The Orson Welles Show 1979 - Unaired Pilot Intro

zeroheadroom.com presents Part 1 of 2 of Drive By TeleTheater:
Opening intro of The Unaired Pilot of Orson Welles Chat Show from 1979.
The talk show experience that you thought you'd always wanted. Alas, in the tradition of Twilight Zone this one turns out to be a case of "Be careful what you wish for." This take on the chat show format is something akin to his own grandiose and bloated take on what a talk show should be. He manages to snag a good guest list like Burt Reynolds, Frank Oz, Jim Henson and Angie Dickinson. But instead of doing the formula, "So what are you working on..." questions, the entire Q&A is opened up to the audience to ask either Burt Reynolds or Orson Welles whatever they'd like. Jim Henson & Frank Oz show up to do some Muppets gags before they "lift the curtain" and show them seated with their hands working their Muppet magic. Finally, Angie Dickenson comes on stage and fires a gun at Orson Welles in an overproduced magic routine that later re-appeared in Orson Welles' Magic Show.

Technically, the show is all over the place. It's all very deconstructionist a-la F For Fake and the editing is out of control. It sounds like a fascinating and bold experiment but ends up somehow being an extremely uncomfortable hour-plus of television non-entertainment. Sometimes, there are indeed good reasons for the studios to shelve a project and to never air the pilot. A bold experiment that went bad

Category:

Film & Animation

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[ErisRising]

I'll take a drunk Orson Welles over a sober Jay Leno any day of the week.

[jordaniac89]

Cracked.

[ErisRising]

@Kasevam The appetite of the American public for sheer mediocrity has ceased to be astounding to me. I now find it vaguely depressing when I bother to consider it at all.

[jdlund]

@Kasevam, because the average American is an idiot that likes bland stale comedy. I don't know how else to explain the success of Jay Leno. He never says anything remotely funny, there's absolutely no edge or cleverness to his bits, every point he makes is cliche and his interviews are completely uninteresting and soft. He's by far the worst late night talk show host in my lifetime.

[Zebonka]

Frasier with a talk show.

[CQBguy234]

Isn't the way the lady looks at the camera at 0:25 kind of eerie....?

[HypaSonicDeathMonkey]

"I read somewhere that you thing television owes a lot of stale junk food."

*Audience laughs*

Wat.

[chada75]

The Voice of Unicorn.

[Kasevam]

@ErisRising And I'd take a cheese grater to the face over Jay Leno. I have no idea how he's even slightly successful.

[bbrooksgaming]

Cracked.com

[JaySticLe]

Man, this would've been sweet on TV if somebody picked it up.