I remembered it, but mostly because of an old MST3K episode where I believe Joel mentioned it, and here I am, talking about it with my gf and coworkers.
Silverman's bungling was so devastating that each NBC affiliate had to lay off a few employees to survive the loss of revenue. I was a college student and I had interviewed for a clerking job with the NBC station in my home city. I missed out on it, but shortly the winner was Fred-ed out of the job. When I was passed over for the position, I changed my major from political science to journalism, and that worked out beautifully for me. I got an earlier start on a very successful writing career. So, no hard feelings, Fred.
Ironically, several shows Fred Silverman green-lighted became hits for NBC *after* he was fired, including "Hill Street Blues" and "Cheers." He got a production deal on his way out the door, which resulted in another major piece of the NBC eighties renaissance: "Matlock."
I think you've got a hit with these 13 week theater videos, good work! You're showing us an important part of TV history! Subbed! (ohh, I'm your 700th sub!)
“Kiss in the Dark” wasn’t a top 10 hit. It peaked at No. 37 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1979. To this day, Pink Lady and Kyu Sakamoto of 1963’s “Sukiyaki” fame are the ONLY two acts from Japan to have a song make the Top 40 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
@@David-yw2lv Tartikoff was the president of NBC Entertainment when the Limo for a Lame-o sketch happened around 1980 (Tartikoff was promoted to president of NBC Entertainment (replacing Myron Weinblatt who replaced Paul Klein in 1978) under Robert Mulholland, president of NBC-TV by Fred Silverman in January 1980, Limo for a Lame-o was in May 1980, it was 115 days and 4 months apart)
I remember when this came out; even back then we were all thinking, "WTF?" and "Who?" I didn't know they didn't know any English. Considering they barely had time to practice their lines, their comedic timing was impressive.
I just discovered your videos with 13-week theater stuff is really really good thank you for the great research on a bunch of shows that nobody ever watched actually pretty amazing
It's a shame this show became the final nail to the coffin of Pink Lady's golden era. Shortly after the show's cancellation, as well as faltering album sales in Japan, Mie and Kei announced their breakup, and they performed their final concert in 1981. Since then, Pink Lady has reunited numerous times and continues to influence the Japanese music industry.
I remember I watched a handful of eps, and it seemed like, in every one, they made it a point to show clips of the huge crowds they'd play to in Japan - as if they were trying to convince the US audiences to do the sam. Like, "See? These girls are big stars! That should convince you to watch this show!". America didn't bite.
An NBC executive tried to tell Silverman at the time, "Fred, the variety show is dead." "I'LL tell you how long the variety show is dead!!!", Silverman sputtered. "How long?", the executive said softly. "It's dead until the next hit variety show is on the air!!", Fred insisted. He finally DID schedule a successful variety show {also produced by the Kroffts}: "BARBARA MANDRELL AND THE MANDRELL SISTERS", which premiered in the fall of 1980. It outlasted him at NBC by one season. It would have been on longer, but Barbara had to withdraw to take a breather from doing the show and touring with her sisters.
I think people forget what made me watch this show every week. Forget the fact that the girls couldn't speak English, they were gorgeous! There weren't a lot of attractive Asian actresses on American TV at the time. Sure I watched every week. I didn't care how bad it was or how terribly the girls delivered their lines, seeing them in little bikinis at the end of each episode was enough to keep this teenaged (at the time) boy coming back.
What they SHOULD have done was have those two Japanese young ladies ride the Super Train as the Out of the Blue angel tries to rescue the blonde ghost from ‘Jennifer slept here’
1:40-1:45 "Kiss In The Dark" actually peaked at Number 37 on The Billboard Hot 100 in July of 1979. The very next week...... It dropped 58 spots to number 95. This was the beginning of the end of the disco era 😢
The episode which included a Cheap Trick video was the best segment on the show. Ironically, Cheap Trick were the biggest American act in Japan at the time.
I remember my friend and I tuned in specifically bc they promoted the episode as having "guests Cheap Trick". Felt like we'd been had when it was only a video, was hoping to see them "live" - or, better yet, having to interact with PL & J 😄
Fred Silverman wanted "big name guest stars" on the show- but found it difficult finding them on short notice, since he literally threw the series on the air in March 1980. In the case of Cheap Trick, the producers had to resort to a concert or "music video" performance in lieu of a "live" in person appearance.
As a resident of Japan for the last 30 years I'm here to tell you that practically NO ONE in Japan has any idea that Pink Lady had a show in the USA. I've showed a few episodes to quite a few Japanese people over the years and most of them were appalled that the girls did the hot tub bit every week. Sid Kroft in an interview said that he still kept in touch with both girls...but it makes you wonder since neither speak English. I've read one article in Japanese years ago (translated) that both girls acknowledged they did a show in the USA and they were aware it was not successful. They also said that they had been talked into doing things they didnt really want to do.
Thank you for this. I've often wondered what, if anything, Japanese audiences knew about "Pink Lady and Jeff." The girls seemed so uncomfortable to me whenever they weren't singing and dancing, and I am not surprised to hear them claim to have been forced into doing things they didn't want. Pink Lady were (and still are) very talented performers and it's not fair to lay the failure of the show at their feet. The show was misguided, mishandled, and misbegotten, none of which were Pink Lady's fault.
@@PabSungenis I agree. I will say that the translation from Japanese doesn't really say "forced"...but the language is a bit vague and does imply a sense of "not happy about doing things". My guess is that they really had no idea about what was going on..at least in any depth and detail. I don't think Pink Lady's management team/boss had that much knowledge either. They just wanted the girls to be famous..whatever it took. You almost never hear anything about Pink Lady these days.
This series of yours is EVERYTHING, it’s just right up my alley and I’m so glad I stumbled upon it!!! One tiny note: NBC mispronounced Mie’s name. It’s not “mee”, but rather “mee-ay”. That is only the tip of the iceberg of course, but it bugs me anyway. Mee-AY.
I once saw Jeff Altman at the Soup Plantation off Ventura Blvd with a beer on his tray. He did not look happy. Hence, I did not ask him to do his Bob Hope impression, one of the best.
NBC under Fred Silverman had many shows dropping like flies; Pink Lady and Jeff was no doubt the final straw for WSB-TV here in Atlanta that they asked then-ABC station WXIA, “How about you and I trade networks?”…which they did on Labor Day weekend.
Jeff Altman said on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast that one night this show aired opposite a Dukes of Hazzard episode he guest-starred on, so he was competing against himself on prime-time television.
thats funny ya jeff is my cousin not to many people know about our family so my grandfather and jeffs dad were brothers and they had another brother who is my great uncle his name is al altman and he was the talent scout for mgm and worked side by side with louie b mayer his first discovery was joan crawford. and bob hope jimmy stewart ava gardner. its crazy i mean its wierd because im like a total nobody.. but my grandfathers brother literally discovering the most famous actors of all time is crazy cool. but yet i am literally like nobody ha it sucks the only thing i can do is tell the story.. i mean my mom would have sunday dinners with al and jeff and everyone and she thought nothing of it at the time
THIS was a total disaster. Fred Silverman should have been banned from network TV after these ridiculous flops he created. I remember when this premiered -- NOBODY knew who the hell Pink Lady was...and that Jeff guy was just an UNFUNNY dweeb!!
Pink Lady was wildly popular in Japan but sadly it was hard for them to catch on in America but their song "Kiss In The Dark" became popular. Its a shame. The girls were so talented.
PINK LADY premiered Saturday (not Friday) Mar. 1, 1980, but the episodes from then on aired on Friday nights, starting on Friday, Mar. 14. I remember seeing the Mar. 14 episode that included Larry Hagman, and I also recall seeing Sid Caesar on this show once or twice.
Caesar was on three times- thanks to Rudy DeLuca, who was the show's "comedy supervisor". Here's his recollections on how he saved a comedy sketch during his first appearance (on episode #2), from his autobiography "Where Have I Been?": **"This show was another of Fred Silverman's big mistakes, but once again {as in "THE BIG SHOW" at the time} it gave me a chance to get back into action and exercise my long-unused creativity. It was like going to a gym for my mind. "Pink Lady was the name of a singing team of two very pretty Japanese young ladies. The problem was that though they sang in English (apparnetly, they had learned the words phonetically), they spoke only Japanese.They needed an interpreter just to say 'hello' to me when I showed up. Rudy DeLuca, the {comedy supervisor}, was frantic. He said to me, 'We've got to come up with comedy skits for these girls. They just can't sing for the whole show. How the fuck can we do skits when they don't speak English? Apparently, Silverman thought that they could learn the words of the skits like they learned the words of the songs. But who's got the time to do that? And what about their reactions, their timing, when they don't know what the fuck they're saying?' He was so mad, he was ready to quit. "I knew Rudy from when he was one of Mel Brooks' comedy writers, and I calmed him down. I said, 'Leave it to me.' "He said, 'How can I leave it to you when we have here one of the world's greatest examples of failure to comunicate??' "I said, 'Cool it, Rudy. What we'll do here is the Jewish-father jokes, but the father will be Japanese and so will his two daughters.' "He said, 'But you don't speak Japanese, and neither does our audience!' "I said, 'You never heard Japanese double-talk? Who will know? And I'll throw in enough Kabuki technique so the girls will get the drift of what I'm saying and they'll follow along."**
@@michaelrochester48 Maybe not Eddie Murphy or Chris Farley, but Adam Sandler was a key figure emerging from the stand-up comedy boom in the 80s along with David Spade, Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Gilbert Gottfried's act with the new voice, and other heavies. He might have caught on anyway.
SNL got another quieter dig in that same season: When they cut to commercial in those days, they would post some mocking 'coming next' promo ala 'Coming Up: Black and White in 3-D' as opposed to 'Black and White In Color' and like that. One of those blink and miss it promos was: "Coming Up : Pink Lady and Floyd". Sad part being, whatever mutation resulted from that would have been parsecs above the actual show. Just because.
However, in all print advertising promoting the series, Silverman insisted it be billed as *"PINK LADY AND JEFF"* (shades of 'TONY ORLANDO AND DAWN"). It was almost an obsession with him to include the names of the stars in most of the programs he scheduled at the networks he worked at, in order to better promote them; for example, "STOP THAT PIGEON!", on CBS, had its working title altered to "DASTARDLY & MUTTLEY IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES" on Silverman's insistence; another was changing "THE FORCE" to "EISCHIED" before its Fall 1979 premiere.
Have you thought about reviewing ME AND THE CHIMP? It was a mid-season flop on CBS, starting in Jan. 1972, where Ted Bessell, just off of THAT GIRL, co-starred w/ a pet chimp.
Fred Silverman really wanted that show to succeed. CBS executive John Schneider recalled, "Fred thought the show was great. He thought the animal and the kids made it a perfect eight o'clock show". Unfortunately, he scheduled it opposite the first half-hour of NBC's "FLIP WILSON SHOW", which already attracted a large number of viewers. What was left wasn't enough to keep "ME AND THE CHMIP' on the air beyond 13 episodes.
@@fromthesidelines Ted Bessell forgot about 2 rules for actors. Never work with kids or animals. He had to do both there. Good point about how ME AND THE CHIMP was scheduled against Flip Wilson, as Kami Cotler went the next season into THE WALTONS (She'd already appeared in the pilot movie "The Homecoming"), the show which likely had a lot to do with Flip's show ending in a couple years. I watched the pilot for MatC here on YT, and it was so dull (or I was so tired) that I fell asleep while watching it.
I remember watching this when it was on back in the day, I liked it but then again I was only 7 so my tastes are different. I think like they said the variety show format was kind of tired by then, and maybe the combo of that with what we would consider j-pop these days which maybe we weren't ready for sealed the deal so to speak
What on earth was Fred Silverman thinking when he came up with THIS!!! NBC had to have been desperate. Remember this is the same executive who cancelled all the game shows on NBC in the early 80's.
What was Silverman thinking when he scheduled those god-awful "Legend of the Superheroes" live-action specials in January 1979? What worked for him on CBS' Saturday morning schedule in the 1960's just *didn't* in prime-time in the late 1970's.
He almost killed "THE TOMORROW SHOW" too, insisting Rona Barrett act as co-host with Tom Snyder in 1980 (as "TOMORROW COAST-TO-COAST"). Tom did *not* like working with her, and let the network know about it. Rona finally departed, but it was too late to save the series; "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN" replaced Snyder in February 1982.
@@jamesklatt Silverman did greenlight some of the shows which turned around NBC after he was fired, like Hill Street Blues. And he got a production deal with resulted in Matlock!
A new SNL case could have worked. A Brady Bunch update/spinoff could have worked. Heck, even a show about an atomic powered supertrain could have worked. (The concept was no dumber than anything else on TV in 1979.) There is absolutely no way this could have worked. Not as a regular series, at least. The Starland Vocal Band had a *number one* hit and their variety show flopped. Pink Lady's only US hit peaked at #37.
I'm surprised they didn't resurrect the pool from the Brady Bunch Variety Hour vs. just having a Hot Tub. Actually, the synchronized swimmers would have made more sense on this show.
I was twenty years old then and when I heard about the show before it premiered I knew it was going to be a bomb of atomic proportions. Comedians who were cutting edge at the time were the original snl cast, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, robert Klein and Richard belzer and maybe David Brenner. Jeff Altman was a minor league talent compared to these A listers. He was the antithesis of cool.Variety shows just weren't popular with people in the crucial 18-49 yr old demographic. Even the Carol burnett show was showing its age then. Plus Fred Silverman was the "genius " behind Supertrain - another piece of expensive dreck. Pink lady was destined for the scrap heap.
Actually, it started before that. And largely thanks to Sherwood Schwartz who created the Brady Bunch. The idea is to avoid otherwise wasting screen time for the exposition of what the show is about, so he just put it in the theme song. It was actually very efficient. After over fifty years a lot of people worldwide can still sing the Brady Bunch theme song.
I remember when this was on. I had heard at the time that they brought Jeff Altman in when they found out that the girls didn't speak English, although that's not what I've heard in recent talks about this awful show. Yes, it was awful. It was very clear that nobody knew what they were doing with this.
i saw him way back doing standup. he was funny but don't remember him being at a robin williams level. on the other hand, i did think he was handsome, something standups don't achieve often
Finally found my old comment: I wrote Mark Evanier (pronounced "Evan-EAR") the other night, and he confirmed the next morning that Jeff "didn't speak a word of Japanese". Nice guy, great writer.
This show was crap, but I remember watching all five episodes because my 16-year old brain thought that these were the most stunningly beautiful women on the face of the Earth.
I made it through the first half of the first episode before I couldn’t stomach any more. Even awful shows- a guilty pleasure of mine- I usually watch a full episode
I been watching SNL starting with Season 1, and all the little documentaries. Al Franken mouthing off got him fired and seriously hurt his career until long after Silverman departed. And Jean Demenouin ruined SNL too.
i remember this dumb show being promo-ed when i was a teen but I never wasted my time on it...This had to be the all time stupidest show on American network television. This is not the only stupid thing Silverman did (or was told to do...) see this from wikipedia: "Silverman orchestrated the "rural purge" of 1971, which eventually eliminated many popular country-oriented shows, such as Green Acres, Mayberry R.F.D., Hee Haw, and The Beverly Hillbillies (all HITS) from the CBS schedule."
Silverman was merely a programmer. It was CBS president Robert Wood who started to purge all "rural-based" programming on CBS over a two-year period. Mike Dann was in charge of programming until he departed in July 1970; Silverman replaced him. Dann didn't like "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW", and tried to bury it on early Tuesday evenings at 8pm(et)....but Fred Silverman shuffled most of Dann's programming decisions for the Fall 1970 schedule, and placed Mary on Saturday nights instead. It survived, thanks to additional support from "ALL IN THE FAMILY" in early 1971.
And replaced them with the Norman Lear and MTM sitcoms and M*A*SH which were bigger hits. I think that even though Beverly Hillbillies was cancelled, Buddy Ebsen was still under contract and that's how Barnaby Jones came about.
Seems like wherever Fred Silverman ends up, their network goes to shit. Especially CBS in the 90s because their demographics were middle-aged or elderly.
Silverman did really well at CBS and then ABC in the seventies. And he had success as a producer (Matlock, In The Heat of the Night) in the late eighties. But his NBC tenure was such a disaster, it overshadows everything else he ever did. I don't think he had any involvement with CBS in the nineties. Every TV network went through slump periods at the time (NBC in the seventies, ABC in the eighties).
He was immensely successful at CBS, with the rural purge and bringing in the Norman Lear and MTM shows as well as M*A*S*H. Those shows gave CBS several top 10 long lasting shows. I think the only reason that Sanford and Son ended up at NBC vs CBS during that time, was that with so many successful shows running, they literally didn't have room for it in the schedule. At ABC, he essentially brought in Aaron Spelling with a boatload of successful shows that took a late bloomer network that hadn't been around nearly as long as CBS or NBC from an outlier to #1. However, I don't think his ABC shows had the staying power and critical acclaim that his CBS shows did. I'm not sure if Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley were his. Given that history, it is amazing how bad he flopped at NBC. He must have been out of ideas and not ready for the generational shift that was occurring.
The low point of Television was this, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and The Stars Wars Holiday Special all occurred from 1976 - 1980. Two out of three had the Krofft Brothers in common. I can't help but wonder if there were any other crossover people that were also involved.
I'm not one obsessed with race but this show was pretty racially insensitive. Pink Lady was huge in Japan and the music they made for Japanese audiences was really good. The stuff they made for that show really stunk. It seems like most artists who sing in another language are treated like novelties over here. Except maybe Rammstein. They just scary.
A perfect match.Jeff Altman was a totally unfunny comedian,Pink Lady were singers who could not sing.I hope someday variety shows make a comeback.Maybe some improv veteran could make it happen.
@@David-yw2lv ok cool. You seem like an expert, so I am sure your singing and the records you produce are much much better than Pink Lady ever was. Is that your point?
“Pink Lady and Jeff”, Sid and Marty Krofft’s lacklusting primetime variety show, was a massive failure from start to finish. The show’s ratings were an utterly disaster and the viewers were not happy at all. NBC execs decided to take matters into their own hands by pulling the plug on “Pink Lady and Jeff” after only 5 episodes and the late Fred Silverman had the last laugh. Following the cancellation of “Pink Lady and Jeff”, actor and comedian Jeff Altman did not deserve to perform with Japanese women anymore.
In college in the early 90s I had a friend who was a Japanese exchange student. He was SURPRISED that anyone in America had even heard of Pink Lady!
I remembered it, but mostly because of an old MST3K episode where I believe Joel mentioned it, and here I am, talking about it with my gf and coworkers.
Silverman's bungling was so devastating that each NBC affiliate had to lay off a few employees to survive the loss of revenue. I was a college student and I had interviewed for a clerking job with the NBC station in my home city. I missed out on it, but shortly the winner was Fred-ed out of the job. When I was passed over for the position, I changed my major from political science to journalism, and that worked out beautifully for me. I got an earlier start on a very successful writing career. So, no hard feelings, Fred.
Ironically, several shows Fred Silverman green-lighted became hits for NBC *after* he was fired, including "Hill Street Blues" and "Cheers."
He got a production deal on his way out the door, which resulted in another major piece of the NBC eighties renaissance: "Matlock."
Silverman was the peter principal at that job. He was a programmer, not a president. And everything he touched at NBC was a real turkey.
@@Dave-ti2ue Never thinking of asking, "Can we pull this off if these two performers don't speak English?" takes the cake.
As President of NBC,he produced more lemons than all the citrus farms in Florida and California combined.
I think you've got a hit with these 13 week theater videos, good work! You're showing us an important part of TV history! Subbed! (ohh, I'm your 700th sub!)
“Kiss in the Dark” wasn’t a top 10 hit. It peaked at No. 37 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1979. To this day, Pink Lady and Kyu Sakamoto of 1963’s “Sukiyaki” fame are the ONLY two acts from Japan to have a song make the Top 40 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
I stand corrected.
Those jackasses were on the Top 100 over Puffy Yami Yumi and X Japan - Americans can be quite dumb sometimes.
Kyu Sakamoto's recording of 'Sukiyaki' is a classic.
Another partial one: DJ Towa Tei from NYC-based Dee-Lite ("Groove Is In The Heart") was from Japan.
I'm five years late, but I was going to point this out as well. AT40 junkie here.
I watched this when it first aired! I loved the variety shows then. The sets, dancing, music, comedy.
So YOU are the one! Why? It's frickin awful.
I became a lifelong Pinku Reddi fan because of this silly little show!! Mei and Kei are incredible!!!
Mad Magazine had fun with the cancellations in the Quincy spoof
Their "Family Feud" spoof had many jokes about NBC's ratings and financial problems, including the host trying to sell the TV cameras during the show.
I remember watching this show when I was a kid
What's interesting is that Brandon Tartikoff was in the SNL audience the night they did Limo for a Lame-o and laughed out loud at it as well.
He turned the network around.
@@David-yw2lv Tartikoff was the president of NBC Entertainment when the Limo for a Lame-o sketch happened around 1980 (Tartikoff was promoted to president of NBC Entertainment (replacing Myron Weinblatt who replaced Paul Klein in 1978) under Robert Mulholland, president of NBC-TV by Fred Silverman in January 1980, Limo for a Lame-o was in May 1980, it was 115 days and 4 months apart)
this came out on DVD and i bought it it is great.
I remember when this came out; even back then we were all thinking, "WTF?" and "Who?" I didn't know they didn't know any English. Considering they barely had time to practice their lines, their comedic timing was impressive.
Not to be confused with The Who.
I just discovered your videos with 13-week theater stuff is really really good thank you for the great research on a bunch of shows that nobody ever watched actually pretty amazing
Always a good idea not to be tempted by a shapely form when there is a communication barrier!
It's a shame this show became the final nail to the coffin of Pink Lady's golden era. Shortly after the show's cancellation, as well as faltering album sales in Japan, Mie and Kei announced their breakup, and they performed their final concert in 1981.
Since then, Pink Lady has reunited numerous times and continues to influence the Japanese music industry.
The kroffts the same duo who brought us the brady bunch variety show
I remember I watched a handful of eps, and it seemed like, in every one, they made it a point to show clips of the huge crowds they'd play to in Japan - as if they were trying to convince the US audiences to do the sam. Like, "See? These girls are big stars! That should convince you to watch this show!". America didn't bite.
An NBC executive tried to tell Silverman at the time, "Fred, the variety show is dead."
"I'LL tell you how long the variety show is dead!!!", Silverman sputtered.
"How long?", the executive said softly.
"It's dead until the next hit variety show is on the air!!", Fred insisted.
He finally DID schedule a successful variety show {also produced by the Kroffts}: "BARBARA MANDRELL AND THE MANDRELL SISTERS", which premiered in the fall of 1980. It outlasted him at NBC by one season. It would have been on longer, but Barbara had to withdraw to take a breather from doing the show and touring with her sisters.
I think Jim Varney, Ernest from the movies, started his career with this TV show
He was previously a cast member of "OPERATION: PETTICOAT" (1977-'79), as "Seaman Broom", on ABC.
I think people forget what made me watch this show every week. Forget the fact that the girls couldn't speak English, they were gorgeous! There weren't a lot of attractive Asian actresses on American TV at the time. Sure I watched every week. I didn't care how bad it was or how terribly the girls delivered their lines, seeing them in little bikinis at the end of each episode was enough to keep this teenaged (at the time) boy coming back.
I was 8 years old and i watched every week because i liked Mei and Kei. I didnt care the show was dumb. Lol.
I watched Pink Lady & Jeff when aired.
Ralph Celentano Was it as bad as they said it was or was it bad publicity?
@@cityhawk I enjoyed it.
So did i and i loved it! I bought it on dvd, too!! I also bought the PINK LADY box set. I love Mei and Kei!!
What they SHOULD have done was have those two Japanese young ladies ride the Super Train as the Out of the Blue angel tries to rescue the blonde ghost from ‘Jennifer slept here’
And maybe have had the Super Train go from the US to Japan with stops along the way.
...I feel like ... this show would work today on Adult Swim???
Adult Swim could just sub an actual Japanese variety show and people would watch it
lol yeah
@@katruslol true
Broadcasting the show at 3:30 in the morning might have improved the show’s ratings.
@@collegeman1988 And on an independent station. Possibly a UHF station. 😝
The BTS McDonald's commercial is basically 2020s Pink Lady and Jeff
1:40-1:45 "Kiss In The Dark" actually peaked at Number 37 on The Billboard Hot 100 in July of 1979.
The very next week......
It dropped 58 spots to number 95.
This was the beginning of the end of the disco era 😢
The episode which included a Cheap Trick video was the best segment on the show. Ironically, Cheap Trick were the biggest American act in Japan at the time.
I remember my friend and I tuned in specifically bc they promoted the episode as having "guests Cheap Trick". Felt like we'd been had when it was only a video, was hoping to see them "live" - or, better yet, having to interact with PL & J 😄
Fred Silverman wanted "big name guest stars" on the show- but found it difficult finding them on short notice, since he literally threw the series on the air in March 1980. In the case of Cheap Trick, the producers had to resort to a concert or "music video" performance in lieu of a "live" in person appearance.
I could imagine being a teenager in 1980 and going into another room to read a book if I saw my parents watching "Pink Lady & Jeff".
What's sadder is I was a teenager in 1980 and watched the show. That and Battlestar Galactica 1980. Talk about a nerd.
These are great. Thanks
I made a point to watch a few minutes of this show when it was on, just because I knew I had to experience this inexplicable, bizarre disaster.
As a resident of Japan for the last 30 years I'm here to tell you that practically NO ONE in Japan has any idea that Pink Lady had a show in the USA. I've showed a few episodes to quite a few Japanese people over the years and most of them were appalled that the girls did the hot tub bit every week. Sid Kroft in an interview said that he still kept in touch with both girls...but it makes you wonder since neither speak English. I've read one article in Japanese years ago (translated) that both girls acknowledged they did a show in the USA and they were aware it was not successful. They also said that they had been talked into doing things they didnt really want to do.
Thank you for this. I've often wondered what, if anything, Japanese audiences knew about "Pink Lady and Jeff." The girls seemed so uncomfortable to me whenever they weren't singing and dancing, and I am not surprised to hear them claim to have been forced into doing things they didn't want.
Pink Lady were (and still are) very talented performers and it's not fair to lay the failure of the show at their feet. The show was misguided, mishandled, and misbegotten, none of which were Pink Lady's fault.
@@PabSungenis I agree. I will say that the translation from Japanese doesn't really say "forced"...but the language is a bit vague and does imply a sense of "not happy about doing things". My guess is that they really had no idea about what was going on..at least in any depth and detail. I don't think Pink Lady's management team/boss had that much knowledge either. They just wanted the girls to be famous..whatever it took. You almost never hear anything about Pink Lady these days.
@@sjculb3there are a ton of Mei and Kei videos on youtube…i love their music.
This series of yours is EVERYTHING, it’s just right up my alley and I’m so glad I stumbled upon it!!!
One tiny note: NBC mispronounced Mie’s name. It’s not “mee”, but rather “mee-ay”. That is only the tip of the iceberg of course, but it bugs me anyway. Mee-AY.
Although the English spelling is done in a way that phonetically would be "mee-ay" she pronounced it like "Mii", spelling it as ミー in katakana
Two beautiful Japanese women dressed up as Playboy bunnies. Stop reading my mind. 😍
Deckard97 I liked him when he made a guest appearance on WKRP in Cincinnati in season one. Serviceable.
That's for another flop series called "Pink Lady" an ill fated variety show.
Lmao
It's a custom of Japanese manga and anime for a sexy looking young girl to dress up as a "Bunny". 😏
You could’ve mentioned the show was actually the television debut of Jim Varney, which we all know today as earnest
I once saw Jeff Altman at the Soup Plantation off Ventura Blvd with a beer on his tray. He did not look happy. Hence, I did not ask him to do his Bob Hope impression, one of the best.
NBC under Fred Silverman had many shows dropping like flies; Pink Lady and Jeff was no doubt the final straw for WSB-TV here in Atlanta that they asked then-ABC station WXIA, “How about you and I trade networks?”…which they did on Labor Day weekend.
Hello Larry...the butt of many jokes in the 1970s
I liked Hello Larry. Of course , I was a teenager and the show had two teenage girls.
Made total sense to expect a hit tv show built around an unknown foreign pop group who couldn't speak English
Jeff Altman said on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast that one night this show aired opposite a Dukes of Hazzard episode he guest-starred on, so he was competing against himself on prime-time television.
thats funny ya jeff is my cousin not to many people know about our family so my grandfather and jeffs dad were brothers and they had another brother who is my great uncle his name is al altman and he was the talent scout for mgm and worked side by side with louie b mayer his first discovery was joan crawford. and bob hope jimmy stewart ava gardner. its crazy i mean its wierd because im like a total nobody.. but my grandfathers brother literally discovering the most famous actors of all time is crazy cool. but yet i am literally like nobody ha it sucks the only thing i can do is tell the story.. i mean my mom would have sunday dinners with al and jeff and everyone and she thought nothing of it at the time
Thanks, Pab, for posting this version.
I'll hope a digital remastered of this full show come on DVD.
THIS was a total disaster. Fred Silverman should have been banned from network TV after these ridiculous flops he created. I remember when this premiered -- NOBODY knew who the hell Pink Lady was...and that Jeff guy was just an UNFUNNY dweeb!!
Pink Lady was wildly popular in Japan but sadly it was hard for them to catch on in America but their song "Kiss In The Dark" became popular.
Its a shame. The girls were so talented.
See what I said about Altman in my comment above. I agree with you wholeheartedly
He resigned from NBC in June 1981, leaving the network a total mess in popularity and ratings.
I actually remember the show.
I can't believe I don't remember this remotely.
Pink Lady and Jeff were ahead of their time, and this show could work in today's reality television era.
I'm the dork who'd love their musical numbers because I love Japanese music from that era.....
Dude. I had a friend of mine who traveled to Japan buy me PINK LADY box set containing all their albums. I still listen to some of those songs. Lol.
PINK LADY premiered Saturday (not Friday) Mar. 1, 1980, but the episodes from then on aired on Friday nights, starting on Friday, Mar. 14. I remember seeing the Mar. 14 episode that included Larry Hagman, and I also recall seeing Sid Caesar on this show once or twice.
Caesar was on three times- thanks to Rudy DeLuca, who was the show's "comedy supervisor". Here's his recollections on how he saved a comedy sketch during his first appearance (on episode #2), from his autobiography "Where Have I Been?":
**"This show was another of Fred Silverman's big mistakes, but once again {as in "THE BIG SHOW" at the time} it gave me a chance to get back into action and exercise my long-unused creativity. It was like going to a gym for my mind.
"Pink Lady was the name of a singing team of two very pretty Japanese young ladies. The problem was that though they sang in English (apparnetly, they had learned the words phonetically), they spoke only Japanese.They needed an interpreter just to say 'hello' to me when I showed up. Rudy DeLuca, the {comedy supervisor}, was frantic. He said to me, 'We've got to come up with comedy skits for these girls. They just can't sing for the whole show. How the fuck can we do skits when they don't speak English? Apparently, Silverman thought that they could learn the words of the skits like they learned the words of the songs. But who's got the time to do that? And what about their reactions, their timing, when they don't know what the fuck they're saying?' He was so mad, he was ready to quit.
"I knew Rudy from when he was one of Mel Brooks' comedy writers, and I calmed him down. I said, 'Leave it to me.'
"He said, 'How can I leave it to you when we have here one of the world's greatest examples of failure to comunicate??'
"I said, 'Cool it, Rudy. What we'll do here is the Jewish-father jokes, but the father will be Japanese and so will his two daughters.'
"He said, 'But you don't speak Japanese, and neither does our audience!'
"I said, 'You never heard Japanese double-talk? Who will know? And I'll throw in enough Kabuki technique so the girls will get the drift of what I'm saying and they'll follow along."**
SNL should of been canceled in '81'saving us from this current drool
Well, it's not.
Ooh, edgy. :)
Trump should have been cancelled in 81.
Then we would’ve never of had Chris Farley Adam Sandler Chris Kattan Phil Hartman and Eddie Murphy
@@michaelrochester48 Maybe not Eddie Murphy or Chris Farley, but Adam Sandler was a key figure emerging from the stand-up comedy boom in the 80s along with David Spade, Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Gilbert Gottfried's act with the new voice, and other heavies. He might have caught on anyway.
Fun fact: “Pink Lady and Jeff” was the inspiration behind Limu Emu & Doug.
I may have watched all of these. It was different and I was into Japanese culture.
Actual dialog from the show (I'm NOT kidding)
Mie: Jeff, you are so, so handsome.
Jeff: Oh, you just get turned on by my sexy round eyes.
They seemed to be unaware that the girls' main audience were children.
SNL got another quieter dig in that same season: When they cut to commercial in those days, they would post some mocking 'coming next' promo ala 'Coming Up: Black and White in 3-D' as opposed to 'Black and White In Color' and like that. One of those blink and miss it promos was: "Coming Up : Pink Lady and Floyd". Sad part being, whatever mutation resulted from that would have been parsecs above the actual show. Just because.
Oh my gosh!
Pink Lady and Jeff was a train wreck!
However, in all print advertising promoting the series, Silverman insisted it be billed as *"PINK LADY AND JEFF"* (shades of 'TONY ORLANDO AND DAWN"). It was almost an obsession with him to include the names of the stars in most of the programs he scheduled at the networks he worked at, in order to better promote them; for example, "STOP THAT PIGEON!", on CBS, had its working title altered to "DASTARDLY & MUTTLEY IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES" on Silverman's insistence; another was changing "THE FORCE" to "EISCHIED" before its Fall 1979 premiere.
Jim Varney was in the show and is shown at 3:26. Know wut I mean, Vern?
Going to go search for Pnk Lady clips now. I will report back...
Mark Evanier of comic books fame (Marvel in particular), eh? Lovely.
Have you thought about reviewing ME AND THE CHIMP? It was a mid-season flop on CBS, starting in Jan. 1972, where Ted Bessell, just off of THAT GIRL, co-starred w/ a pet chimp.
Fred Silverman really wanted that show to succeed. CBS executive John Schneider recalled, "Fred thought the show was great. He thought the animal and the kids made it a perfect eight o'clock show". Unfortunately, he scheduled it opposite the first half-hour of NBC's "FLIP WILSON SHOW", which already attracted a large number of viewers. What was left wasn't enough to keep "ME AND THE CHMIP' on the air beyond 13 episodes.
@@fromthesidelines Ted Bessell forgot about 2 rules for actors. Never work with kids or animals. He had to do both there. Good point about how ME AND THE CHIMP was scheduled against Flip Wilson, as Kami Cotler went the next season into THE WALTONS (She'd already appeared in the pilot movie "The Homecoming"), the show which likely had a lot to do with Flip's show ending in a couple years.
I watched the pilot for MatC here on YT, and it was so dull (or I was so tired) that I fell asleep while watching it.
Hughie Hogg!
Hello Larry wasn't too bad, and it lasted more than one season.
Hope u do one on rhythm n blues
Funny nobody in the US thought of giving Germany's Kessler Twins a variety show. Or did they?
They appeared regularly on Jackie Gleason's 1966 summer replacement, "CONTINENTAL SHOWCASE" (featuring Jim Backus as host).
At least the Kesslers would’ve had an easier time with speaking English, even if they weren’t fluent, than the unfortunate Pink Lady girls.
I remember watching this when it was on back in the day, I liked it but then again I was only 7 so my tastes are different. I think like they said the variety show format was kind of tired by then, and maybe the combo of that with what we would consider j-pop these days which maybe we weren't ready for sealed the deal so to speak
What on earth was Fred Silverman thinking when he came up with THIS!!! NBC had to have been desperate. Remember this is the same executive who cancelled all the game shows on NBC in the early 80's.
What was Silverman thinking when he scheduled those god-awful "Legend of the Superheroes" live-action specials in January 1979? What worked for him on CBS' Saturday morning schedule in the 1960's just *didn't* in prime-time in the late 1970's.
To make way for the David letterman show
Oy, Fred Silverman! He almost killed Wheel of Fortune in 1980 as well!
He almost killed "THE TOMORROW SHOW" too, insisting Rona Barrett act as co-host with Tom Snyder in 1980 (as "TOMORROW COAST-TO-COAST"). Tom did *not* like working with her, and let the network know about it. Rona finally departed, but it was too late to save the series; "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN" replaced Snyder in February 1982.
@@fromthesidelines To give credit where it's due, Silverman hired David Letterman for NBC...
...and gave him a *morning* show!
@@zombiedodge1426which was replaced by last vegas gambit and blockbusters
@@jamesklatt Silverman did greenlight some of the shows which turned around NBC after he was fired, like Hill Street Blues. And he got a production deal with resulted in Matlock!
A new SNL case could have worked. A Brady Bunch update/spinoff could have worked. Heck, even a show about an atomic powered supertrain could have worked. (The concept was no dumber than anything else on TV in 1979.)
There is absolutely no way this could have worked. Not as a regular series, at least. The Starland Vocal Band had a *number one* hit and their variety show flopped. Pink Lady's only US hit peaked at #37.
"THE STARLAND VOCAL BAND SHOW" was a four week summer replacement series, taped on location. CBS had no plans to renew it beyond the summer of 1977.
@@fromthesidelines TIL.
I dunno. I liked that musical number at 7:18. Everyone was dressed like the Gold Zeo Ranger.
See if you could find some Pink Lady vids on youtube…their music and shows were GREAT!!
I'm surprised they didn't resurrect the pool from the Brady Bunch Variety Hour vs. just having a Hot Tub. Actually, the synchronized swimmers would have made more sense on this show.
I was twenty years old then and when I heard about the show before it premiered I knew it was going to be a bomb of atomic proportions. Comedians who were cutting edge at the time were the original snl cast,
Richard Pryor, George Carlin, robert Klein and Richard belzer and maybe David Brenner. Jeff Altman was a minor league talent compared to these A listers. He was the antithesis of cool.Variety shows just weren't popular with people in the crucial 18-49 yr old demographic. Even the Carol burnett show was showing its age then. Plus Fred Silverman was the "genius " behind Supertrain - another piece of expensive dreck. Pink lady was destined for the scrap heap.
Amen to all of that.
Actually, I think Carol Burnett went off the air in 78, two years before this thing came on.
Whenever somebody says “now here’s a guy” you can be sure that the following words are not a compliment.
Just think... If these ladies were on AEW today... Reeehhoooo
8:02 🦚
3:10 yikes, Adam Scott hit the skids!!!
I was 12 I don't remember that show
Any way we can combine these gals with Supertrain? Pink Lady and Jeff Train anyone?
NBC just couldn’t get it right
Not until at least 1982 (Knight Rider, Cheers, A-Team, Family Ties)
I love how the theme songs for 1980s sitcoms are just info-dumps for the show concept and a basic plot setup.
Actually, it started before that. And largely thanks to Sherwood Schwartz who created the Brady Bunch. The idea is to avoid otherwise wasting screen time for the exposition of what the show is about, so he just put it in the theme song. It was actually very efficient. After over fifty years a lot of people worldwide can still sing the Brady Bunch theme song.
@@trainliker100 And a most effective strategy it was.
The show was so godawful in 1980. It made me wonder "what was Silverman thinking?"
"I need a hit show. i NEED A HIT SHOW!!!!! *I NEED A HIT SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"*
"uncomfortableness" is not a word - you'd want to use "discomfort" instead.
Thank you! I felt discomfort hearing that "not a word" feeling word!
Discomfiture would be even better, although it sounds like a word an old woman might use.
I remember when this was on. I had heard at the time that they brought Jeff Altman in when they found out that the girls didn't speak English, although that's not what I've heard in recent talks about this awful show. Yes, it was awful. It was very clear that nobody knew what they were doing with this.
"Hit" comic Jeff Altman???
Very slight bit of sarcasm.
i saw him way back doing standup. he was funny but don't remember him being at a robin williams level. on the other hand, i did think he was handsome, something standups don't achieve often
He was very funny....meant for showbiz
Unless your name is Duke, don’t mess with Huey Hogg.
Actually he continued on with Solid Gold. Then made appearances on Baywatch. BTW all 6 episode are available on DVD. (which I have)
Saw elsewhere on here that Jeff Altman was chosen partly because of his fluency in Japanese. Any truth to this?
John Seal Japanese!? Jeff was barely fluent in English.....😅
Finally found my old comment: I wrote Mark Evanier (pronounced "Evan-EAR") the other night, and he confirmed the next morning that Jeff "didn't speak a word of Japanese". Nice guy, great writer.
Jeff was told to be "deliberately bad" in his interactions with Mie and Kei. How often do you get paid to act like a jerk on national TV?
This show was crap, but I remember watching all five episodes because my 16-year old brain thought that these were the most stunningly beautiful women on the face of the Earth.
Now when you need to find a beautiful girl fast from anywhere in the world, she is only a few clicks away on some porn chat site.
I was a baby back then but from what I know this show was TERRIBLE
I made it through the first half of the first episode before I couldn’t stomach any more. Even awful shows- a guilty pleasure of mine- I usually watch a full episode
I been watching SNL starting with Season 1, and all the little documentaries. Al Franken mouthing off got him fired and seriously hurt his career until long after Silverman departed.
And Jean Demenouin ruined SNL too.
No Jim Varney mention? Boooooo!
i remember this dumb show being promo-ed when i was a teen but I never wasted my time on it...This had to be the all time stupidest show on American network television. This is not the only stupid thing Silverman did (or was told to do...) see this from wikipedia: "Silverman orchestrated the "rural purge" of 1971, which eventually eliminated many popular country-oriented shows, such as Green Acres, Mayberry R.F.D., Hee Haw, and The Beverly Hillbillies (all HITS) from the CBS schedule."
Silverman was merely a programmer. It was CBS president Robert Wood who started to purge all "rural-based" programming on CBS over a two-year period. Mike Dann was in charge of programming until he departed in July 1970; Silverman replaced him. Dann didn't like "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW", and tried to bury it on early Tuesday evenings at 8pm(et)....but Fred Silverman shuffled most of Dann's programming decisions for the Fall 1970 schedule, and placed Mary on Saturday nights instead. It survived, thanks to additional support from "ALL IN THE FAMILY" in early 1971.
And replaced them with the Norman Lear and MTM sitcoms and M*A*SH which were bigger hits. I think that even though Beverly Hillbillies was cancelled, Buddy Ebsen was still under contract and that's how Barnaby Jones came about.
Seems like wherever Fred Silverman ends up, their network goes to shit. Especially CBS in the 90s because their demographics were middle-aged or elderly.
Silverman did really well at CBS and then ABC in the seventies. And he had success as a producer (Matlock, In The Heat of the Night) in the late eighties. But his NBC tenure was such a disaster, it overshadows everything else he ever did.
I don't think he had any involvement with CBS in the nineties. Every TV network went through slump periods at the time (NBC in the seventies, ABC in the eighties).
He was immensely successful at CBS, with the rural purge and bringing in the Norman Lear and MTM shows as well as M*A*S*H. Those shows gave CBS several top 10 long lasting shows. I think the only reason that Sanford and Son ended up at NBC vs CBS during that time, was that with so many successful shows running, they literally didn't have room for it in the schedule.
At ABC, he essentially brought in Aaron Spelling with a boatload of successful shows that took a late bloomer network that hadn't been around nearly as long as CBS or NBC from an outlier to #1. However, I don't think his ABC shows had the staying power and critical acclaim that his CBS shows did. I'm not sure if Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley were his.
Given that history, it is amazing how bad he flopped at NBC. He must have been out of ideas and not ready for the generational shift that was occurring.
I remember that show. It was unwatchable.
Pink Lady was no match for The Dukes of Hazzard (CBS) or the ABC Friday Night Movie.
CBS had a killer Friday night at the time IIRC: Incredible Hulk, Dukes, and Dallas!
CBS owned Friday night (the dukes, Dallas and falcon crest)
@@jamesklatt 1981-82 season
@@jamesklatt Although, Jeff Altman did make a few appearances on TDOH as Hughie Hogg.
There are bad shows.
There are worst shows.
There are really, bad, awful, terrible, horrible, painful-to-watch shows.
And then there's this show!
It’s saving grace was that they had eye candy no matter how bad the show was.
The low point of Television was this, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and The Stars Wars Holiday Special all occurred from 1976 - 1980. Two out of three had the Krofft Brothers in common. I can't help but wonder if there were any other crossover people that were also involved.
As a teen, I tried to watch PL & J but it was too lousy even for me to sit through.
I'm not one obsessed with race but this show was pretty racially insensitive. Pink Lady was huge in Japan and the music they made for Japanese audiences was really good. The stuff they made for that show really stunk. It seems like most artists who sing in another language are treated like novelties over here. Except maybe Rammstein. They just scary.
I saw the show once. It was awful.
hmm, lecherous jr ewing in a hot tub with 2 japanese girls...i guess that sounds promising...?
wowwww talk about cringy!
A perfect match.Jeff Altman was a totally unfunny comedian,Pink Lady were singers who could not sing.I hope someday variety shows make a comeback.Maybe some improv veteran could make it happen.
Mei and Kei were really good singers. And dancers too. Singers who danced.
@@Mister_Listener I heard them.I thought they were lousy.
@@David-yw2lv i love their song UFO!! 🛸
@@Mister_Listener I heard their music,to me it was lousy.They were eye candy.
@@David-yw2lv ok cool. You seem like an expert, so I am sure your singing and the records you produce are much much better than Pink Lady ever was. Is that your point?
Today’s SNL is as bad as Jean’s SNL.
“Pink Lady and Jeff”, Sid and Marty Krofft’s lacklusting primetime variety show, was a massive failure from start to finish. The show’s ratings were an utterly disaster and the viewers were not happy at all. NBC execs decided to take matters into their own hands by pulling the plug on “Pink Lady and Jeff” after only 5 episodes and the late Fred Silverman had the last laugh. Following the cancellation of “Pink Lady and Jeff”, actor and comedian Jeff Altman did not deserve to perform with Japanese women anymore.
I don’t care about this guy. Why should I? It’s just a waste of time over nothing.
One of the worst shows ever.