Category Archives: Video Links

In 1976, when the Chuck Barris company sold The Gong Show to television, they launched two versions simultaneously: A Monday-through-Friday daytime version on NBC and a once-a-week syndicated version. To host the daytime, they originally selected John Barbour, who had recently been a TV critic on the local NBC news in Los Angeles. To host the evening version, they signed Gary Owens, who was best known for Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and for his local L.A. radio show and for doing more voiceover work than any human being on the planet.

After the first week of the daytime show was taped, Barris decided Barbour was all wrong. It was one of those "different vision" problems. Barbour reportedly saw the show as something that might actually discover and nurture real talent. Barris wanted a show more like…well, what it became after he fired Barbour, trashed the shows that had been taped and took over hosting chores, himself. Mr. Owens hosted the nighttime show for the first year and then Barris took it over, as well. John Dorsey, who directed both versions, told me that it wasn't a dissatisfaction with Gary. It was because Barris just didn't want to pay someone else when he could do the job himself.

Our clip today gives you a little less than seven minutes of an Owens-hosted Gong Show with panelists Elke Sommer, Rex Reed and Jaye P. Morgan. The stunning blonde lady assisting Gary is Sivi Aberg, a beauty queen who turned up on a lot of TV shows in the mid-to-late seventies. The small person assisting him is Jerry Maren, whose career goes back to well before he was in The Wizard of Oz, and who is still a working actor. And you don't hear him on the clip but the show's announcer at the time was my buddy Jeff Altman, who is often seen on Mr. Letterman's program…or sometimes just heard. That's Jeff playing the bizarre State Trooper character who's been popping up recently in voiceover on Dave's Late Show.

Here's the clip. If you don't like it, you can stop it after 45 seconds by hitting your giant gong. You do have a giant gong, don't you?

The other day, we linked to the opening and closing of a forgotten (but funny) TV show called The Good Guys. Here's a look at the middle of what I think was the first episode…as excerpted for a CBS network promo…

When the Monty Python guys were first getting known in America, its members made a number of odd and sometimes uncomfortable appearances on television. Here from April 25, 1975, we have a little less than ten minutes of AM America, the local ABC morning show from New York, hosted then by Stephanie Edwards. It takes a few minutes to get to the interesting part but somewhere in there, we have the Pythons (minus Cleese) sort of co-hosting but not really getting to say much. But watch it anyway, especially what the boys do under the closing credits.

By the way: There's a writer credit in there for a Tom Meehan. Might this be the same Tom Meehan who two years later was responsible for the book for the Broadway show, Annie? And who has since done many a Broadway show, including The Producers? Might it?

From the February 28, 1966 episode of the TV pop music series Hullabaloo, George Hamilton and Lainie Kazan introduce the show's dancers dancing to the theme from the concurrent TV hit, Batman.

For those of us steeped in Industrial Grade Trivia, there are three other connections in this clip to the world of comic books. One is that many years later, Mr. Hamilton would be involved briefly in an aborted business enterprise with Stan Lee. Another is that a few years after this show, Ms. Kazan would appear in the pages of Playboy and that layout would inspire Jack Kirby to create a memorable comic book character named Big Barda. And lastly, about the time this show was on the air, a noted comic book artist was involved in a romantic way with one of the ladies you see dancing in this number. More than that, I dare not say.

This one will be of interest to a lot of you but especially to those who grew up in the Los Angeles area in the sixties and seventies. One of the top local disc jockeys from that era was The Real Don Steele, who was heard on KHJ Boss Radio. He was quite popular and an awful lot of other radio personalities — in L.A. and around the world — wound up imitating The Real Don Steele.

He had a fun, energetic sound and as you can see in today's presentation, was wildly enthusiastic about absolutely everything. Every L.A. kid of my era knew that sound and also his catch-phrase. Throughout his radio shows, he'd often play a short clip of a female voice yelling, "Tina Delgado is alive, alive!" Who was Ms. Delgado and why was it so significant that she was alive? Mr. Steele never said, and you got the idea that even he didn't know; that it was just a stunt to get people curious.

Off and on, he also hosted various TV shows, mainly of the "dance party" variety. This is an episode of The Real Don Steele Show that aired on May 11, 1974. It starts with a commercial that includes a then-unknown-but-soon-to-be-famous Farrah Fawcett and then the show runs about a half hour over the four parts posted here. You will enjoy the musical acts of the day, lip-syncing to their hits. You will enjoy the teenagers dancing to the records. You will enjoy Mr. Steele's energy. And you will really enjoy some of the commercials.

One other thing: I'm assuming they taped in the KHJ studio, which was about the size of a three-car garage — one of those facilities that was erected in a building that was designed to do radio…and without a live audience. I know this show looks real cheap but considering what they had to work with, the producers and director worked miracles.

As I've mentioned, I'm now teaching Humor Writing once a week for the graduate students program down at U.S.C. For yesterday's lesson, I brought in a pile of Henny Youngman jokes and had the members of the class — most of whom had never heard of Mr. Youngman — read them aloud. Then we discussed which jokes we liked and why and the kind of rhythms and structure that made most of them work.

A few minutes ago, having Youngman on the brain tonight, I decided to see if I could link to a clip of him performing. I found this one, which is from the mid-eighties when his delivery was slower than it had once been and his reception was bigger. What interests me about it is that we discussed most of these jokes in our lesson.

In case you want to know more about The King of the One-Liners, I wrote this piece about him some time ago. Or you can just click below and enjoy some of Henny Youngman's greatest hits.

One of these days when some entertainment company wises up and starts The Obscure Sitcom Network (or whatever they'll call it), they're going to make a hot tub full o' money. What they need to do is to dig out all those comedy shows which ran a few seasons but never had much of a life in syndication…shows like Occasional Wife and Hank and I'm Dickens, He's Fenster and It's About Time and The Queen and I and Ensign O'Toole and My Living Doll and Camp Runamuck and He and She and Car 54, Where Are You? and Julia and I'm sure anyone reading this site can name twenty more. Don't bother sending me your picks.

A show I'd like to see again is The Good Guys, which starred Herb Edelman and Bob Denver and which ran on CBS from September 25, 1968 to January 23, 1970. It was about two lifelong friends — Bert Gramus (Edelman) who ran a diner and Rufus Butterworth (Denver) who drove a taxicab. At arm's length, it was a slapsticky, broad show but I recall it being quite witty underneath its pie-in-the-face veneer. I also liked its theme song which went through different arrangements and several sets of lyrics during the show's two year run. Here's the show's opening and closing…and like I said, I wish someone would put this one back on the air or out on DVD or something.

From 1967 through 1971, Frito's Corn Chips were sold on television by an animated spokeshombre called The Frito Bandito. The character was created by the ad agency of Foote, Cone & Belding, and the early spots were directed or at least supervised by the great Tex Avery. Mel Blanc provided the voice and the commercials were apparently quite effective at selling corn chips…at first.

Then the protests started, with the National Mexican-American Anti-Defamation Committee and other groups complaining about the ethnic stereotype. They were right, of course, that television was then not offering much in the way of Hispanic characters or role models. If there'd been a few who were actual human beings, the corn chip bandit might not have been so offensive to some. Worse, "Frito Bandito" became a racial slur in many circles and a lot of people, not just minorities, came to find the character offensive. When sales on the product went into decline, the Frito-Lay people retired their mascot, replacing him at first with a group of cowboys called The Muncha Bunch. They later gave way to W.C. Frito, a W.C. Fields soundalike who also didn't catch on.

I really don't know how I feel about all this or even how much it matters. But you've probably heard of The Frito Bandito so I thought you'd like to see him…

In April of 2005, Lewis Black was the guest performer at the Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner in Washington, DC. Here's a few minutes of Mr. Black attempting to be funny with Dick Cheney seated about two yards away. Talk about a tough room.

One of the best DVD sets you could possibly spend your cash on is the collection of Robert Klein's HBO Specials. He appears so infrequently these days that you forget how good he was and is, and how a whole generation of stand-up comedians learned so much of what they did from the guy.

You won't see it in this clip, which is of the "I Can't Stop My Leg" musical numbers which became a required part of this later specials…but this stuff's fun to watch, too. And you can order the whole DVD set for a bargain (I think) price by clicking here.

Last April, the Bowery Poetry Club in New York had a party to commemorate the birth and life of the great musician and monologist, Lord Buckley (1906-1960). What we have here in two parts is a speech made at that event by The World's Foremost Authority, Professor Irwin Corey. The two parts run about sixteen minutes between them and I'd like to thank Fred Vigeant for telling me this was there.

One of my frequent correspondents would probably like me to warn that some of the language in this video is on the coarse side. Another of my frequent correspondents would probably appreciate being warned that Prof. Corey speaks ill of George W. Bush.

Those of you who are unfamiliar with Irwin Corey might think that the Professor's rambling, disconnected thoughts are because he is 93 years of age. First of all, you're wrong about his age. When this was taped, he was a much younger man of 92. Secondly, he talked this way when he was in his twenties and is only now growing into his act. Here's Part One…

And if you make it all the way through that, you might as well watch the last six minutes…

Ever see Lewis Black discuss The End of the Universe? If you haven't, here's your chance…

A Marty Feldman sketch from one of his shows on British TV. You may remember this one because he also did it on The Flip Wilson Show…with Howard Cosell (of all people) playing the other guy at the end. I wish more of Mr. Feldman's work was available on DVD.

Three minutes from a 1952 Bob & Ray TV show. Nobody better.

I'm embedding this because so many of my friends — including one George W. Bush supporter (!) — have e-mailed me the link to it. And also because it's pretty funny.