Pink Lady and Jeff
In 1980, children's/variety show producers Sid and Marty Krofft had two more memorable forays into television, once again in prime time. "Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters" was, perhaps, the last successful American variety show (though it wasn't instantly a success). But for every hit, there's bound to be a miss... and earlier that same year, they'd had a whopper! Since I have a rep for trudging up the misses....
Though "The Brady Bunch Hour" is generally regarded as one of the worst series of all time, it's "Pink Lady and Jeff" that's blamed for killing the variety show format entirely. Pink Lady was a Japanese singing duo consisting of childhood friends Mie Nemoto ("Me") and Kei Masuda ("Kay"). In Japan, they'd had a very successful career, even garnering their own animated television series and big-screen movie -- they were like the Japanese Beatles.
In 1979, they'd had a minor disco hit on the American pop charts called "Kiss in the Dark," which they'd recorded in English phonetically. Fred Silverman, then the newest President and CEO of NBC, was in dire need of a hit and after seeing Pink Lady on the CBS Evening News, he became convinced that the ladies were the next big thing in the USA, so he enlisted the Kroffts to stage a variety show for them. Not only did the duo never have another hit song here in the States, but neither of the ladies could speak English.
The Kroffts shot a test reel with Mie and Kei, and that was enough to convince Silverman it could work (the hit potential was reinforced when Sid Krofft escorted the ladies to Disneyland and they were mobbed by Japanese tourists!). Stand-up comedian Jeff Altman ("Nurses") was brought aboard to compensate for the English speaking that the leads lacked, and the series was underway. Sid came up with the concept that the show should be staged as the most bizarre show ever on television; Silverman wanted another "Donny and Marie." Sid relented but the result was smack dab in the middle: the most bizarre "Donny and Marie" knockoff that ever hit the airwaves.
Officially, the show was simply titled "Pink Lady" -- their management threatened a lawsuit if Altman's name was in the on-screen title (but "and Jeff" still wound up being used continuously in NBC's promotion). Despite an incredible roster of guests (from Roy Orbison to Hugh Hefner) and an ensemble that included Jim Varney (who shot his first Ernest P. Worrell television commercial that same year), the show was considered an embarrassment to everyone involved. It was fairly obvious that Mei and Kei had no idea what they were saying, and the ladies were forced to sing English disco standards at a time when disco had thoroughly worn out its welcome and was on the verge of extinction. Additionally, the network forced the writers to come up with separate personalities for Mie and Kei, which completely defeated the purpose of the synchronized act that had made them famous in Japan.
Altman, who's not an unfunny comic, was meanwhile reduced to playing second banana, and the bizarre skits he got stuck in were generally humorless.... plus each show ended with Jeff getting into a hottub in his tuxedo (29 years after I first saw the show, I still don't understand that running gag).
Perhaps most painful were the music-video like sequences with Pink Lady -- lipsynching to tracks prerecorded in a language foreign to them, the ladies continuously tripped up (the video for their cover of the Beatles' "Yesterday" in particular is so bad it's utterly excruciating to watch -- though their harmonies on the song are beautiful). It's no wonder that the show was lampooned numerous times by Johnny Carson and on "Saturday Night Live" -- which is what helped secure "Pink Lady and Jeff"'s reputation. And adding further insult, several of their music "guest stars" didn't actually appear live, they merely submitted music videos (though shock rocker Alice Cooper deserves some credit for submitting an original live performance of his then-forthcoming strange new wave crossover song "Clones," as opposed to the routine "Midnight Special"-like music video clips that Cheap Trick and two-time guests Blondie provided... but ironically, Coop's clip would later be dubbed and turned into a music video for his "Prime Cuts" video biography).
Credit where it's due, though -- obviously the ladies worked their asses off (though Mei generally looked uncomfortable), but there was minimal rehearsal time (the ladies were commuting back and forth to perform at sell-out concerts in Japan), and the show was quickly thrown together. The best parts of the show, for whatever it's worth, were the segments with Jeff bantering with Mie and Kei. As a matter of fact, if the ladies were better versed in English, it could've worked as a regular "let's gang up and insult Jeff" show, but it's the bad comedy skits (which Pink Lady seldom participated in) that really dragged the show down. Well, that and the fact that it was scheduled opposite "The Dukes of Hazzard," which was still garnering huge ratings in 1980. And, you know, there's also the facts that nobody here knew who the hell Pink Lady was, they weren't used to singing in Engrish and Hooked on Phonics hadn't yet been invented to teach them how to properly enunciate.
As with "The Brady Bunch Hour," there was some strange casting going on. Krofft alums Florence Henderson, Donny Osmond, Red Buttons ("Side Show," which had been filmed but not yet aired) and Bobby Vinton (who'd shot a Krofft pilot in 1978 called "Bobby Vinton's Rock 'n' Rollers") all guest-starred. Alice Cooper was friends with the Krofft brothers. Greg Evigan was doubtlessly pushed onto the show because his sitcom "B.J. and the Bear" was airing on the same network. Larry Hagman, Hugh Hefner, Jerry Lewis and Lorne Greene (who agreed to do the show mere hours before it was taped) were enticed to appear with $100,000 paychecks. Don't ask me how (or more importantly *why*) they got Sid Caesar to guest-star on literally half of the episodes.
And then there's a very odd coincidence: nearly every musical guest was associated with the big-screen flop "Roadie," which hit the screen later that year. Blondie, Roy Orbison and Alice Cooper all appeared in the film, while Teddy Pendergrass and Cheap Trick were both prominently featured on the soundtrack. If all of these acts were all on the same record label, this coincidence would be logical -- but they weren't.
