planet.

Wait, what was that on my fork?

Small, moving, shooting parts that are made to lodge in your throat. Yes, that adds up to one of the funnest kid games on the planet: Bing Bang Boing!

More...including pies, dancing, leg warmers, and video games after the jump!

Yearning For Big Love

As a fan of the HBO show Big Love - about an LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) splinter-group member with three wives - I was heartened to see the news this week of the government raid of a polygamist compound in West Texas. Why "heartened", you wonder? Because I have no idea when the show's coming back and the news coming out of the Yearning For Zion compound (Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice of the ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them...) should hold me over until Harry Dean Stanton once again dons the creepy mantle of Roman Grant, patriarch of the fictional Yearning For Zion ranch, Juniper Creek.

Born for Hard Luck

I'm happy to see more and more websites including video players (that actually work) on their pages that include all manner of things that aren't necessarily available on YouTube. I recently discovered the archives of FolkStreams.net, a fantastic site generally devoted to the American working class experience as it pertains to music. Here are some of the great documentaries you can view on their site for absolutely free. They are, for the most part, available in four different formats, making viewing easy to do.

Born for Hard Luck is a sensational little black and white documentary from 1976 profiling the life of a one legged blues man from North Carolina named Peg Leg Sam Jackson. Tom Davenport's gritty black and white look lends itself well to the subject matter. I believe a clip from this was used in the film Amelie (2001).

It Ain't City Music captures the spirit of a 1973 country and western festival held in a small rural community in Virginia and its ability to unite hillbillies and hippies alike.

The Popovich Brothers of South Chicago is another winner, this one from 1978. The documentary chronicles the extra-curricular musical activities of poor, working class Serbian-Americans.

There are close to forty more rarely seen documentaries following the lives of unsung Blues, Gospel, Country and Folk legends from around the USA. Most of the docs are from the sixties or seventies and several from the eighties. Here's the menu.

My Secret Garden (the weird alienated one)

I sometimes hear guys talking about how mystified they are by choices women make when it comes to a hetero partner. Frankly, even as a broad, I can offer little insight into what goes on in the minds of women myself. I just know that girls start a hell of alot earlier than you may have been led to believe when it comes to creating a sexual inner life. Add to that mix the fact that most boys find girls icky until they are almost thirteen and you've got yourself the first giant chasm in the gender gap.
As early as the age of four back in the late sixties/early seventies my preoccupation with and crushes on celebrities were a mental tsunami drowning the village of my own potential. Worse was the fact that my crushes were on personalities so incredibly unsexy to other young girls who dreamt about the classic version of Prince Charming that I could not even share during girltalk, leaving me left out of that whole female bonding thing. The endurance of each of my manias made Wuthering Heights look like a Peanuts cartoon. Meanwhile other girls flipped their crushes as quickly as they thumbed through the latest Tiger Beat. Similarly when other little girls collected 45s, I sat transfixed with my LPs stacked on the return arm of the stereo.                                                                                                            
For the sake of some (any) logic, I've lumped my pre-teen loves into three different categories. Mind you, some of the celebrities are literally shoe-horned into these groups but I'm trying make things easier for you people. Anyhoo, there are "The Nice Jewish Boys", "The Pan-Sexuals" and "The Feel Funnys".
In the first category, I give you Barry Gordon From A Thousand Clowns, one of the more influential films for me as a kid. I guess I related to Barry's geekiness. He plays Larry David's Rabbi now on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Then there's Wes Stern. You might remember him from Getting Together with that douchey Bobby Sherman, and also The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where he played Lou Grant's nephew who wanted to lose his virginity to Mary. Later I think he grew up, changed character and did it with Brenda Morgenstern on Rhoda. Scott Jacoby was the Nice Jewish Boy who played Bad Ronald, one of the greatest '70s TV-movies ever. There's quite a bit of Scott up on youtube and I still think he was pretty hot back then.
Inevitably, we come to Gene Wilder in this first group. When I finally did get a friend by the sixth grade, she and I fought over who was going to marry him first. I really resented her for this. Can I just say a million dorky girls like me were really really happy when he married Gilda Radner because we actually could relate to her just a little bit more than say, Farrah Fawcett-Majors? 

Can on German TV 1971 (video)

This is a great German TV special from 1971, featuring Krautrock legends Can doing some avant-gardish things, playing foosball (better known under the name "table football" in Europe), jamming around, and talking about socialism and music. The clip is taken from a 1999 Can documentary (which you can order with some other goodies on DVD at Spoon Records). I don't know whether the introduction is from the same program, but it was just too good to leave out.

For slightly better quality, you can download the video (32 meg MPEG-4).

Stu Gilliam on FAX Records

Last week I mentioned Laff Records (Look forward to some raunchy gems in the next few weeks from LaWanda Page, Skillet and Leroy, Reynaldo Rey, Howard Thomashefsky and others). Laff joined a handful of other prolific labels that specialized in "Adults Only" comedy. Other labels that dealt with the genre were Dooto, Kent, After Hour Records, Surprise, StereOddities, Jubilee and Fax. Fax Records mostly pressed suggestive comedy LPs by a scrawny nerd named Bert Henry. Henry's suggestive LPs were in direct contrast to his day job working in the chorus of The Golden Horseshoe Revue in Disneyland. Several of the Fax LPs were "Stag Party" albums with a naked woman on the cover. Today we listen to one of Fax's more obscure (and less dirty) offerings by a stand-up comedian named Stu Gilliam. Gilliam was very busy in nineteen seventies television and film and one of only two actors to work constantly in both Hanna-Barbera cartoons and Blaxploitation movies (Scatman Crothers was the other thespian to partake in this unlikely combo). Listen to this lo-fi and surprisingly normal comedy LP from Fax - Stu Gilliam at the Basin Street West here.

Is that boat filled with LOVE?

Who's needs Yacht Rock when we have The Love Boat...

Go ahead and sing along...

Joe E. Ross on Laff Records

Laff Records is a record label I have always been interested in, mostly due to their LP cover art that often combined the best elements of comic book visuals and 1970s porno motifs. They were the domain of many obscure African-American acts that performed material too dirty to gain national exposure and every now and then they pressed an LP by a washed-up white guy. Such is the case with the album Should Lesbians Be Allowed to Play Pro Football by the star of Car 54 Where Are You, Joe E. Ross. Here's my super scratchy copy of the album in its entirety for your awkward listening pleasure - with more Laff Records to come in the next several weeks. Read the liner notes from the Joe E. Ross album here.

Also:
Illustrated Laff Records Discography
Profane LaWanda Page Laff LPs on YouTube

Games That Make Me Nuts (Part 1)

I don't remember where I was when I had the premonition that one day I'd host Family Feud. (I'm scheduled to assume hosting duties in the summer of 2023--after Jack Black and Andy Richter but before Cuba Gooding, Jr.) I know that I have a little time to figure this out but I'm still mystified as to exactly how the game's played. I figure that it somehow involves looking at a big board and making small talk with hillbillies while everyone cheers. There's some type of scoring system, but how the heck is that supposed to work? So much of life is a tortuous mystery, a brow-beating funnel of mocking despair and this particular TV show is yet another chimera that taunts my waking hours. For years I've stealthily searched in the bleak darkness, adjusting my rabbit ears and awaiting that "Eureka!" moment of sobering Dawson-like clarity. Until the Network Gods divine the correct cue cards upon me, I'll trod onward, measuring my life in Metrocard swipes and Junior Jumbles, assured that one day I'll finally unlock The Secret of The Feud and it will be then, and only then, that I will rejoice amid the bright hoopla and comb my real hair forward.

There's another stupid puzzle that makes me nuts also. That freakin' Name Game song!

Co-written by Shirley "Nitty Gritty" Ellis and her manager/producer Lincoln Chase, The Name Game shot up the national charts to #3 in the waning days of 1964. Now I'm not a total square from nowhere--I can grasp the five main rules (see chart) of said game--however it's the three sub-sections of the "contrary rule" where I lose my footing and tumble headfirst into the inky land of Bonana, Fanna and Fo. Those directions make no sense to me and they never will. And in mid-song, when Shirley says "if the first two letters are ever the same, I drop them both and say the name like Bob, Bob drop the B's Bo ob," I pray to sweet Jesus for the simplicity of The Nitty Gritty. Wrapping my brain around this mess is like getting instructions from Tim Conway on how to land a plane. Of course, none of that takes away from the fact that The Name Game is one of the sickest, most awesome dance records ever recorded.

Play it now and play it loud.

Shirley Ellis: The Name Game (MP3)

Television of Temporary Interest

Categorized for your convenience.

Robby the Robot:

The hardest working robot in show business is without a doubt Robby, star of Forbidden Planet (1953). Beyond his film debut, he appeared in Mork and Mindy, The Addams Family and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Here's an episode of The Thin Man television series starring the robot.
The 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone starring Robby the Robot.
The 1964 episode of The Twilight Zone featuring Robby the Robot.

Jerry Lewis:

The nutty Jerry Lewis is obviously on the verge of a nervous breakdown in this series of clips. His anger and insecurities are painfully on display in this episode of his short lived talk show, The Jerry Lewis Show, airing just after the announcement of the program's cancellation.

Peter Lorre:

Here is a 1957 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents starring a bloated and aging Peter Lorre taking advantage of a young unknown named George Peppard!

Lots more fun after the jump...

Guy's a Hack--And I'm Talking About Zimmern: An Open Letter

Dear Mr. Zimmern,

Congratulations...ya blew it.  Gary Kroeger, tell him what he's won!

Three months ago or thereabouts my wife, Angie, and I noticed on TV Guide Network the words "Bizarre Foods" one night listed as next on the Travel Channel, 'bout 9-ish, Central Standard.  Hmm, wonder how 'bizarre' he's talking, we ruminated.  Yeah, we'd been heavy mackin' on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, Guy's Big Bite and Paula Deen's Home Cooking months longer before our new discovery.  Fieri pops nations hard with the Bloody Mary Flank Steaks and Paula is, without the slightest equivocation, on a solar system-wide mission to make sure every man, woman, child and extraterrestrial on God's green earth and the planets surrounding it is administered at least a quintuple bypass.  If it kills her, we'll all cross that bridge together having pounded down the fruit (pies) of a bountiful (Southern fried chicken) harvest.  Paula Deen got game, y'aw.

But, like curious little sculps, Angie and I just had to peek behind the Bizarre Foods curtain and see what all the carrying on was about.  OK, a guy willingly chews then swallows whole balut, goose intestines on bean sprouts and nutria?  This we have to see.

It was perfect.  A perfect show for this obsessed fan of the extremely maladjusted and strange in most categories (food very much included), even if the closest I've ever come to "thoroughly disgusting" or eating outside what is raised on a farm is unagi sushi and shark.  Angie, on the other hand, would rather have given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a shark.  You champion the lost (if not entirely unchartered) art of culinary masochism as well as travel the earth to further champion gastronomic awareness.  It's perfect American voyeurism for Americans who believe voyeurism is a grave and unforgivable sin or otherwise.  Short of interspersing the bull decapitation archival scenes from Mondo Cane throughout for comic relief, Bizarre Foods is (I should say was) cool and just over the top enough.

Until I read your blog.  You went too far.  You went way over the top.  Would over the top two layers of the Earth's crust just about do it?  You went further over the top than you would have if you'd eaten tempura-style fresh warthog feces.  You went further past it than I would ever dreamt of having gone if the two people you targeted had actually deserved it.  They didn't.  Paula Deen and Guy Fieri are two of the most genuinely cool and hilarious people on television.  Aside from that, they are courteous and respectful; if they can't be courteous and respectful, at least tactfully civil.  They are no doubt tactfully civil enough to stop and realize when they've said too much.  Mr. Zimmern, I believe this is your stop. 

Guy Fieri "coming off like an overly rehearsed hack...", huh?  Okay, if the narration over this part of the Vietnam episode where you're attempting to goad your host into eating a snake's gall bladder isn't "overly rehearsed", I'm the current Dalai Lama.  That's not polished, Andrew...that's shining the shoe until the damn scuff comes OFF.  Those four words in parentheses about Paula Deen?  You don't even want to know what I think of you now.  Got a pencil, a brand new notebook and a couple hours to spare?

How does it feel to lose a viewer and a fan?  Your comments themselves may have been as long as it takes you to chew and swallow a maggot, but they said more than every word in my post put together.

Thank you,

Jonathan 

This Game is Rigged!

I've been enjoying rigged game shows this week. Quiz show questions, in a matter of moments, went from being essentially impossible to terribly simple and insipid after the quiz show scandals of the nineteen fifties. The most famous example of game show rigging was Twenty-One, which, to be fair, was not rigged by the show's producers but by its typically sinister sponsor, Geritol. They demanded the quiz show Twenty-One be rigged in order to make the show more captivating. Not only were contestants coached in their answers, they were also instructed which answers to get wrong, when to hum and haw, and when to wipe sweat from their brow. With this in mind, it makes the programs even more fascinating to watch - the contestants are all fairly convincing actors. Today, our friend the internet offers us two examples of rigged game shows from beginning to end:

Watch the phoney baloney Twenty-One.
Watch the equally fake 64,000 Challenge.

Good Morning, Mr. Kokomo (mp3s)

At exactly three forty-five on September 19, 1957, unemployed organ grinder Bob Hannon entered RCA Studio 4 and made monkey history with this two-sided tribute to Today Show Animal Editor Kokomo, Jr. the Talking Chimpanzee.

Side 1 [mp3]
Good Morning, Mister Kokomo
Pougheepsie

Side 2 [mp3]
Every Monkey Should Go To School
Mother Kokomo's Lullaby
I Like Everybody

The Velvet Underground on the Classic Game Show I've Got a Secret? Partially.

John Cale appears on an episode of I've Got a Secret in 1963. Baby Jesus Bless the Internet!

Johnny Greenwood and the Oscars

It is a sure bet that Paul Thomas Anderson's excellent film There Will Be Blood will grab a few Oscars tonight, but unfortunately it won't get one for Best Original Score. The reason is an arcane and stupid Academy Awards rule excluding "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music".

The score was written by Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood, combining pieces by Arvo Pärt, Johannes Brahms, and others, with a good chunk (supposedly about 35 minutes) of music written by himself specifically for this film. He also used a few pieces of his BBC-commissioned 2006 composition Popcorn Superhet Receiver (RealAudio streaming link). Apparently this was too much "diluting" for the Academy, and it really is a shame that this keeps the best 2007 film score out of the awards.

If you think this is a 21st century problem, you might be surprised that this rule has already robbed another great composer from receiving an Oscar, 35 years ago. Nino Rota's score for the original 1972 Godfather movie was ruled ineligible for recycling a theme from his soundtrack for the 1958 film Fortunella. However, Rota used the same theme again in 1974's Godfather II, and this film finally got him his deserved award. It doesn't make any sense, but it really happened that way. I am waiting for There Will Be Blood II...

You can listen to a track from Johnny Greenwood's score on his MySpace page, and you should also check out an excerpt from Bodysong (YouTube link), a 2003 film by Simon Pummell which was scored by Greenwood.

Chinchillas are Good Business

A lil while back I posted this episode of a forgotten TV show called Divorce Hearing and simply could not decide whether it was the absolute best or absolute worst piece of television I had ever seen. Most viewers decided it was one of the best. Well, it's time to cast those ballots again with this relic of early TV: The Hoot Gibson Show. It "stars" an aging B-movie western figure of the same name. The real meat of this program lies in its sponsor. At the 6:50 mark the sponsor appears in the flesh, a Chinchilla salesman who could not deliver a line of script to save his life. Needs to be seen to be believed.

Opry Almanac

Ralph Emery is the Dick Clark of country music.  His first television show was Opry Almanac, which aired at 6:00 in the morning on WSM-TV in Nashville.  On this particular broadcast in 1966, Ralph's guests were Roger Miller, Thumbs Carlisle, Jerry Allison and Charlie Louvin.  Legend has it that they had been up all night partying before the show...and it shows.  TV was much better back then.  Here's an excerpt.

 

StupidBowl IV

For five or six years beginning in 1996, the StupidBowl reared its ugly head on the airwaves of WFMU. The idea was simple: watch their SuperBowl video, listen to our StupidBowl audio. If memory serves, StupidBowl IV featured myself, Bob Rixon and John Hajeski helping with the mix. Here's an excerpt:

Television of Temporary Interest

I'll be back in this space next week with a huge sprawl about forgotten comedian Tubby Boots, but in the mean time... a lazy man's post.

Dinah! with guests Henry Winkler and David Bowie - This 1976 episode of Dinah Shore's daytime talk show has Bowie exulting his love for The Fonz - and plenty more.

The Tonight Show with guest The Backwards Talker - Johnny Carson interviews a man who can speak backwards with the greatest of ease.

The Tonight Show with Jack Paar on Vinyl - I'm always interested in old episodes of The Tonight Show, so naturally I would be interested in an LP devoted to Jack Paar's opening monologues. I posted the whole album on Classic Television Showbiz this week.

Post's Cereals Non-Vinyl - What could possibly be a cheaper form of recording than the old Evatone Soundsheet, y'know, those ol' flexi-records you used to pull out of magazines? How about a record made out of a cereal box? Featuring The Archies no less.

The Forgotten Looney Tunes - The final days of Termite Terrace produced some truly strange cartoons. Here's a sampling of three late sixties Looney Tunes that you probably don't remember. The third one, Norman Normal is of particular note.

Shox Lumania on TV 1982

I was surprised to do a google search on this NYC band and see mention of a live performance that aired on Pat Duncan's show in the 80's. Pat, reair that sucker! Or at least give us a fly-on-the-wall account?

James Brown's FUTURE SHOCK!

Back in the PCP days of the 1970's, James Brown hosted his own television show.  Future Shock was filmed in the pre TBS studios of WTCG in Atlanta.  It could have been lost forever, but a few episodes managed to slip out of the vaults.  Give a great big round of applause to the legendary "Eugene" for editing together the Best Of Future Shock.  And also remember that Future Shock Cannot Be Stopped!

JB blackcrack  - Funky President

 

 

 

I've Got a Theremin

An episode of the game show I've Got a Secret with the panel challenged to figure out what a theremin is.