Pink Lady

First, let me be very clear: "Pink Lady" was not a good variety show. It was a pretty horrible one most of the time. BUT it WAS at the same time a truly awesome show. The 70s also gave us variety shows from Donnie and Marie, the Mandrell Sisters, Captain and Tennile and many, many others. All of them sucked--lame comedy, bad music, horrible production values. That was the standard in the 70s--especially from producers Sid and Marty Kroft. "Pink Lady (and Jeff)" rises above all these by being just plain weird. Casting two unknown Japanese pop stars along with a homegrown but not really any better known comedian was so stupid a thing to do that it bordered on genius. In other words no one in their right mind would have thought of it. The result 30 years later is a great 1980 time capsule of the clash between American Crap-Lame culture and the rising Japanese pop culture that you're not going to see anywhere else. Lots of jokes are made at the girl's expense--especially by semi-regular Sid Caesar, who does a recurring samurai bit that makes John Belushi's old SNL routine look PC by comparison. But the Pink Ladies get their digs in as well, making fun of Altman's non-celeb status, height, and lack of manliness. And its even funnier when you can tell that they have very little idea what they're even saying.

The culture clash plus the language barrier plus the really poor taste plus the ultra lameness of the comedy bits, mixed in with the super-peppy, semi-sexy disco performances (in English and Japanese) by the perky, super happy Pink Lady makes for a late 70s Variety Show parody you could not make up today. It is a time capsule of stupid fun that makes me nostalgic for the days when "crap TV" was good natured goofiness instead of "reality" show meanness.

Screw the 21st century! BRING BACK PINK LADY AND JEFF!

There's a special place in my heart for the "summer replacement series" and Pink Lady always springs to mind. ALL of the people I know think I'm making it up when I tell them about this marvel of programming. I didn't even remember Jeff Altman on the show, just the two girls. My favorite part was the "Letter to Home" segment near the end of the program, where they "read" their letter in phonetic English. It haunts me...

...for if TV is indeed a vast wasteland, this was the show found at the lowest elevation near the stagnant alkaline pool. We had world hunger and want in 1980, and NBC could have spent money to solve it, but inexplicably used the funds to put this show on the air for five episodes instead.

Did Fred Silverman ever notice that the ability of Keiko and Mituyo to handle English was minimal at best? Heavily padded out with guest spots to cover this rather blatant shortcoming. (The first show featured as guest star...Sherman Hemsley. Be still my beating heart.)

Not to mention Silverman's failure to consider America was not exactly a massive market for Japanese "idol music," whose appeal to the Japanese is that it is entirely predictable. And yes, Jeff Altman -- with the exception of his own routine in the first show of a certain U.S. President trying to boogie -- is scathingly unfunny.

I watched it out of the car-wreck syndrome, in other words it was so terrible I couldn't stop watching. And oh yes, if you stayed until the end of the show, a bikinied Keiko and Mitsuyo got into a hot tub with Jeff Altman. I guess I was easily bribed back then.

I also watched this for the car wreck syndrome. Any second I thought for sure a head would come rolling across the stage. (you just never knew). I just loved when Jeff Altman and Pink Lady would try to talk to each other...you know, the usual banter of a variety show. It was funny because they couldn't understand what each other was saying. Altman would try to make a joke, Pink Lady would look at him, then at each other, and giggle. Very surreal...

This was from the period when NBC was horrible and Fred Silverman was running the show (no pun intended). This from the man who help develop gems like "Three's Company" and "Laverne and Shirley" for ABC and beauties like "All in the Family" and "M*A*S*H" for CBS.

It baffled me that he went to NBC and came up with crap like this. How could you give a show to 2 women or anyone for that matter who could barely speak English??? I still remember both Kei Masuda and Mei Niemoto at the beginning of the show tell the audience who that night's guests will be. You could barely make out what they were saying and it was very painful to listen.

Jeff Altman as well; This had to set his career back 2-3 steps. I like his comedy, but even he couldn't save this show.

Every episode would always end with Mie and Kei say something to Jeff you couldn't understand, then they would remove their kimonos revealing the swimsuits they were wearing under it and would drag him fully dressed into the hot tub. It was one of the few funny things I can remember, but they did that every week and it got old fast.

Clearly, not one of television's best moments.