Do Ya, Do Ya Want My Kotter?
Was there ever a better live music show on television than Bert Sugarman’s The Midnight Special? I think not. It’s too bad that NBC decided to axe the show just because Dick Ebersol wanted to clear the way for the clearly inferior Saturday Night Live. Ebersol dipped into the music genre again with Friday Night Videos, which cratered because, well, there was an entire network that played videos and why on Earth would people tune in late on a Friday night when they could tune into MTV and see better?
And it wasn’t just guitar rock headbanging music either. Guest included Gordon Lightfoot, ABBA, and Jim Croce. the show also had comedians like Steve Martin, Andy Kaufman, and Richard Pryor. It was cool and entertaining and magnificent.
Here’s a great performance of one of my favorite ELO songs.
Did I mention comedians? Ladies and Gentlemen, Gabe Kaplan. Yes, that Gabe Kaplan.
I guess you could also categorize this post as “HairBlogging” too. Thank goodness there are some elements of fashion that won’t ever come back.
UPDATE: I need to clarify. I didn’t mean to say that Saturday Night Live started after The Midnight Special, but that Ebersol wanted to give SNL a clearer playing field. TMS has live music and very funny comedians, like SNL, and it was beating Ebersol’s show’s socks off. SNL was, at that point, really bad, so bad that Ebersol actually put the show on hiatus for a couple months and fired most of the cast. It wouldn’t do for TMS to suck up what little audience SNL had before he could get it back on the air with a new cast and some new writers. It also didn’t hurt that, without TMS, there was only one show with comedians and live music on the air on NBC.
UPDATE 2: Linked by Ed Driscoll, who knows a thing or three about what akes for good television.
Other Posts of Interest:
- It’s Beginning to Sound a Lot Like Christmas
- Joke of the Day, Celebrity Edition!
- Comedy is Supposed to Be Funny, Isn’t It?
Category: It's Entertainment!, Music, Screen, Big and Little
Wow, that's 1970s TV right there!
I'm pretty sure I've seen USAF bombers with shorter wingspans than Jeff Lynne's collar points.
Is it possible for us to bring back the music of the 70s without the leisure suits of the 70s?
Bring back the mutton chops please! lol