Sophie Tucker

Sassy Sophie Tucker was known as a risque performer in the Vaudeville days, singing somewhat bawdy songs and telling off-color jokes.

She somewhat reinvented herself on TV as a comedian for old folks by making her age and longevity the hook of her comedy. Here she is on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1960. She couldn't very well go on TV and tell dirty jokes now could she? She could NOW.



In her last network appearance on Ed Sullivan you can she's exhausted. Her accompanist and musical director Ted Shapiro started with her in 1921 and he's seen in this clip! Sophie Tucker collapsed after finishing the first night of her comeback engagement at The Latin Quarter in December 1965 and never fully recovered. She died in February of 1966 at age 80.



 Bette Midler 1979 made Sophie relevant again in the 1970s when she incorporated some of the old gal's jokes in her act, and later used her as a jumping off point for more risque humor, there are examples in this interview from the early-eighties. The jokes start at 3:18.

Rap & Rhyme Movie!

Here's the trailer for 'Rap & Rhyme', I filmed a part for this movie sometime back and it looks great. It was written & directed by Maurice Hicks... the script is not what you'd expect. Look for it in the future...


Rap and Rhyme - official teaser from rex yau on Vimeo.

Captain Kangaroo

Bob Keeshan was only 28 years old in 1955 when he and producer Jack Miller created 'Captain Kangaroo.' Television was a relatively new addition to most American homes - there had never been a generation of kids exposed to home-video entertainment before, so the series was designed to give kids a gentle alternative to the frenetic nature of most children's shows of the day (of which 'Howdy Doody' was one of the worst offenders).

Watching an episode of Captain Kangaroo show from the early-sixties, one is struck by the achingly slow pace and overall gentle nature of the show.

Here's the classic Captain Kangaroo opening from the 1960s:



Episodes of Captain Kangaroo are very rare, CBS destroyed them all! Only a few have been unearthed, one black & white episode and a few colors. Here's an entire episode from 1976 after the production was updated and modernized. Notice how it starts with shout-outs from CBS primetime shows, Dolly Parton is the guest star:

Read all about the history of Captain Kangaroo at TVparty!

The Bette Davis Show?

Bette Davis really wanted a weekly TV series, primarily for the money and security it offered. By the mid-1950s her movie career had cooled considerably and offers weren't coming in.

Bette didn't want to be another dizzy dame on TV, she was no Lucy-type, she had a different idea for her television pilot in 1958. Paula was a light comedy/drama centered around a top Broadway theatrical agent, her agency and the eccentric writers they took on.

In this TV show, the women wouldn't be played for laughs, they would do the playing.



Her last motion picture smash had been All About Eve in 1950, followed by mediocre films that failed to generate any box office excitement, to say the least. So naturally Paula was essentially All About Eve for the small screen. Bette could have easily been playing Margot Channing, substituting the cigarettes and booze from All About Eve for telephones and eyeglasses in this TV production.

Bette's real life husband Gary Merrill was cast as Paula's husband, a playwright there to provide her with male eye candy for opening nights and provide some familial warmth for the closing of the show. Hey, he likes her... you will too.

There was no question who was in charge in front of and behind the camera. And with good reason. Davis's command of the medium far outstripped anyone else's and she knew it. I can think of no other actor working in television in the 1950s (except James Dean) who could touch her confident artistry.

Oddly, the night before Paula was filmed, Bette and her husband - who had a disastrously rocky relationship - were almost killed in a fire at LA's fashionable Chateau Marmont. The infamously contentious couple split soon after this pilot failed to get picked up.

More about Bette Davis on TV at TVparty!

Vivian Vance Was Almost a Regular on Rhoda?

Beloved TV icon Vivian Vance made one of her last appearances in primetime as the neighbor in a delightfully clever 1975 episode of Rhoda. She fell easily back into the sitcom rhythm, as if she'd never left our screens (she hadn't, really, with the popularity of I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show reruns).



This was when the series dropped the idea of the lead character having a husband, during season 2. Rhoda was a hit with lots of bits that caught on big (the mom, the sister, Carlton the doorman) but the husband was dragging down the comedy.

But divorce, and the fighting you'll see in this episode that led up to it, was still frowned upon in 1975. The writers knew it would be difficult to get that carefree Rhoda character back into the bottle after that. Hence the children performing the theme song, anything to take the edge off. They basically had to make Rhoda's husband such a jerk that no one could fault Rhoda for splitting with him.

Valerie Harper and the producers enjoyed the experience of working with Vivian Vance so much that they considered making her a regular on the series - but she'd been diagnosed with cancer in 1973 and was too fragile for the weekly TV grind, she'd left that behind a decade ago as the co-star of the number 1 show in the nation, The Lucy Show. If it wasn't worth it to her then...

Still, the addition of Vivian Vance might have saved Rhoda from the slow ratings death that was to come.

Her fragility was proven tragically true in 1977 when Vivian Vance suffered a debilitating stroke while filming a TV special, Lucy Calls the President, the first scripted show she'd done with Lucille Ball since her final appearance on Here's Lucy in 1972. A pro to the last, she finished filming the special before seeking medical attention.

Vivian Vance died in 1979.

More Classic TV fun at TVparty!

Soul Alive!

Soul Alive starring WWRL radio DJ  Gerry "Golden Voice" Bledsoe aired during 1978 in New York City for an hour on WPIX channel 11 Saturday mornings at 11:00am.

A staple of TV markets around the country in the 1960s, local dance shows fell out of favor at the end of the 1960s and we aren't likely to see a revival. (Then again, you never know. Similar in nature, nationally broadcast Dance Party USA was a hit in the 1980s.)

With the Disco craze in full swing and nationally syndicated Soul Train a hot commodity on Saturdays afternoons, WPIX saw an opportunity to bring that stone cold dead format back to TV screens.

The main feature on Soul Alive was the heated competition between dancers representing some of the City's top discotheques or local high schools. The winning couple's names were delivered via the 'Mechanical Hand' - they could collect a bounty of prizes including a trip, new sound system or they might end up with a package that included Bic disposable shavers. They were new then!

Big name guest stars frequented the program, after all, this was the number one TV market in the world and a lot of record albums were sold in the city of New York. A LOT! On this episode, Cissy Houston lip-synced her latest single while the Rolling Stones appeared in a video.

One unintentionally hilarious segment had the dancers revealing their working life in pictures that were mixed into their solo spots. Similarly, when schools competed, a profile of the student body was aired.

Click for more Soul Alive stories and ultra-rare video! You're gonna love it...

Batman TV Show Coming to DVD? No?

Warner Bros. announced recently that they had secured the rights to market the likenesses of the characters from the 1966-68 Batman TV show on toys and other products. This was an indication to many that a DVD release was imminent.

The show has been tied up for over a decade, in part because of a dispute with the William Dozier family, he was the creator / producer of the production. The Dozier's contend they are owed money from airings of the show on cable and won't release DVD rights until it is settled.

But the new Warner contract for the Batman TV show characters reportedly rules out home theater distribution, in other words, DVDs.

Click over for the story behind the Batman TV Show