Pink Lady

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...

...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.

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...

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!

Ahh, for the halcyon days of Freddy Silverman! Supertrain, Sheriff Lobo, Hello Larry, and the nadir, Pink Lady and Jeff. I can't imagine why network executives have such a poor reputation for intelligence. I mean, who could have predicted that an obscure Japanese duet, appealing primarily to little girls carrying "Hello Kitty" lunchboxes, wouldn't be successful on American network TV? Oh, and by the way, they *don't speak English*. Sounds like a sure-fire hit to me.

I enjoy surrealism as much as the next guy, but seeing the girls mouthing the punch lines to jokes, and laughing on cue, was quite disturbing. And poor Jeff Altman, this was below even his dignity. At least they had Ernest.

Absolutely pathetic. A test pattern would have been more entertaining.