"Supertrain" - 13 Week Theatre
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- Опубликовано: 24 май 2018
- All aboard! Take a wild ride back to 1979 and NBC's nuclear powered flop, "Supertrain!"
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Stop me if you've heard this one, two dwarfs and a magician walk into a Supertrain....
I actually was curious about that episode and the thought process into writing it. "No, it has to be *two* dwarves and a magician. Not one, not three... two. And, why the magician, exactly?"
Ha!!
Stop.
I love how Supertrain looks like it came from the same designer as The Big Bus' Cyclops.
You can tell how thrilled The Today Show folks are to be plugging this turkey. So much sarcasm, LOL.
They were probably kidnaps to participated to this :P
Nah, Tom's natural emotion was always set on sarcasm.
Gene Shallot, who is 3,000 miles from the set, is enthused the upcoming Supertrain. But Jack Perkins, who is right there, clearly isn't. He knew.
I watched this show with my brother who was stoned! The next day he asked me if that really happened!
Yes it did!
Getting stoned or Supertrain?
He asked me if that was really a show on TV! He knew he was stoned!
That was the best way to watch it - stoned
Manimal was great too. 🤣
"Loaded with stars...all of whom look stunned to be on Supertrain!"
6:13
I burst out laughing; I can't believe that description was real! Makes me wonder how many takes exist of the narrator cracking up while trying to read his lines.
Greatest episode synopsis ever..lol
Top 10 Anime Plots
This show proved that time travel exists, because a spoof of this show was released in 1976. The Big Bus starred Joseph Bologna and Stockard channing as the driver and designer of a nuclear powered bus. The bus even had a swimming pool.That movie must have been created by a time traveler, because it spoofs the show quite brilliantly. What I don't understand is how, once that movie was released, anyone could make this show intending it to be anything except a broad comedy.
Just found this video, and your post. I remember watching The Big Bus on CBS as a kid. I haven’t thought about it or seen anything of it in years. I remember the copilot or whatever had the nickname of “Shoulders” because he often fell asleep while driving😂😂😂 and to get the gravity shift in the bus to keep it from falling off the cliff, they filled the galley with soda by popping open all of the fountains.
Even though I lived it...70's TV never fails to crack me up. You never know what might be a hit....Sometimes you have to roll the dice.
Gene Shallit looked that way on purpose.
Criminally underrated comment. 💯
I tried to make it through a complete episode of Supertrain, and man, was it tough. The only good thing about it is that it made for a lot of good Johnny Carson humor.
Fred Silverman deserves a spin-off theater of his own.
Well, we are looking at another of his huge flops next week, at least.
Ooh, Pink Lady and Jeff? Joe's World? Walking Tall?
Oh, now, a show with two cute Japanese ladies in a hot tub every episode can't be THAT bad! Just tell Jeff to shut the heck up, and it would be SO much better.
they're just like Donny and Marie!
Him and Steven Bochco.
Boy, 1979 to about 1981 was a weird time for tv! I was pretty young, but I still remember watching these horrible shows......lol
Then there was UFO and Space 1999
Before SNOW PIERCER,
there was SUPER TRAIN.
This is how to nearly bankrupt a major TV network, kids.
Amazing that the show was able to book the "A List" TV stars of the time as guests....most of them from rival networks currently starring in hit shows.... I guess ABC and CBS didn't see Supertrain as much of a threat so they allowed their talent to appear on that show during sweeps week.
I remember watching this. It looked so promising at the time. I so wanted it to succeed even as a child. So disappointing that it didn’t catch on. Especially considering all the time, money and effort that was put into it!
It just wasn’t interesting. Was The Love Boat or Fantasy Island Masterpiece Theatre? No, but they knew how to draw in viewers thanks to the help of Aaron Spelling. If he was involved in the direction of the show, it may have had a chance. NBC and Silverman tried to put a Spelling veneer on Supertrain, and the public saw through it. They weren’t fooled.
I am loving these episodes! I’d love to see one on “Time Express” or “cliffhangers!” Haha
Keep up the excellent work.
I loved cliffhangers!!! Never got closure tho!!!
@@gaywizard2000 Here's a playlist with all the Cliffhangers episodes!
ruclips.net/p/PLuI2trzZILlvQw8H9PcspYK5cX1yARxmp
Supertrain was so awful that the local NBC affiliate in Denver, Colorado refused to broadcast the show, which is why I remember the promotion for the show, but I never saw it as a kid.
Same thing in Winnipeg/North Dakota! The Grand Forks affiliate, WDAZ, also refused to carry it, and we missed out seeing it. Usually, the popular American shows were seen by Canadians via cable TV from the regional big American city market, or by contract by being simulcast on either the CBC or CTV. Don’t think either of them picked it up.
@@vancouvertwerp Even Canadians saw that this show was pure garbage. I tried watching the premiere movie. Damn it was dull as hell. The general public wasn’t wrong on this one, but NBC was.
NBC: "We Always Fuck Everything Up"
I thought that was ABC.
The concept of Supertrain might have worked if the show were set in Europe and the train made stops in Paris, Milan, Brussels, etc. I don't think the show ever stopped in any US cities and even if it did there really aren't many interesting things to see in most of the inland Continental USA. Maybe they could have done something around the Rockies or the Grand Canyon.
Hmm...this show had Robert Alda playing the train's doctor, while his son Alan was playing TV's most famous doctor of the day, Hawkeye on M*A*S*H. What a coincidence! LOL j/k
I did not know they were an acting family, oh god!
I like how thoroughly they wipe the inside of those windows! Haha
I think I watched every episode broadcasted, but all I can very vaguely remember about this show is the episode featuring Three's Company's Joyce DeWitt.
I remember another turkey from NBC around this time called "Manimal", Fred Silverman was a genius, 😂
I'm surprised no one has made a documentary film about Supertrain, since it's the flop that almost bankrupted a network. It would be a great fit for Netflix or HBO Max.
A train with a pool. Yeah... that's stretching things quite a bit.
Supertrain's theme song was very similar to that of a game show around that time called "Chain Reaction"
I think they retooled the Supertrain theme to make it Chain Reaction
Merry Christmas 2020 A.D., and A Happy New Year 2021 A.D. Hi from GBW, Go Packers!!!! A model train set up under the tree was the Dream Toy of any red blooded American Boy in the 1950's, but this Super Train model was built to 1:8th scale at 1&1/2" equals 1', and the track alone is 30" inches wide. Plus they were built by the well known Railroad Supply Corporation in Burbank literally down the street from NBC, and RRSC has years of experience in building large scale trains used for movie train wrecks. I have an older copy of a Railroad Modeler magazine, with photos of behind the scenes when the two(2) different scale models were built with the very Large 1:8 scale filmed outdoors. Then the smaller 1:16 scale was filmed indoors on sets for departing Grand Central in N.Y., and the High Trestle in the mountains, and night scenes. Contact me on Gmail, I will send you some copies if you send me a large manilla envelope S.A.S.E. Highball, Super train !! !!-!.
4:48 Dong? Where is my train?
I was wondering where I remembered him from! 🤪😜
Ah yes. This is back in the day when NBC tried to improve its image with a new logo (the trapezoid N), which turned out to already be trademarked by a local PBS station in the middle of nowhere...
I loves this show!!!
Heard of it, only saw a few seconds when I was channel surfing. That said, if they could build a train like this in real life, I would definitely ride it as opposed to flying (airports are a royal pain nowadays).
You should’ve mentioned that this was not only a flop, it was a notorious flop. Johnny Carson and other late night talk show hosts were ripping on the show for years after it went off the air as an example of an expensive embarrassing failed television show
Television’s Heaven’s Gate.
Johnny Carson joked NBC was going to put on a show called Super Plane
It was mentioned multiple times, and that the network almost went bankrupt. Did you even watch this?
LOL, you reminded me of the 'Olympic triple-cast package" in 1992. Letterman made so much fun of that, it was great.
Supertrain sounds like a spinoff of Soul Train, and I could imagine people dancing on the Soul Train line on an actual train.
I can't believe they thought this was a good idea. I do think the models were great though.
a swimming pool on a train? how would that even work?!?
The model work is certainly nice. I don't recall this ever broadcasting in New Zealand although I don't know if I would have watched it if it were.
The BBC paid NBC a fortune for it to be broadcast in the UK, but after Supertrain failed in the USA, the BBC didn't air the show.
It is sad that this failed i mean the set design alone deserves praise
I watched as much of this show as they put on TV.
Holy flop, Batman! $5,000,000 in 1978 would amount to about $24,000,000 in 2024, YIKES!
Peter Dragon in Action once said, the first cardinal of entertainment is, never bank roll your own project. Only if Peter went back in time and told this to Fred Silverman.
Australia's Network Ten (in Sydney at least) bankrolled Arcade, a 1980 soap opera set in a shopping arcade, hence the title. Normally they would outsource these productions to companies like Grundy Television.
The Ten station in Sydney spent over a million dollars on creating the arcade set. Unfortunately the show massively flopped - flopped so badly it increased the audience shares of The Sullivans and Willesee at Seven, which it aired against, as well as being beaten by the 7pm ABC news bulletin, which was usually last rated in the timeslot.
It was pulled off air after 6 weeks, and any remaining episodes were never aired. The set was dismantled and Ten offered them as free firewood for barbecues.
Don't think no one attempted an in house soap opera in Australia again until Seven launched Home and Away. Even then, that was a risk at the time.
My new band name...
NUCLEAR POWERED DISCO!!!
I just love the late 70ies early 80ies in tv.
‘Two dwarves and a magician…” GET ME BILLY BARTY!
As I recall from around that time, NBC only had 2 top 20 shows: "Little House on the Prairie" and "Different Strokes" . Those shows were not the glamourous media sensations Silverman was looking for.
Apparently, Brandon Tartikoff had asked the billion dollar question no one else wanted to ask: "Why would anyone spend two days going cross-country on a train when you can fly to New York in five hours?" Guess no one had an answer to the question.
I wonder if the model still exists.
It does, I was just reading an article about it being found in an old storage building. Apparently , its to be restored.
One of the models (3/4" to 1') still exists.
ruclips.net/video/iHlM30nFT5A/видео.htmlfbclid=IwAR2v0Oh8MJKEQCdx1W_C3Xqs94P3DphjaFeMpmKDG-6Tmq-QMQqMbBP0-7w
Amtrak's still trying to answer that same question in 2021. The answer seems to be the same as NBC's in 1979: just keep plowing more [taxpayer] money into it...
Well... I recently flew five hours across the country to ride a couple of days on a train, lol
@@charleybarley939 Pretty much every large country in the world thinks trains are a good idea, and is prepared to pay for them. Why is North America so different?
I could not believe that they made Supertrain this after "The Big Bus" movie: a nuclear-powered articulating bus that was offering non-stop service between NYC and Denver.
I don’t remember this show at all, but it looks like I didn’t miss much.
You know those scale-model train gatherings that have real-steam locomotives that pull tenders & cars that people can ride on? Imagine showing-up to one with the large-scale Supertrain model pictured at the end of this documentary... then straddling it as you grab a pair of grips, like a crotch rocket, and race-off down the rails! ;)
There's a video on RUclips where the model has been found in 2018 on the carandtrain channel. So the model does still exist and is in reasonably good condition.
I remember this show. Never knew it was supposed to be Love Boat on rails.
Very entertaining!
At 4:49 Does he say Supertrain is ready to defart? 😂😂
It's the ego behind the concept and the stupid plots that really killed it.
This would have made it 6 years earlier maybe. But by '79 things weren't as square as they'd been. SNL had been on the air since around '75 - '76.
For five years in the 1970's, my family was a member of the "Nielsen Family" t.v. ratings service. After seeing
how television shows had declined, especially on NBC & watching the first episode of "Supertrain" I wrote
that channel's President to complain! He must have already been in a bad mood, because he called "Nielsen"
& had my family "kicked off"the service! I guess losing 6 million dollars on this "turkey" was the last straw!
Gene shalits hair could be used as a bowl brush
Very interesting. The show was moved from Wednesday night to Saturday night, not Sunday night. I think it was on against FANTASY ISLAND, which couldn't have helped its ratings.
I guess "Doc" was lost trying to get back to the Love Boat.
It went initially up against Eight is Enough.
@@jamesklatt Wow that is stiff competition there. [eye roll]
I was 11 years old when this premiered and I don't remember it at all.
This show was shit, but the concept of a train like this was devised in Germany in the 1930's, and the idea could still be ( _possibily_ ) built, albeit with either water based hydrogen fuel cells or overhead electric power from canteneries.
Yes the Breitspur Bahn! Actually GE did come up with the atom powered train… using small reactor and water condensing tender… the concept of the mini reactor was proven by the air force carrying one in a B 36
It's a wonder Teddy Wilson didn't get to feature this train on 'Mighty Trains'.
Or better still, Chris Tarrant ...
I think you should do an episode on the Coy and Vance episodes of The Dukes Of Hazzard!
Tempting. It would be in line with the “Saturday Night Live ‘80” episode. Maybe as a Patreon exclusive.
I remember one episode of SUPERTRAIN where Dick Van Dyke played the first SERIOUS (NON-COMEDIC) role I ever saw him play. And, I think he was a SERIAL KILLER or something!!
It wouldn't be his first. He was in a notable Columbo episode in 1974
Should have been a starship.
Wow, TODAY back in the 1970s sounded a little like Sesame Street. With Tom Brokaw.
Ten minutes into the first episode, your mind will just start wandering elsewhere...
It made people lose their super train of thought
Bernie Kopell. On a show that took pains to echo Love Boat - they guested - for their retool - one of the vets. I half-pray/half-wish against the idea that he must have made a pun. Maybe, if Heaven looked down, it was at least a Siegfried pun and not a Doc one.
NBC: We got rid of Pink Lady and Jeff for THIS?!?
Or got rid of Supertrain for Pink Lady?
What a fantastic cheesefest! The mind boggles at the amount of drugs required to think a train could convey excitement and drama in the 8th decade of the 20th Century. Too bad Mr. Silverman didn't solicit opinions from Jack Perkins, the stalwart NBC reporter. Great work assembling this turd on wheels, Pab!
A nuclear powered train in a country that won't even allow high speed rail to be built because the oil, airline, and automotive industries would take a major hit.
the this sounds like some thing gerry anderson whould make just with out some sort of spy theme
Supertrain was no Wagon Train.
even discounting the constant sloshing, how do you possibly get a swimming pool more than a foot deep in a train?
I watched it. I’m now 58. It was beyond horrible but it was on NBC, after all.
Silverman actually green-lit several huge hit shows for NBC...all of which premiered or became popular only after he'd been fired, as NBC went on to dominate the eighties.
His relationship with NBC has a sort-of-happy ending: the production deal he was given as part of his severance package resulted in "Matlock."
I remember seeing one episode. It didn't seem that bad. How ironic that they got Bernie Kopell, a star of The Love Boat, to do an episode! Even back then I often read the articles in TV Guide. Fred Silverman ended up cancelling every show NBC introduced that fall. Others were: The Waverly Wonders with Joe Namath, Lifeline, Who's Watching the Kids, and Grandpa Goes to Washington.
SNL did a sketch about Silverman secretly still working for ABC. Some of his choices suggest that. No wonder Gary Coleman was referred to as the kid who saved NBC. Ironically, Different Strokes ended its run on ABC. Grant Tinker would later veto a SNL sketch about Silverman. Eddie Murphy was supposed to play Gary Coleman. When will we get a network just for these flops? Yes, many of them are still embarrassing. But those involved might appreciate some residuals. Hopefully they'd get some.
Bernie's best gig was in Get Smart ....
🤔 Bigger inside than outside? So the train was built with TARDIS technology?...
Yes, Family Guy fans, the "Americans All Look Alike" guy was a real guy, and his name was Gene Shalit (looking rather extreme here - man that 'fro was huge). Amazing to remember what a large and well-liked personality he was - co-anchoring the "Today" show? Wow. Oh yeah, and there was that stupid train show. Perkins and Shalit both seemed skeptical in this footage.
I thought "Supertrain" was okay. I liked that it was "The Love Boat" if the passengers were trying to kill each other. It's funny, because "The Love Boat" did wonders for the cruise ship industry, but since there was no bullet train industry in the US, the producers didn't have to be concerned with all the criminal activity that took place on the train.
5:25 the narrator predicts the future!
This TV flop was based on a movies which had the same premise of a super train that was suppose to be a disaster spoof but turned out to also be a flop. I can't really remember the name of the movie but it had Lynn Redgrave in it.
no, you're incorrect. "the big bus" was a movie about an atomic powered bus.
@@cornjobb I guess so but it was similar.
What the hell was the deal with film stock in the 70s?
I never watched this, I had a clue from the commercials...
But there was a more successful Love Boat counterpart! "Hotel"! The Love Boat on land! Haha!
Oh I can’t believe they blocked Pink Lady and Jeff! Can you take requests?
Visit the show's Facebook page. And you'll find a pleasant surprise there, too.
Tom Brokaw: I HOPE IT DOESN'T JUMP THE TRACKS.
Oh, Tom. Oh, Tom Tom Tom Toooooooom.
I saw part of one episode. That was enough.
I watched the show, but I only remember the first two episodes. The first one was so bad And boring because they spent the first hour setting up the premise. The second one had one story that was pretty good. It had Dick Van Dyke playing a “disturbed” man who was going to repay a man’s act of kindness by killing the guy’s estranged wife. The episode had Van Dyke and the woman in 2-3 situations where you wonder if he would do it. The husband wasn’t on the train but it had scenes where he was trying to catch up to it to stop Van Dyke.
Do you remember a movie called The Love Bus?
I mean The Big Bus lol.
The bus had a bowling alley.
@@nickhill8612 That was a movie?! 😳
What became of the incredibly expensive models and sets?
The 3/4" model was found, intact, in a warehouse a few years back.
The Larger scale model at 1&1/2=1' , was badly damaged when it ran of the end of the unloading ramp at the Outdoor shooting set; the streamline loco and 2 ciaches were shattered!!!
After these scenes had only the replacement loco pulling 6 cars. The builders Used parts from the RAILROAD SUPPLY CORPORATION in Burbank and close to Griffith Park with the L.A. Live Steamers Club that used a few of the smaller live steamers like the 3/4" scales of the 4-6-2 Pacific and caboose and freight cars in the switchyard used in the indoor studio shots of New York and the departure from "GRAND CENTRAL STATION!!('40S RADIO).
However the small studio model only ever had the loco and s coaches; and used for scenes at The Grand Central N.Y. Departure. And the oil refinery. And the long steel trestle in the mountains that were just a painted backdrop. There were photos is the formerly printed "RAILROAD MODELER" magazine. Plus ➕ there was a magazine for sci-fi with color photos of the large model but I lost that copy when I moved in 2015.
MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎅 🎄 🤶🧑🎄👼 2025 A.D.!!!!! AND:
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024 A.D.!!!!!
GOD BLESS US, EVERYONE!!!!!
OK.FRI.DEC.22.2023A.D.
@@stevensolway1054 Thank you for the explanation.
Even if this show succeeded, it’s heavy disco theme would have killed it with the 80s around the corner.
How many times are they going to tell us it was…expensive? 😂
RIP to Fred Silverman.
$6 million bucks for a show is now pretty much chump change these days.
$24 m in 2022 dollars
Supertrain? Maybe it should have been a crime fighting transformer. At least the toy licensing would've helped them break even.
Looking for a Love American Style/Love Boat style venue for 'celebrity' cameos? Why not Love Blimp?
Was Danny DeVito's "The Ratings Game" inspired by the Silverman era?
To put it simply, Fred Silverman wanted to replicate the success of "THE LOVE BOAT", which he nurtured on ABC.
It just didn't work for him on NBC.
Being a fan of “Herbie Rides Again” I like to imagine this show is just Alonso Hawk after his mental breakdown in that movie suffering a midlife crisis and blowing all his money on an oversized supertrain set 🤣
So, they had a hi-tech train and no sci-fi premise to go with it?
2:19
Call me weird but I liked the show and watched all the episodes.
At least the Love Boat was based on cruise ships that actually exist in real life -- but there's no such thing a jumbo-sized train like that one. And nuclear-powered? That makes it sound like The Big Bus: ruclips.net/video/hj8agXYwC2o/видео.html
Wow. I thought this was going to be some sci fi show but "love boat on rails" just made no sense lol