 This is the SF Productions podcast network See back before all the video was put directly into computer memory in the calm net people used to tape shows Let me see Let me let me hook this up here. Let me see what we got Damn radiation Back with us to the 60s and 70s dwelling place of the lost generation an era whose heroes role models and very lives Were molded and formed by weekly installments the favorite television programs Welcome to the place your parents didn't understand welcome to the vast wasteland welcome home Another exciting episode of vast wasteland. I'm your host Mark Schmidbauer along with Wilbur Neal and Marty Wiley And we're here to talk about 60s and 70s television tonight It's comedy shows that break the mold But first we just want to tell you we're on Tuesdays at 6 Wednesdays at 10 and Thursdays at 3 p.m. Here on a CTV cable 21 but also we want to give you our Mailbox here we're a box 15 15 26 Columbus, Ohio four three two one five And very important because the mailbag just keep getting bigger and bigger yet another piece of mail has come in We're stunned And couldn't be more pleased a week we couldn't be but here we go This is from Jim Gillespie for those of you scoring at home. Hey guys and gal Hello, how are you doing? I've been trying to find out about the TV show But I had no success so I thought I'd see if you had any thoughts or ideas about it Tell us about it mark. Okay some 20 20 years ago my wife and I both watched the TV program We believe it was on channel 43 out of Cleveland. Hey, not your home We're sure it was a Japanese import But we can't recall the name or much of anything about it since we were so young and other people We've asked have no recollection of it at all all I remember is that it was about a young boy who had the aid of a giant Robot which he controlled and walked very mechanically could fly and fired rockets from his fingers I know there was a similar cartoon of this again I believe it was Japanese but this show was live action Do you know what I'm talking about or do you have any guesses? We both love the show and if we can ever find out more about it like the name and who produced it We'd like to see if anyone else out there as videotape of it. If you have any ideas, please let us know I wrote to channel 43, but they weren't of any help well program directors really are Yeah, but keep up the good work on the show. It's always fun I enjoyed your Samantha genie show and but I'll be looking for that Ted Cassidy retrospective in the mean time If you can be of any help with the above, please let me know. Thanks. Take care. Stay well and have a good day. Peace Jim Gillespie. Thank you. Jim. He's Jim. Yes, we have information for you Well first the animated show is Gigantor with the fifth that's stirring theme Gigantor the face in Rome, but he's a little bit your command, but but no the actual the live action show was Johnny's auto flying robot. Yes, because I remember that show too. I watched it as as a child and I feel deprived. Yes, it's I don't was on 43 or 61 actually, but I Don't know who produced it to tell you the truth But what we're gonna start here on the show. We're very excited about it is We're gonna start a kind of clearing house clearing house for concepts, you know we if you if you've got a show and you That you can't remember the name of or more importantly if there's something you want videotapes up now We want to make very clear about this is not any commercial enterprise. We don't want any money from it we can't take money for it and Neither can you if you've got a tape and you want to give it to somebody. This is on a trade only basis They so say if you've got something that somebody else wants and they've got something you want We'll be kind of a clearing house for that wonderful thing. So like the dating game We'll make connections love connection video connection video Connections So again just want to tell you So if you've got any any questions about a show We'll see what we can find out about it or especially if you've got some show you're trying to find videotapes of yeah Right in to vast wasteland box 15 15 26 Columbus, Ohio 3215 I think I know how like Jim might have felt because it's like I'm sure when I was a kid that I saw a cartoon called batfink That I have absolutely no no one in the world ever heard of it. Maybe I hallucinated it It was during the 16th. If you remember the show right in Hey, I want to talk to you There's a show that I can know just like Jim here needed to know that he wasn't dreaming this Johnny soccer when it's flying robot There's a show that I can just kind of barely remember It's like an early early cartoon well It can't say it's really early because they did good animation there This one was like almost stills that they just made move, but it was about some guy with a Either a rocket or a plane or something and he had a patch over one eye and he Drove he wore the space helmet anyway and pull the visor down in there some guy with a beard These to show it on flip-o, and I don't know what it was. This is when flip-o used to come on Early in the mornings. There's like major Matt Mason or anything. No, no, no This was long years before He was just a toy and I have all those toys. Okay. This was yours before that But I mentioned that today is the 19th. Yeah, and the show will be shown later. So right Yeah, Jim, believe me. We didn't play up now or something. That's right. Your letter is postmark for the 15th We've received it today the 19th and it was on the air that night. So that's kind of server-surfing You can expect from Bass Wasteland Two weeks later Anyways on to tonight's topic Really when you when you look at 50s and 60s, especially television was pretty much a very cookie cutter type thing a lot of sitcoms with people living in generic Kind of like cut-off from reality suburbs Yeah, I'm gonna way but trying to recreate this the whole nostalgia thing So you had that and the variety shows were all like pretty much Re-formulated vaudeville for all intents and purposes, but then some shows came came along now There's one show I want to mention that's that's pre 60s and 70s, but I really want to talk to you about Ernie Kovacs, yeah, Ernie Kovacs and the grandfather of them all Yeah, because every other show we talk about tonight You can go and find a lot of evidence in Ernie Kovacs stuff. It's rarely shown any time They had a thing on PBS. I don't know way back in like the like late 70s or early 80s HBO had one back in the 80s Yeah, and it was special and it was and they were great, but no one ever shows them anymore I don't know if they've lost rights to them or His wife Gave quite a few of the shows to the comedy channel, but you know where the calm Who knows where the comedy channel is going if we're ever going to see them or not Isn't April 1st comedy. They're gonna become comedy TV Great the great the great Comedy channel and I but I mean, you know a lot of stuff that we see on comedy channel We wouldn't have seen right had it not been for Ernie Kovacs really breaking ground. That's true And but we don't want to get into too much good 50s, but still it deserves some it deserves mentioning because Everybody else it basically worked off of him The influence was great. Yeah, so let's move on to someone We've also taught we've talked about this person before this duo before and we want to just mention also in turn That's mother's brothers Yes, indeed and they were the really the first variety show that really went out since Ernie Kovacs and said, you know, we're gonna We're gonna, you know We're not gonna do this thing of we're doing vaudeville bits and Yeah, no concept of reality and of course it was it was just slam down by CBS because oh it was a horrible thing We we actually gave, you know, they actually gave their their own opinions about things and CBS I forget the exact quote but CBS basically said The CBS had basically said that here it comes any second now That's the That the show should be I'm trying to remember the exact quote should be should be a reverent but not but But not different or something like that Basically they were they wanted to show who it really gives the impression of being really radical But in reality what they wanted to be is absolutely conservative as possible So we've never worked and the Smothers Brothers got thrown off the air because of it and they had writers like Steve Martin and Pat Paulson and yeah, so We've we want to get too much into them to the fact we've already talked about before so Let's let's move on to our first of our our big four shows We're planning. This is probably gonna be a two-part show by the way because we're just gonna go on Babbling as usual well, let's let's move on to our first one This was certainly a concept of more. I think more technical Innovation than then actual comedy material innovation Rowan Martin's lap in Yeah, oh sure site gags left and right because if you're like me, of course you grew up watching Laughin and Then years later you see a show about Ernie Kovacs. It's like It was a lot of the same stuff And really that the show the whole concept of the show was just we're gonna do really fast cuts and You know just move the show is gonna move and it's not gonna have any real exact center and And it's gonna be hip and cool hip and cool and stuff but it's gonna be safe because in reality one of the One day like the head writer on the show was one of Nixon's speech writers Yeah, and that's one of the reason he was on the show all the weird people John Wayne did the show Everybody who was anybody? Yeah, they did it and some of them got to come back like Sammy Davis, Jr. I don't know how many times he was on there doing that here come the judge thing What's really what's really interesting is that when you Everybody at least then we're talking about the all this is it cuts so fast and it's almost it's a frenetic It's so fast and you can't you almost are overwhelmed by it And when you watch it today It's leisurely every time you know the post MTV, you know, it's like really around 1980 There's a cutoff point really if you go back and watch a commercial say Basically before 1980 you watch it and you fall asleep because there might be four cuts throughout a 30-second commercial Now it's like unless there's at least 25 cuts in a 30-second commercial. It's like come on snap it up Let's go It's really strange as you watch this and it's like it's really sedate and the trouble is When you watch it today and that the technical innovation It's like that's not that innovative and it gives you time to concentrate on the jokes that weren't that funny So that it was a scream when we when it first came out and in a lot of things From that show worked its way into Socket to me here come the judge your Bippy you bet your sweet Bippy Yeah But a lot of that stuff worked its way right into our every day line with flying fickle finger of fate And you see You see a lot of stars coming off that show a lot of a lot of people who ever came has been Whoever we haven't seen Alan Suze Basically, I think we saw him on I think he was on what was Hollywood squares or something Yeah, everybody was kind on Hollywood squares. What we got here. We got Dan Rowan, Dick Martin, Gary Owens, Goldie Han, Arty Johnson, Judy Karn, Ruth Buzzy, Joanne Whirly, Alan Suze, Lily Tomlin, Tiny Tim, Tiny Tim, what about him? Henry Gibson, Pig Meat, Markham. There's a name you don't hear too much of anymore You go to Holt Piggy. Dave Madden and a host of others, a host of others And the only- Chelsea Brown, Johnny, what was his name? Yeah, Johnny Brown? Chelsea Brown? Chelsea Brown? What's her name? Went on to go and do Get Christy Love, what is her, what was it? Teresa Graves. Teresa Graves. Yeah, she was on there And Judy Karn, did you mention Judy Karn? Yeah, Judy Karn who was at the time married to Bert Reynolds? Yeah, and she went through a whole real bitter divorce thing Yeah, and she got real fed up with the show too. They'd splash water on her, throw pies and things like that She went berserk for a while there. I think she went crazy for a while too. And because, and for years after that She would not do it. I mean, she'd go out in public. She'd go out in public and people would just like throw water at her and stuff. She wanted them to do it or something. That's her and for yourself in it. Goldie Han really took off on the show. If you remember Goldie Han was the... Well she was one of the dancers a lot. Yeah, and she was like the air-headed child blonde. But what I read about it, they actually... It became such a running joke that she screwed up her lines was Is that they mix up words on the cue cards and put obscene words on the cue cards to make her laugh. And to the point that she also got fed up with it and left the show. The only four people that stayed on the show from beginning to end were Ronan Martin, Gary Owens and Ruth Buzzy. Well, no, I don't know. This is fact. Those are the only four. Really? I haven't done one of my books. It's a fact. The only four stayed the entire time. Everyone else went on to game show. Yeah, didn't match any of that up for a while then. And Margot has a friendly drunk. Didn't he go on to do some other... He's always the analogy on anything. Yeah, anything. He and no Burgess Meredith. And even Dave Madden. Dave Madden is doing a lot of commercials these days. You can't turn on a TV without hearing that Dave Madden. Artie Johnson's made it pretty much in the movie. Yeah, Henry Gibson too. Yeah, Henry Gibson. Artie Johnson's got a lot of love books. A lot of love books. Well, who didn't offer this past? That was the other one. Who'd he? Well, the little German guy. There's the smoke there. Tyrone and Gladys. Tyrone, F4 and I, and Gladys, whatever. How about a Juan Neto? Well, yeah. Call my number. What's he having a handbag? Let me call your number. It's been documented. What's in the handbag? Call me an ambulance. Yeah, what a great show. And if you never thought, well, all these things are just lost on you. Right. Who wrote the tricycle? Remember, there was always a person in a big yellow raincoat riding a tricycle. Alan Seuss wrote it for a while then. There was another guy. That was a bigger person than Artie Johnson. What was his... I can't even remember his name. He was a tall guy. He did a show for a while. Maybe it was. It was somebody. We don't know. One of the camera people saying Artie Johnson, they're convinced it's Artie. Okay. So, I don't know. Let's see. We had basically a show, again, that didn't have a lot of really funny stuff in it. And just because they really expected a lot of the attention to be, oh, this is really fast, you know. And today, they showed a couple of years ago, they tried it on Nick and Knight and it died. Even in an edited form, when they took out even the, you know, it was even faster and faster and faster. The joke wall was neat. Of course, I'm watching the show in what? 60... Well, it came out in 68. When I was about 73. I'm eight years old. I think this show is hilarious. Anything I don't understand, I figure it's dirty. Right. Well, that whole Walnetto thing just took off. I remember getting Walnetto ice cream after a while at Baskin Robbins. It was just a wild thing. And Funkin' Waggles, I had never heard of Funkin' Waggles before then. It was only Webster's or somebody else. Here's Funkin' Waggles, suddenly. And they just took off. I'm sure they just sold a bunch of books after that. And then, of course, afterwards in the mid-70s, about 77, 78 somewhere in there, George Slatter said, we're going to redo laughing now. And it was like more up to date and it was kind of a disco attitude because that was your big disco era. And they had one very outstanding talent. Who was only a year from ultra super stardom and that was Robin Williams. Robin Williams. He was like this unknown actor. He blew me away on the show. Because he was doing the act he did a year later on Mark and Mindy. Yeah, he was doing all the voicing. All these incredible voicing. All the fast, yeah. But the rest of the show really was bad. Boom, you're done. Very bad. Bad, bad TV. Bad. Well, so what else do you have on laughing? Let's see here. I think we pretty much covered the whole darn thing here just about. Nope, nope, that'll do it. That's the whole thing. Some of the big flowers, Henry Gibson would come out with a huge flower. Big flowers. Neon colors aren't new. By Henry Gibson. Dogs are better than ants because they don't get in your hats. But most of all, dogs don't get in your jelly jars by Henry Susan. By Henry Gibson. Thank you. And of course, for Alan Suze, he did Uncle Al, the kiddies' pal. He had to get permission. He had to get permission from Uncle Alan Cincinnati. There was an actual Uncle Al. He's still in Cincinnati, I think. That's too bad. Yeah, it was. It always was. Wasn't he kind of like, kind of like, Captain Lucky? No, he doesn't like Captain Lucky. He got Captain Lucky. He had to get permission from Uncle Alan Cincinnati to do that bit. And it's a wonder that he got the permission that he did. Well, so we have anything? I guess we're going to move on to the next one. Certainly an absolute landmark and one of my all-time favorite television in certain ways. One of my favorite television shows and my ultimate favorite comedy team of all time, Monty Python. Monty Python's Flying Circus. Show that... Which is still funny. Oh, yeah. And the difference really, you can look at the difference between Laughin and Python, the difference is that Laughin was doing jokes about something that happened that week or something that happened that month. And Python, you rarely see anything of like really current events. 98% of what you see is like poking fun at the establishment. And the establishment always was there and always was going to be there. It may change lightly, but it's always basically the same. And so it's timeless. And a lot of historical things also. A lot of history. Yeah. But then that's a nice thing about some of my favorite shows. They do a lot of historical things. But this one poked fun at everything. Yes. And they had full frontal nudity. Yeah. Sometimes. Rarely. As far as interesting, I saw when they showed them on PBS, which was like mid-70s, they actually showed the frontal nudity. Yes. I remember that quite distinctly, especially at that age. But when they showed them on... I saw the one about the... I can't remember the name of the sketch. The life of a stockbroker. Yes. The sketch where this woman, wow, this sketch where this guy is going through a normal life and what his normal life is, he doesn't even realize it's happening around him. These extraordinary events is coming out. He's just walking around. He walks around in newspaper. Yeah. And stuff is happening all over. There's like people shooting back and forth. He's standing at the bus stop in a line of people and Frankenstein is behind him. It's John Cleese doing Frankenstein. And he is just slamming people out of the way and killing them. And this guy is at the front of the line. He's going through the back of the line. Wham! Wham! And just as he gets to the stockbroker, the bus shows up and the guy gets on, and Frankenstein goes... And the guy gets on the bus and it's like all troops. Other than him, it's like all troops on this and they get out and there's this war going on. And he's just walking calmly through this and he gets to his office and there's two people making love on his desk and there's a woman, or a guy's feet, swinging back and forth. He's hung himself. And another guy like stabbed to death in the back. When he goes to buy the newspaper, here's one that Carol Cleveland standing back there with. Well, she's standing there topless. He just buys the newspaper and doesn't even look at her. He just puts down his money, picks up the paper and goes. But the point is, when I get back to the point, on Comedy Channel when they showed him, and I think on MTV when they showed him, they did the little digital effect so you couldn't really see it. They did the little pixelation thing. Get the back here! Get the back here! It's kind of obvious, but... And of course at the end of the sketch, actually a rarity, an end of a Python sketch, the guy sits down at his desk, looks around, again not noticing anything's happening around him to see if no one's around, and then slips a comic book out of his... He's pulling... Yeah, it's like stolen venture stuff. And he's like... And it just goes on into something else. It's just truly great. And that's really a prime example of Python. A very typical Python-esque kind of thing. Some mostly kind of combination of on-location and stuff in the studio. And studio things right now. Somebody does that? Yeah. Except this was silly and it was also funny. And one of the big things that Python did was that they brought up the concept of, hey, I've got a funny punchline, but I don't want to have to set up the thing for it and build up to it. I just want to do the punchline. The punchline's funny on its own. So they would just say, forget all the setup. We'll do the punchline or we'll do a setup that's funny that we don't have a punchline for. We'll just do the setup and go on to another sketch. The whole concept of beginning, middle, and end of sketch is thrown out. And the whole thing is weaved together using Terry Gilliam's animation. Animation, exactly. Just phenomenal animation. And it's really... Yeah, and most of its stuff, it's a cut-out type animation for those of you who live in a cave and haven't seen it. I look at it and I'm like, gee, that'd be fun to do. Well, I look at it and I'm like, gee, I could do that. How? I just talked to Gilliam talking about it one time. He said every time... When he was doing the show, every time he ran out of ideas, he'd run to a museum of modern art because it was in London area and go, I'll take something from that and then he'd go buy some art books. And he's got to go... And he showed this one painting. It's famous... I can't remember the name of this painting. And it showed this enormous, all this stuff going on, this Renaissance painting. In the very corner, there is the foot that you see crushing people. And he really talked about the fact that it was like... This is what television does. It takes great works of art and chops them down into this little thing that has no significance whatsoever. And they always considered Jerry Gilliam to be the... what, the American... Well, yeah, we won. Because he's from Canada. Right. Well... Oh gee, we're interchangeable with Canadians, aren't we? Well, as far as the British are concerned. Well, they're just over there. See, we're running out of time. Yeah, so... We're stunned that we've managed... In part one here... In part one... And we'll do more Python. We'll go into SNL. We'll go into SCTV. I don't know, we... We're gonna have to hurry to get this done in two episodes. Why? No! We'll just make it a whole damn season. Right. Anyways, so again, we want to tell you real quick, Box 15-15-26, Columbus, Ohio, 4-3-2-1-5, we're on Tuesdays at 6, Wednesdays at 10, Thursdays at 3. Honest...on...on...on SCTV. Hi, SCTV! So now, Nancy, you and your father, if you really want... Write a letter. That's how I do it. Write a letter. So, we'll see you next time. Right! Get out of here! I'm not it! Wait for it! Timstile!