Pink Lady

...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 caught a showing of this variety show over on Trio, and cannot say I'm overwhelmed by this relic of the Carter Years. The idea was certainly original enough: Take a popular (and actually pretty talented) idol-singer duo from Japan, team them up with a second-banana American singer and craft a variety show around it. Nice idea, lousy execution. Where to begin...

1. The writing is rivaled only by those apocryphal monkeys trying to write Shakespeare, an sad fact as Mark Evanier is easily capable of much better than this dreck (look at his consistently funny co-writing work on "Groo the Wanderer")

2. Mei and Kei are talented enough singers, and probably were talented actresses in Japan, but they didn't have enough of a command of the English language to grasp the right comic timing for the language.

3. Jeff Altman DOES have enough of a command of the English language, and he couldn't make a man being tickled to death laugh.

I was only a baby when this show aired. When I grew up, I borrowed the DVD set from my boss. Next to My Big Fat Greek Life, this is the worst TV show I have ever seen. Unfunny sketches, Mie and Kei singing in badly broken English to bad disco songs, Jeff Altman royally embarrassing himself...need I say more? It was fun to see a young Jim Varney (later of "Ernest" fame) in the sketches, he was the best part of the show. The DVD set should be used for revenge/torture purposes only!

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.

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...