Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: TV Turkeys

Episode Date: November 24, 2022

GGACP celebrates Thanksgiving 2022 with what else? An entire episode devoted to TV Turkeys (aka terrible and "preposterous" TV programs) including "You're in the Picture," "Hello, Larry," "Misfits of Science" and of course, "Pink Lady and Jeff." In this episode, Jackie Gleason apologizes, "Supertrain" goes off the rails, Fred Silverman invents "Jiggle TV" and Raybone provides actual research. PLUS: Meadowlark Lemon! The World of Sid and Marty Krofft! Paul Lynde hosts a game show! (not really)! Gilbert tries to forget "Thicke of the Night"! And Tim Conway stars in the worst sketch show of all time! (Thanks for the inspiration, Kevin Allman!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough For something so fantastic So here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Here's another Gilbert and Franks Colossal classic Here we go boys. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4. Give me that fractal, colossal obsessions.

Give me that fractal, colossal obsessions. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with Frank Santopadre, and this is Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. How that rolls off your tongue. And who's with us tonight? Pray tell. Ah, let's see. Who's playing the part of Raybone? Yeah.

Gilbert's looking deeply into my eyes. I, yeah, I'm stumped There's a slip of paper in your program The part of Raybone tonight Will be played by By Raybone By Raybone himself And your music's back

Your music cue It's like the Jaws thing It's the Munchausen theme. Munchausen theme. Yeah. Frank's going to market that. You got any housekeeping? Anything you want to say to our listeners before we start on this motif, this premise?

Not much. Yeah. Anything happening on Twitter? On Twitter. Nobody wrote you. Nobody sent you anything fun. Any interesting gigs? Any interesting bookings?

No. Okay. Any rags, any bones, any bottles today? Not today, any rags. Right. That's a little Groucho reference because it's his birthday. Yes. Today.

Yes. And who else was born today on this day? Bud Abbott. Wow. And I think Groucho once said that Bud Abbott was the greatest straight man. There you go. Paul, you have anything? No, I don't. Okay.

I'm ready to go now. Okay, you can leave. It's been a pleasure. Why don't we get into the premise? Let's get into the premise. Of this mini episode. This is a book called TV Turkeys. Oh, I do have one thing.

Okay, of course. Once the show starts. Bill Macy. It's like the kid who didn't go to the bathroom before we left the house. Bill Macy crashed into a parked car. Yes. He's the only person who could crash into a car. Well, he doesn't see terribly well.

Yeah, but they said when he was in the hospital, he wanted everybody. He called Harry. He wants a copy of the podcast with us because he wants to play it for everyone in the hospital. It's unbelievable. I'm so proud. Why did he crash into a parked car? He's 96. Is there a possibility that he shouldn't be driving?

Maybe. At his age? Maybe. You never got a driver's license. No, never did. And I still drive better than Bill Maher. That's frightening. I mean, he didn't kill anybody.

No, no, no. This book is called TV Turkeys by a writer named Kevin Allman, and it was sent to us as a gift by a Listener Society member named Josh Chambers. Josh has actually started, what is this, the 53rd Facebook fan page? Oh, wow! Yeah, there you go. Frank's got a trigger finger. The Gilbert Gottfried Amazing Colossal Literary Society is now a page, I'm told, where he talks about books that guests mention or reference on the show.

Gilbert has inspired people to take it much more. Gilbert has inspired people. There's a Gilbert Gottfried official library. See? So there you go. I want some respect. He wants some respect. It's the high shelf at the gas station.

It is. It is. It's the porn shelf that Billy West said Bud Abbott kept the hype, the good porn on. So we went through this book. We actually opened it when he first sent it a couple of months ago, and Gilbert was thrilled to find that The Thick of the Night. Because I know if it's a book about terrible TV or movies, if they don't have me in there, then the book's not worth anything. You're in the book. Yeah.

There's a paragraph that says, As thick of the night rumbled on toward its debut, a cast of repertory comedians was assembled, including popular stand-up Richard Belzer, former SNL regular. Yes. Have you ever been referred to as former SNL regular? Oh, God.

Gilbert Gottfried, you and Ann Risley, and Chloe Webb, the future star of Sid and Nancy. Yes. Oh, she was married to Kevin Pollack? Chloe Webb? Do I have that right? I don't know. Anyway, Thick of the Night is in the book. I didn't pick that one, but there are some real goodies in here, which I did pick.

And you know these shows, and I asked Paul to do a little bit of research on them. Okay. Oh, boy. Going way back. So you could definitely go home now, Paul. It's called TV Turkey's An Outrageous Look at the Most Preposterous Shows Ever on Television. So it's not just bad shows.

Yeah. It's preposterous shows. Preposterous. So here's one from 1961 going all the way back. Gilbert knows this. We've talked about it. You're in the picture. Oh, with the Jackie Gleason? Yes. That's where Jackie Gleason the next week

went on TV and did a long apology about it. He did. It was canceled after one airing. It aired once, January 20th, 1961. Gleason disliked rehearsing. Yeah. So famously, so they thought, well, we'll give him a game show like Groucho. Oh, jeez. All he'll have to do is ad lib.

Yeah. And he won't have to rehearse. And they gave him this just god-awful premise. Yeah, well, you couldn't see the picture around you. You stuck your head through it. Correct. Celebrities did. It's like one of those things in Times Square where you can't show with the president or You couldn't see the picture around you. You stuck your head through it. Celebrities did. It's like one of those things in Times Square where you can picture with the president or Coney Island.

And you had to guess what picture you were sticking your head through. It was horrible. Four celebrities stuck their heads through the holes in a plywood board with painted-on bodies. By the way, those four celebrities were Keenan Wynn, Pat Carroll, still alive. Wow. Arthur, Chef Pat Carroll, just to talk about you're in the picture. Arthur Treacher and Jan Sterling were the four

celebrities. Yes, they stuck their head through the hole and they had to guess what the picture was that they formed or the picture that accompanied the hole. And somebody said, hey, there's a good idea. And so Gleason was so embarrassed by this debacle that he came back the following week

when the viewers tuned in the following week. It was just him in a chair. It was just alone in a studio. With a black curtain. Yeah. Just apologizing. He spent a half an hour apologizing. I got one line from his apology.

Oh, you do? I do. He said, last week we did a show called You're in the Picture that laid, without a doubt, the biggest bomb in history. I'm telling you, friends, that I've seen bombs in my day. This would make the H-bomb look like a two-inch. A two-inch? Like a two-inch. What's a two-inch? Yeah. That's me Like a two-inch. What's a two-inch?

Yeah, that's me. I don't know. Yeah, just ask my wife. That's a pretty transparent. Thank you, Arnie Kogan. And I remember Paul Newman did a live play on TV, like an early live play called the silver chalice. Oh yeah, sure.

And he hated it so much. He took out a page. Wasn't that a feature film? The silver chalice. I thought it was TV, but I remember he took out a page. Yeah. In variety to apologize.

Yeah. Well, he had that one and Tony Curtis had the Black Shield of Falworth. Oh, yeah. I remember they each had their... Don't deluge the castle of my father. That's for you, Gino. Didn't Paul Lynn bring that game show back years later with a smaller hole and a

less... Yeah, it was called Glory Hole. It was on Paul Lynn's Glory Hole. That's right. It was good with Goodson and Tobin. Very successful. Yeah. It also didn't click. The other thing I got a kick out of this was, you know what his tone was with the apology, but before the show aired, this is some of what Gleason had to say. We're trying to pick the greatest and most attractive people. We have so many people who want to do the show, so many attractive people.

It's a tough decision to make. Does that ring a bell at all? We're trying to find the best people. The best people? Everybody wants a Trumpian line i i'm sure he goes he says we're trying to get raymond massey b lily jonathan winters and what's the name of that great dame yeah lauren bacall where did you find that i uh tvobscurities.com. Wow. I hope that's accurate. We can thank them.

That's fun stuff. Accuracy has never been our most important. We're at podcastobscurities.com. That's right. This show. I'm pretty sure it's the only time Gleason ever attempted a game show.

And, yeah. Yeah. We should do another episode called Celebrity Apologies. I'm sorry. I had so much fun with this one. The final episode, the guests were George Jessel and Rudy Valli. Oh, jeez.

That's where. I remember on Gleason's Variety Show. Yeah. I guess he was the sad sack in one of the bits. Poor soul. Yeah. And I think he fell sad sack in one of the bits. Poor soul. Yeah. And I think he fell off a bike and hurt his back. That was the big news.

I didn't know that. I got another one for you from the 60s. And this is one that's been discussed at length on this podcast. And it was also discussed with someone, a guest who was involved with this show. 1969. I think you'll know where I'm going, 50 years ago this year, it was canceled. It debuted on February 6th, 1969, a one-night stand.

It was canceled as it was making its way across the country. That was that George Slaughter. Turn on. Yep. Tim Conway, Chuck McCann. Yeah. Yeah. You know what's interesting, the backstory is that Bristol Myers supposedly approached George Slaughter in 68.

They wanted another Laugh-In. Yeah. And he took the offer. He and Digby Wolfe, his co-writer, they came up with a format that he said was closer to his original idea of what laughing was supposed to be. But I don't know if that's true. It, it, it was CBS turned it down.

NBC turned it down. Uh, an NBC executive reportedly said it was in bad taste and it wasn't funny. And it wound up at ABC. Uh, they were desperate. They only had two hits bewitched and the FBI, the Ephraim Zimbalist show.

So they took a risk on Turn On, and George got an 18-episode commitment, and it lasted, I think, 24 hours. And I think the story was they were having a party to celebrate the premiere of Turn On, and they didn't realize it had already been canceled. They had the party going in New York, is that right? And then as the show rolled through the time zones,

as the show rolled through the time zones, it was canceled in New York before it got to Ohio. Yes. In Ohio, they stopped it right mid-15 minutes, stopped the thing completely. And he says by the time it got to California, they were ready for the thing completely. And he says, by the time it got to California, they were ready for the closing party. So he said, we had our launch party and our closing party at the same time.

And you'll appreciate this. Very economical to have both at the same time. Yeah. The Baltimore affiliate canceled it and the Little Rock affiliate canceled it. They were angry. The local stations were flooded with angry calls, the local affiliates. They canceled it. I mean, just like in the first five minutes. How did you know that story?

I thought that was a really odd. I think George might have told us when he was on with us. There was a dirty firing squad sketch. The word sex pulsated on the screen. I remember that. Yeah, I mean, because they were flush with the success of laughing. Yeah. And ABC basically said, okay, guys, do what you want to do.

Yeah. And they had some freedom. And catchphrases ran across the screen. And one of them was, the Amsterdam levee is a dyke. Oh, geez. And the set was all white. Yeah. It was like a computer with a dyke. Oh, jeez. And the set was all white. Yeah, it was like a computer with a lot of, and supposedly there was a lot of flashing

and a lot of rapid cuts that were disturbing people. It was like when Hollywood was sort of thinking, hey, you know, these kids with their dropping asses. 69. Yeah, let's do those kind of effects. Poor Tim Conway, who had a checkered past trying to launch his own shows, got stuck in this thing.

And one of our guests, Chuck McCann, as Gilbert mentioned, the ABC affiliate in Philly was flooded with angry calls. George called it a groundwell of hostility. But he said if this show, he angrily said, if this show is too much for the network, I look forward to a triumphant rerun of My Mother the Car. So he was sticking in the knife.

I don't even know if you can find any of Turn On. I was just going to look for it on YouTube. When you mentioned the word sex, I remember there was one guy that just music playing, no dialogue, and he's talking to a girl, just this silhouette, and he opens his mouth and the word sex comes out. Yeah, yeah. She reacts.

It was supposedly a nun, a sketch with a nun. Oh. Yeah, I don't remember. I tried to find it. I looked around all over YouTube and other places, and all I could find was 48 seconds of episode two. How'd it look? Bad.

Somebody had a motorcycle in the middle of this white thing. We never got Conway on here to talk about it. We got George to talk about it a little bit. Conway said, anytime George gets an award, I try to be in the audience and say, remember Turn On. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. Jumping around, so we talked about a game show and a sketch show, so I pulled different ones out of the book

because I wanted to cover every genre. Let's talk about 10 years after Turn On. Let's talk about 1979. This is, I guess, a drama, a scripted series. Essentially Love Boat on Wheels. You know where I'm going with this? Oh, is this the train? Super Train. Oh, God! Was that Fred Silverman? You know it. It was Fred Silverman. It was the nail in Fred Silverman's coffin. Yeah, that was going to be

kind of a love boat or like Irwin Allen because he would have guest stars. Well, it was basically the love boat because he'd been at ABC and had success with the love boat. And everything was riding on this thing. They took a $10 million chance on this show. It was the most expensive show aired to date, Super Train. They built a train to scale, and they built a model. They built a full-size model

that took up three sound stages. And they damaged one of the models, and it slowed them down, I think. I don't know that, but it was a cold stone ripoff of the love boat. Elon Musk, the guy behind SpaceX and Tesla and all that, has a high speed a bullet train a bullet train and i and i searched everywhere and i have never seen him

deny that super train was the inspiration could be it could be uh it was uh dan curtis of night stalker and dark shadows he did the music no he was the producer oh that, he was the producer. Oh, yes, yes. He was the poor guy they put in charge of this. I remember Dan Curtis also produced a Jekyll and Hyde TV production. I remember that. With Jack Palance. And he did a Dracula. Did he do the Dracula that Palance did? Oh, yes.

He might have been behind that. He did the Dracula with Palance. Of Night Stalker fame. Dan Curtis was a terrific producer. Yeah. A very creative guy. He might have been behind that. He did the Dracula with Palance. Of Night Stalker fame. Dan Curtis was a terrific producer. Yeah. A very creative guy. He must have been just taking a check. He was the guy put in charge of this. And who did the music for Dark Shadows?

Oh, I'd have to, I'd have to, if we had a researcher we could call. If only. Paul, would you look up on Craigslist and see if there is a researcher available? I'll research that. Because Dan Curtis would reuse yeah sure the dark shadows was worth using yeah this thing was such a stone uh was such a a copycat a shameless copycat of of the love boat there was a doctor oh my god bernie coppell's

character there was a captain played by Edward Andrews. Wow. Remember that actor? Oh. Robert Alda played the Doctor. Edward Andrews was... He was in everything. Edward Andrews was like in just about every Doris Day movie. He was in every movie with the white hair and the

thick black glasses. And he was in the Twilight Zone where he gets replaced by a robot. Very good. Charlie Brill was in the cast of where he gets replaced by a robot. Very good. Charlie Brill was in the cast of Super Train, not Mitzi. They were so confident in Super Train that they scheduled it opposite 8 is Enough on ABC. And The Jeffersons, which was a juggernaut, on CBS. And they got killed. The first week got big numbers.

It aired on my birthday in 1979 and then it it it crashed and derailed i guess you could say it lasted 12 weeks they fired three cast members they hired an actress to play a blonde social director oh they were really oh my god desperate to to to turn it into the love boat and remember the love boat had like a group of girls that they call them the mermaids. I don't remember. I don't remember. Jim Colucci would know. Yeah. First guest star.

The guest stars on the first episode. You'll like this. Vicki Lawrence. Ooh. Once again, keen and win. Wow. On another sinking ship. He was on Get the

You're in the Picture Stella Stevens Oh, geez And Steve Lawrence Wow Were the guests in the first episode of You can find on Wikipedia an episode guide And, you know, it's typical love boat people

Yes Lyle Waggoner came through in Zsa Zsa I'm coming through with crack research as usual I love it Composer was Robert Colbert Lyle Waggoner came through and Zsa Zsa. I'm coming through with crack research as usual. I love it. Composer was Robert Colbert. Robert Colbert produced the music for Dark Shadows. Can you look up if the love boat had a group of girls that they were calling the mermaids, I think.

There you go. Okay, let me see. Anyway, that was Super Train. It has a podcast connection because one of the guests on the second episode of Super Train was Dick Van Dyke. Oh. One of the guests on the third episode of Super Train was Paul Sand. Jeez. So there you go.

We should have Fred Silverman on the show. Malkoff had him on the Carson podcast. Yeah. If he's a sport, there are stories. Oh, my God. There are stories galore. The inventor of Jiggle TV, him and Aaron Spelling. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast after this. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning.

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The star of this show left a top 10 series to headline it. Any guess? He left MASH. The name of the show was Hello, Larry. Oh, that's right. It starred McClane Stevenson. Yes, yes. One of the all-time sitcom flops.

The story goes that he didn't want to play second banana or third banana to our friend Alan Alda. So he jumped at the chance to star in his own show on NBC. This was his third attempt, I might add. The first one was called The McLean-Stevenson Show. That lasted a month. Then he did a show for CBS called In the Beginning. And I bring that up

because Norman Steinberg, who was just in this room, wrote an episode of In the Beginning where he played an uptight priest who teams with a hip streetwise nun. And they work in a skid row mission. What could be wrong with that? What could go wrong with that show?

That lasted three and a half months. And then he went back to NBC to play a divorced radio host with two precocious daughters. And that was Hello Larry. Oh. And when they got desperate, they added meadowlark lemon to the cast and it's it's like it's one of these things i think when actors are younger they go no i want to be the star well he claimed that and i don't know if this is true but i i know he wore it as welcome there was one of the reasons that they killed off Henry Blake.

That Gelbart and the people who were running MASH, you guys could research this, made the decision that they didn't want any reunions. They didn't want McLean coming back to MASH. So they made sure that Henry's plane took a nosedive into the Sea of Japan.

They've done that a few times. Well, Charlie Sheen, right? Yes. Got bumped off by Chuck Lorre. But anyway. Didn't they kill Roseanne? Yes.

Roseanne. Well, they had to. Yeah. They had no choice there. The technical term is putting her down. Putting her down. But meanwhile, in the original series, they killed John Goodman and I don't know,

somehow, he returned from the dead. Oh yeah, that one. Well, wasn't that supposedly only a dream now that she had

and he died of a heart attack or she, they won the lottery and they became rich but she only dreamt it. My wife watches Roseanne. I never really watched Roseanne.

What do you got on the mermaids, Paul? The mermaids, I don't know much. The show was going, somebody writes here, the show Love Boat was destined to join the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean. But Aaron Spelling decided he would fix that by hiring eight

Love Boat mermaids. That's about all I got. There you go. Do we know who played the mermaids? No names that I can find. There was one person who quit. Let's see. Here's some names. I don't know that I can find. There was one person who quit. Let's see. Oh, here's some names. I don't know if you know them.

Tony, Tori Brenno, Deborah Johnson was Patty, the mermaid Patty. You know these names, Gil? God, nah. So not too much there except attractive young women. I don't remember the mermaids. Yeah, I remember that. Wow. Yeah.

Okay. What else do I have about hello larry the show's reputation first of all was a spin-off from different strokes and i don't know how it's not in the book but uh the show's reputation was not helped by the repeated mentions in johnny carson's nightly monologues where he basically beat up on hello Larry. I had heard, and I don't know this to be absolutely accurate, but that McLean Stevenson had been sold a bill of goods, that he'd been promised that he was going to be featured more prominently or that it was going to be more of an ensemble.

And then Hawkeye's character, Alan's character started to pull away a little bit. And he realized that he was not, and his ego couldn't take it or either that, or he felt that he had been deceived. Yeah. So three attempts. There were more McLean Stevenson shows after this one, but, but, uh, the McLean Stevenson show in the beginning and, and hello, Larry, which all get a mention in the book. So that's a sitcom, a game show, a drama.

I don't know. Would you call Super Train a drama? No. Like a comedy drama? Yeah. Like a romance? A romance. A scripted romance?

A love boat. A love boat ripoff. The problem with promoting that show was that the lead of the show was the machine. The train. The train, right? So you can't interview a train. Yeah. I remember watching Super Train.

Was it ever a movie? Wasn't there a movie like that? With an ensemble cast of... I just feel like there was a movie about a big train. It was just one of those Super Train movies. Yeah.

There was Silver Streak with Pryor and Wilder, but that's a Hitchcock knockoff. I know there was the big bus, but I could swear there was. The big bus was what Gilbert was referencing before. It was a lame spoof of an Irwin Allen disaster movie where they were all trapped on a bus. But it was a nuclear-powered bus, as I recall. It would have to be. Yeah.

And the super train was a nuclear-powered bullet train, just for accuracy here. Wow. I know Paul's going to tell us what kind of engine was involved. But I don't remember a feature. I just remember being at a drive-in and going, what am I watching? Well, we'll throw that out to the listeners. If you can remember the train, the Super Train, high-powered train movie. I'm sure people are screaming it out i don't

remember i don't remember one there was a movie called the cassandra crossing on a train with with oj this was like a very sophia loren i think richard harris yeah what what is your recollection it was just very slapstick it was like all the usual stuff maybe it was the big bus and i thought it was a train big bus with joe b Bologna. Maybe. Maybe it was that. Yeah. Last but not least from this delightful TV Turkey's book sent by Josh Chambers is a variety show. And I had many choices here. Oh.

I did not pick Thick of the Night, which is in the book. We'll do another show down the road because there's so many awful shows in this book that deserve to be mentioned. Now, I'm going to take a wild guess that in this book they have Manimal. They do have Manimal. Yes. It's in the back. In fact, they grouped Manimal with two similar shows. In fact, they gave it its own chapter called Manimalia at NBC.

They grouped it with Man from Atlantis, with Patrick Duffy, who was a merman, and Misfits of Science with Courtney Cox. Yeah, because Manimal was one of these jaw-droppers where the guy had the skill to turn into any animal he wanted. Simon McCorkendale. Yes. I believe we talked about Manimal on a previous show.

What was that, Courtney Cox one? Courtney Cox was on a show called Misfits of Science. When was that? Does it say when? This is the 90s. Misfits of, I'm wrong. Misfits of Science was 84. A very young Courtney Cox.

Manimal was 83. Yeah, she would have been doing Friends by the 90s. Manimal was nothing as pedestrian as a mere manfish.

He was a college professor named Jonathan Chase. Gilbert loves these premises. Who could transform himself into any creature at will. His powers apparently came from his father

who was sole heir to the secret link that binds man and animal. Ah, see, that explains it. you think it's idiotic but now you go oh okay when you understand the science behind it yeah uh misfits of science uh was was about teen superheroes uh is this nerds take over the world? And Dean Martin's son,

Dean Paul Martin, was on Misfits of Science. Anyway, we'll do Misfits of Science in a future show. Let me knock off this last variety show, which is one that Gilbert

and I love to talk about from 1980, produced by Sid and Marty Croft. Oh, I know what this one is. Gilbert. Yes, this young man right here. The Partridge. No.

Not The Partridge. No, you're thinking of The Brady Bunch. The Brady. The Brady Bunch. Somehow that did not make this book. He may have run out of pages. Wow. I am talking about the infamous Pink Lady and Jeff.

Oh, yes. Yes. They were a Oh, yes. Yes. They were a Japanese singing sensation in Japan. Correct. Could not speak a word of English when they were high. Which they didn't know. Yeah. You mean for real they were a singing duo?

They couldn't speak English. They were a real singing duo. Yeah, in Japan. Right. And they said, hey, they're big. Hire them. Mainomoto and Kei Masuda. And they couldn't say hello and goodbye in English.

Well. Silverman signed Pink Lady because they were selling a lot of records in Japan. They had no profile. Again, Fred Silverman. Yes. By the way, we have to have him here no profile in the States and Silverman reportedly

he loved them so much he had a pink lady poster on his office wall he had moved to NBC after bringing both CBS and ABC to the top the Osmonds had been cancelled and Friday night

had an opening for a variety series and they got yeah Jeff Altman a yeah, Jeff Altman, a comic. Correct. Jeff Altman was, yeah, the Tony Orlando to Pink Lady's Dawn, if you will. And they couldn't do bits together because they couldn't speak English. Well, it was sort of Norm Crosby schtick.

They would learn just enough English to be guilty of malapropisms and not understand the language. And that became the joke every week. And then each episode would end with Jeff either jumping in or being pushed into a hot tub. I don't know who came up with that.

They got desperate. They added Jim Varney to the cast. Jim Varney. Ernest. Jim Varney. Jim Ernest. Yeah. It was yanked after a month. Altman was coming off of the Cosby Variety Show, Coz, which is also in this book, I might add, and the Starland Vocal Band.

Starland Vocal. Oh, what did they? Don't tell me. Star Rockets in Flight. That's it. Afternoon Delight.'t tell me. They had a star, Rockets in Flight, Afternoon Delight. They had one hit. They were a one-hit wonder, and they got a summer variety series. There you go.

And one of the repertory members on that show was a young David Letterman. That's right. They got a series and not Ben Gazzara? There you go. You're doing Gilbert's Act? And there's like one clip I saw of two of them like years later. Pink Lady and Jeff? No, no.

Starline Vocal Band. Oh, the Starline Vocal Band. Where I think there used to be a couple in there. That sounds right. Well, it's a sex song. And one of the guys is talking, and the woman is making no, trying to hide it at all, how much she hates. She is shooting daggers at him. It is the weirdest thing to watch. Skyrockets in flight, afternoon delight.

Back in the 70s when they wrote, you know, those sort of obvious. We tumble to the ground and then we say, I think we're alone. Oh, that one or Melanie's brand new key. Yeah. These are sex songs disguised. And that's the kind of thing that got people talking like, hey, you know what that song means? Yeah, Midnight at the Oasis. Oh, yes.

Send your camel to bed. These songs are making me uncomfortable, fellas. I'm going to talk to HR. We've done death songs of the 70s. We need to do sex songs of the 70s. We'll do that. You know what else we could, I was thinking with the Fred Silverman thing, there's any number of examples where somebody got a hit and then later on was given all kinds of creative

freedom and made a mess of it, like Deer Hunter and- Oh, Chimino. Chimino. That might make a mini sometime. That's interesting. That's a show about hubris. Chimino. That might make a mini sometime. That's interesting. That's a show about hubris. Yeah, exactly. Great of hubris.

My favorite part of Pink Lady and Jeff is they bring a young Brandon Tartikoff, a young executive, was put in charge of developing the show. They brought in Sid and Marty, and Sid came up with an idea where the entire show comes out of a tiny Japanese box.

Okay. I don't know what that means. I love Sid Croft. We've seen more than one of those. They also invented the biggest escalator in the world. It's like a Simpsons game. Yeah, we can. The escalator to nowhere.

Yeah. The show was yanked after a month. Only five episodes. Pink Lady went back to Japan. And the rest is history. I wonder where they are now. I don't know. Our friend Mark Evanier, who did this podcast, was the head writer on Pink Lady and Jeff.

Wait, wait, wait. Talk about important information. Didn't you tell me that someone found Papillon Susu? Oh, yes. Yeah.

We found her. Yeah, well, we found her. I put you in touch with her guy and Frank found her. You don't want her on the show. But a fan got her to autograph a picture for you

and is sending it to you. Wow. Yeah, I wanted you to be surprised, but I guess I told you. Yeah. My favorite thing is when we asked Sid and Marty

about Pink Lady and Jeff, and Marty said we knew we were in trouble but the day we signed the deal was December 7th. Oh, man. Yes. So this is a fun book.

TV turkeys, Pink Lady and Jeff, Super Train, Turn On, God, there's so... By the way, Jerry Lewis was a guest on a Pink Lady and Jeff, Super Train, Turn On, God. By the way, Jerry Lewis was a guest on a Pink Lady and Jeff episode. Would you like to find that?

Sid Caesar, Burt Parks, Alice Cooper, Bobby Vinton, Florence Henderson, and Lorne Green were among the people they managed to, I guess they just wrote big fat checks to get them to appear on. But we'll do this book again because there's some fun ones in here that mean a lot to Gilbert. In fact, Hogan's Heroes is in this book. And there's a couple of variety shows that I had actually forgotten about. And now they're bringing back a reboot of Hogan's Heroes. Are they really?

Which is like the grandchildren. Where did you hear that? Yeah. of Hogan's Heroes. Are they really? Which is like the grandchildren. Where did you hear that? Of the, yeah. Wow. That's got to make Hogan's Heroes look like a classic. Will do. Yeah, well, if the Nazis were funny then, are they even funnier now?

Yeah. There's some, I won't give it away, because we'll do another episode from this book, but there are some in here that mean a lot to Gilbert. Yes. That's all I'll say, and we'll get to it. So thank you, Josh Chambers, for the book. We got a whole episode out of it.

Thank you, Raybone. Maybe we'll do that movie book that you discovered too. We could try that. Yeah, when you get a chance. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Paul. Gilbert, call Papillon.

Oh, yes. Get her on the line. You want to take us out? Okay. This has been... Or not. Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions with the unbelievably useless Rayburn.

Wait a minute. I found the mermaids. I found the damn mermaids. That's in the book. The Paul Rayburn Wow Show is in the book.力が抜けて 吐く息 ピンクに染まる 散らさないで アタックして セクシーでしょう あなたとなら 炎になり 抱き合えそうよどうして遠慮するの? 見らない言葉使って時計は回ってるのよ

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