Color Me Quencher

The Saturday Night Live rerun for March 21st, 1981 was of fairly recent vintage: hosted by Margot Kidder, it had aired live March 17th, 1979. Along with a funny sketch about Superman and Lois Lane hosting a party, and a hilarious Point-Counterpoint about Lee Marvin's divorce trial, it contained the all-time classic Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute.

Unfortunately, we didn't tape the show, because airing on Channel 5 at the same time was a late movie, the 1972 mystery-thriller Sleuth. Starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier, it was probably recorded at my mother's behest, and although I know it has a fantastic reputation (8.1/10 on IMDb and 96% "fresh" at Rotten Tomatoes), I've never sat down and watched it, partly because I know how it turns out.

It is on YouTube in two parts if you feel like watching it. But what we're here for are the commercials from the 1981 broadcast! This was captured on tape A4, directly after the Richard Pryor SNL. Here are the ad breaks from the first half:

The Cuisinart spot ("tell her she's the best by giving her the best food processor") isn't the height of enlightened feminism, and I'd forgotten about Celeste's "Abbondanza Pizza For One". Before it got into the Monopoly business, McDonald's had a $10 million Build A Big Mac giveaway. And our family did most of its grocery shopping at Lucky (the rest was at Safeway), but we didn't listen to KYUU or KSFX radio much.

There's some unexpected Beatle content in there too, as Evening Magazine took a look at the psychedelic Beatle Bentley. John Lennon's custom-painted Rolls-Royce is far more famous, but unsurprisingly, there's a whole website dedicated to the Bentley. I'm sure if I had seen this ad at the time, we would have recorded the Evening Magazine segment.

On to the ads from the second half of the film:

There sure were a lot of obscure vitamins for sale in 1981 (Plus 74A and Allbee C-800), and neither Fish Ahoy cat food nor Chardón jeans are still around. Jack In The Box was "blowing up its clowns" in an attempt to project a more upscale image, I suppose.

One thing you don't see much of anymore is an advertiser running two different spots for the same product over the course of a show - in this case, a sad sack in search of Miracle Whip and Donny and Marie going Hawaiian. Finally, that's quite a week Gary Collins has ahead on Hour Magazine, covering incest, the dangers of tampons, Loni Anderson, Jerry Lewis, and aquatic tots!

Fortunately, we did record the following week's SNL rerun, because it may be the best episode in the show's history... I'll have a lot to say about that next time.

DEAD Honky!

Being 10 years old in early 1981, I hadn't seen many episodes of Saturday Night Live from the "classic" era. I was a fan of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, I knew about Mr. Bill, and had a copy of Steve Martin's A Wild And Crazy Guy LP. But 11:30 to 1AM was way past my bedtime, even on a weekend.

Getting a VCR should have changed all that; unfortunately, the 1980-81 season of SNL has gone down in history as one of the worst. Not being a particular fan of Ann Risley or Gilbert Gottfried, I didn't try to stay up or ask my parents to tape any episodes that season. On the February 21st, 1981 episode, Charles Rocket dropped an f-bomb during the goodnights and sealed his fate on the show, as well as that of producer Jean Doumanian, who had taken over from Lorne Michaels the previous October.

One more live episode was aired under Doumanian's tenure, with host Bill Murray on March 7th - don't know why we didn't tape that one. She was fired two days later, during production for the next week's scheduled show, to be hosted by Robert Guillaume of Benson:

If you don't remember seeing this episode, that's because it never aired. Once Dick Ebersol took over as producer on March 10th, he shut down SNL for a few weeks to take stock of the cast and writing staff and make a few changes. Guillaume would be asked back to host in 1983; Ian Dury wasn't so lucky.

To fill the timeslot, Ebersol ordered up reruns of four classic SNL editions from the Lorne Michaels era, the first of which would be Richard Pryor's one and only hosting stint from season 1:

This was a great choice to lead off the month of repeats and remind viewers what SNL had once been capable of. It originally aired December 13, 1975 as the 7th live show in the series, and was rerun April 10, 1976 and January 8, 1977, so it hadn't been seen for a while. It originally aired with a five-second delay due to Pryor's propensity for cursing. The worst thing he ended up saying was "ass" twice during his monologues, and these were reportedly bleeped for the 1975 west coast feed (they are intact in the 1981 rerun).

Thanks to those hilarious monologues, sketches such as Exorcist II, and the first appearance of John Belushi's Samurai character, the episode has attained legendary status. I certainly watched it dozens of times and showed it to all my friends over the next decade or so. Truthfully, it contains a lot of filler (such as a tedious parable delivered by Pryor's ex-wife), and several segments that don't hold up, like the Muppets and Franken/Davis's Pong routine.

None of that matters, though, because it includes this sketch.

When season 1 of SNL was released on DVD, all the bumpers leading into and out of commercial breaks were removed. Not a big loss in most cases, but for this episode, photos of Pryor's family were used in place of the usual "host looking wistful on the streets of NYC" shots.

So without further ado, from the start of VHS tape A4, here are all the commercial breaks (thank goodness we set the timer rather than staying up and hitting pause) and bumpers from the March 14, 1981 broadcast:

There's almost too much 1981 goodness to take in here: an R-rated Mac Davis movie! Brenda Vaccaro for Playtex! David Naughton and Mickey Rooney's epic song-and-dance to "Be A Pepper"! Tickle deodorant for ladies! There's nothing like something with milk! Jesse jeans (they oughtta be outlawed)! Brooke Shields and her Calvins! The Wienerschnitzel Patty MMMMelt! Two ads for the cheesy-looking horror film The Fun House! And best of all, a smug George Brett getting served by a kid who's feeling 7-Up! Those were the days...

Oil Can What?

My mother's favorite movie (as of 1981, and I doubt it's changed since then) is The Wizard Of Oz. I'm sure she grew up watching its annual network telecast during the 1960's, and the tradition carried on through my youth in the 70's.

The film made its TV debut on CBS November 3rd, 1956, and was an annual staple on that network every winter from 1959 through 1967 (apart from 1963, possibly due to the Kennedy assassination wreaking havoc with the schedules). From 1968-1975, The Wizard Of Oz aired around Easter on NBC before returning to CBS from 1976-1998. Wikipedia has a very detailed page about the film's TV history.

Our first chance to tape it was February 27th, 1981, and of course we had VHS tape A1 ready to roll.

All I can find on YouTube relating to this broadcast is a commercial which aired two nights previously, just prior to the Grammy Awards (which must have bummed out all the Enos fans):

Unfortunately, we used the remote to pause during commercial breaks, but the ads preceding the film did survive. So here is the end of a California Federal Savings spot with Bob Hope, followed by ads for the Stanley garage door opener and GE Spacemaker microwave oven, and the start of a Hubba Bubba commercial touting their new fruit flavor. To this day, all I can think of when I hear "Hubba Bubba" is the original "There's gonna be a gumfight" ad.

Otis! My Man!

Rewinding a couple of years to December of 1978: I'm seven years old and looking forward to seeing the latest blockbuster movie, Superman. I've read all my father's back issues of Superman, Action, and Adventure comics so I'm a fan of the Man of Steel. My father takes me to the big theater in San Francisco on opening night. The lines snake around the block, and much to my disappointment, tickets are sold out for the next showing.

Rather than wait in line for a screening that might be past my bedtime, my father decides to cheer me up by taking me to a comedy instead. We drive to a second-run theater which is showing the R-rated Animal House, one of the year's biggest hits since its July premiere. Going in, I remember only being vaguely aware of who John Belushi was (I hadn't yet started staying up to watch SNL), and I'm not sure if my dad was aware how much "inappropriate" content he was exposing me to at a young age.

All I know is that I loved it enough to recommend it to my best buddy Gil, and we roped his father into taking us again. He had been tipped off as to the nude scenes, and made us turn our heads and face the projection booth when the first one came on-screen. Once he saw how harmless it was, he let us face forward for the rest of the film.

Watching SNL reruns over the next year and a half made me a bigger Belushi fan, capped off by a summer 1980 viewing (with Gil and his mom) of The Blues Brothers, still my favorite movie of all time. So it was inevitable that when Animal House made its network television debut on NBC February 15th, 1981, we had the VCR ready to roll:

Of course, much of the salty language in Animal House was unsuitable for network television, but luckily director John Landis had thought ahead. He shot alternate takes of several scenes, substituting in cleaner dialogue for the words that would have required cutting (or bleeping).

This makes the film run much smoother than most R-rated films seen in prime time. Only a couple of scenes were excised entirely (Boon and Otter talking in Delta House near the start, and the visit to Professor Jennings's pad to smoke joints), and of course any nudity was trimmed away. In shots where the characters' mouths were far away or not visible, simple ADR was used to replace cursing.

That leaves about six minutes of specially-shot footage, which aren't found on the DVD (I'm not sure if they're used in current airings on cable TV). Fans of the movie will spot the differences right away, but here's a quick summary:

- Dean Wormer's "grab the bull by the balls" and "sneaky little shit" in the first clip become "grab the bull by the horns" and "sneaky little jerk"
- John Belushi's hilarious escalating trilogy of "Holy Shit!"s become "Oh my God!', "I don't believe it!", and "Yaaaaargh!"
- The topless pillow fight is replaced by a take where the sorority sisters all keep their bras on
- Boon's "Those assholes must have stolen the wrong exam" and Wormer's "like shit through a goose" are altered to "those jerks" and "so fast, your head'll spin"
- The start of Otter's grocery conversation with Mrs. Wormer about the size of his cucumber has been shortened and replaced with a different take
- Wormer's phone conversation with the mayor originally included 5 or 6 extra swear words ("balls" become "ears")
- In my memory, the trial scene had "cough cough" dubbed over the Deltas' interjections of "blow job" and "eat me", but re-listening, they're still surprisingly audible. Boon does tell those "jerks" to shut up rather than those "assholes" in this version
- The scene at Katy's house originally ended with a pantsless Donald Sutherland reaching for something in the cupboard, revealing his bare bottom. In this take, he's fully clothed
- Belushi shot more alternate lines to replace "join the fuckin' Peace Corps" and "lyin' around shit" 
- Wormer originally asks Marmalard "what the fuck's going on down there?"
- Mrs. Wormer's final line is changed from "You can take your thumb out of my ass anytime now, Carmine" to "You can let go of me anytime now, Carmine"

Here are the alternate scenes, from the end of tape A3, plus Casey Kasem yet again delivering NBC promos over the credits (sorry I didn't tape the tantalizing special that followed, The Women Who Rate a 10):

For The Other Half Of The Sky

In the weeks following John Lennon's murder, Yoko Ono spent most of her time in seclusion at the Dakota, refusing all requests for interviews. Her first public statement of 1981 was in the form of an open letter, published as a full-page ad in major world newspapers on January 18th.

Two days after the letter was published, Yoko completed work on a video clip to accompany the song "Woman", which had been John's first posthumous release. The single came out in the US January 8th and peaked at #2 for three weeks in March and April. 

With MTV still months away from launching, there were few outlets on American TV for music videos. In this case, Yoko decided to give the ABC news magazine 20/20 an exclusive airing of the clip for "Woman". When ABC made the announcement on February 9th, they made it sound as if Yoko had given the tape directly to her good friend Barbara Walters (an angle Ms. Walters does little to dispel in her intro). More likely, 20/20 was chosen because of the Lennons' long-standing friendship with Geraldo Rivera, then a producer and senior correspondent on the show.

The segment aired on Thursday night, February 12th, and was duly taped at the start of A2, our first T-60 cassette. Recording at SLP speed meant the show would only take up the first 1/3 of the tape, and the first 45 minutes or so (with no Lennon content) were later erased by other material.

As for the "Woman" video itself, Yoko combined vintage stills with the last known footage of John (taken November 26th, 1980 in Central Park, not four days before his murder) and more recent film of herself alone in front of the Dakota. Interestingly, Yoko chose to include both of the chilling photos referred to in her open letter, going so far as to dissolve from the Imagine sleeve to the December 11th, 1980 New York Post cover image of John in the morgue.

Now, let's talk about those vintage ads! If I'm not mistaken, that's a young Elisabeth Shue playing gymnast Ginny Barr in the Chewels sugarless gum spot. I also dig the ABC announcer's declaration that "nothing will stop Jaws 2".

There's a cute blooper in the Channel 7 news teaser ("If this is on, let me know. It is?"). I don't remember ever eating at Carl's Jr. (I think we were too far north in California), but I do remember shopping at Alpha Beta ("tell a friend") from time to time. I seem to recall it was the only place to get the new Yellow Series of Topps Star Wars cards when they came out!

[Now that I think of it, that makes no sense. It must have been the Wonder Bread cards I was thinking of. And I'm sure they weren't exclusive to Alpha Beta, I probably just knew some kid whose mom bought bread there and made the connection.]

The low-key soft sell of the commercial for The Competition balances out the gritty one for Fort Apache, The Bronx nicely. And it doesn't look like Savin copiers ended up conquering the business world as they'd hoped.

Finally, I'm disappointed that the tape cuts off just as Ernie Anderson is midway through plugging Charo's appearance on "The Luuuuuuuuuuuve Boat".

Feelin' Ducky

I celebrated my tenth birthday on January 30th, 1981. Two nights later, I recorded the third item on VHS tape A1, another edition of Disney's Wonderful World on NBC.

Donald Duck has always been my favorite Disney character, thanks to the brilliant stories written and drawn by Carl Barks which I had discovered in my father's comic collection. So it was no surprise that I wanted to preserve This Is Your Life, Donald Duck. The special had made its debut on ABC's Walt Disney Presents back on March 11th, 1960:

Ostensibly a parody of This Is Your Life, it was another excuse to string together unrelated Donald cartoons from the Disney archive. The first four of these ("Donald's Better Self", "Donald's Lucky Day", "Donald Gets Drafted", and "Sky Trooper") had all been released from 1938-1942, during the period when Barks worked in the animation department.

Very little of his influence is apparent in these shorts, the best of which is "Sky Trooper", pitting Private Donald against Pete, his platoon sergeant. Clarence Nash's nonchalant delivery of the line "I've waited all my life for this opportunity" as Donald boards the plane slays me. I also love "Feelin' Ducky", the catchy tune Donald sings in "Donald's Lucky Day".

The Donald shorts from the early 1950's ("Working For Peanuts", "Bee At The Beach", and "Donald's Diary") are drawn in a fussier style, lacking the charm of the earlier efforts; "Donald's Diary" is particularly stale, full of mother-in-law and anti-marriage jokes, with Daisy drawn as Doris Day for some reason.

"Working For Peanuts", co-starring Chip and Dale, was one of the first cartoons produced in 3-D, although it's not presented that way on TV. I remember seeing it in 3-D at Walt Disney World in 1993 as part of a pre-show. The "elephant shoots peanuts from her trunk" gags are dull in 2-D, but Donald gets another catchy song to squawk at Dolores (the pachyderm in question).

My father also had the Dell comics tie-in to This Is Your Life, Donald Duck, although it contained original stories unrelated to the shorts in the TV special (and no contributions from Carl Barks):

This Is Your Life, Donald Duck was repeated in 1968, 1977, and 1980. During one of the latter two airings, the final scene was partially re-animated to include a brief shot of Elliott, the title character in Disney's 1977 film Pete's Dragon. Here's a latter-day airing of the show on YouTube which mostly matches what's on my tape:

 

The above is missing a brief chunk of "Bee At The Beach" and all of the segment featuring "Mickey's Amateurs", so I've included the latter in my condensed edit of the February 2, 1981 airing. What remains are all the commercial breaks, giving us further glimpses at NBC's 1981 schedule courtesy of Casey Kasem. Is Buck insane?

Other ads tout the new Bic Roller pen, Orbit sugar-free gum, Come 'N' Get It dog food (beef... cheese... liver... chicken...), Slenderalls, the new McChicken sandwich, High Point decaffeinated coffee, and Cheer (featuring Arrow garments in it's [sic] ads).

Wunderbar!

There must not have been much of interest on TV in the three weeks following Birth Of The Beatles. The next item on tape A3 was recorded January 25, 1981, when ABC's Sunday Night Movie was 1974's Murder On The Orient Express.

I'm sure my mom was responsible for this one, and I don't recall ever watching it. With Albert Finney as Poirot and names like Bacall, Gielgud, Bergman, Redgrave, and Connery as the suspects, it looks like something I would enjoy, even though I know the ending. However, it didn't hold my interest at age 9, and by 1983 I had erased the first hour of it with From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making Of A Saga.

Here are the announcements over the closing credits, which give a flavor of the period. The US hostages had been released from Iran January 20th, just as Ronald Reagan was being inaugurated, and Superbowl XV had aired earlier that day on NBC. Local interest was high, with the Oakland Raiders winning, which meant that QB Jim Plunkett presumably got to appear alongside Joan Lunden the following morning:

 

A few days later (the 27th or 28th based on the news headline), another movie was apparently recorded on A3. All that survives is this snippet, which indicates that the film in question was 1944's On Approval, with the immortal Googie Withers. I can't imagine who would have wanted to tape this, but it would be gone two weeks later when a much better movie came on TV, with only the preceding ephemera surviving.

This 60-second remnant came to fascinate me over the years. First of all, it's from the rarely-viewed (in our household) independent channel 26, KTSF. It had been on the air less than five years at that point, and at nights became a pay-TV movie channel, Super Time (soon changed to Star TV).



The ad seen on my tape touts the channel's February lineup of films such as All That Jazz, Being There, and The Electric Horseman. If you didn't purchase the de-scrambler box (and we didn't), all you would see on the channel at night was a fuzzy black-and-white picture, with a looped audio message telling you how to subscribe.

It's also interesting to me that the news anchor, Rose Shirinian, still works at KTSF, which now caters to the Bay Area's large Asian-American population. But the thing that freaked me out the most was the first 20 seconds of this clip. What is that awful-looking pale brown mud spewing and dripping through those industrial machines? Why does it need a sophisticated bank of lights to monitor it? And more importantly, what movie or TV show would have such disgusting images over the credits?

Now that I can Google the names of the directors, I see it's a travelogue filler, possibly Germany - Wunderbar! or Switzerland - A Peak Experience!, and that they are showing us the precision needed to manufacture Bavarian chocolate or something: