Join us for this fab episode as we mark the 60th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show with a discussion on the bands, both fictional and real, that appeared on some of our favorite TV shows.
Join us for this fab episode as we mark the 60th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show with a discussion on the bands, both fictional and real, that appeared on some of our favorite TV shows.
Welcome to Don’t Touch That Dial, a classic TV podcast. Did you grow up in the 70s and 80s? Did you rush home from school to watch reruns of the Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family? On each episode of Don't Touch That Dial, three guys who love TV will look back on those days and talk about the shows and stars that made watching television before streaming, DVRs, and even VCRs so special.
ANTHONY: Hello everyone and welcome to another fab episode of Don't Touch That Dial, a classic TV podcast. We are marking a truly historic milestone this week as February 9 is the anniversary of – the 60th anniversary of – the Beatles first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. And to honor this auspicious occasion, we are going to talk about some bands – both fictional and real – that appeared on some of our favorite TV shows. I'm Anthony Stoeckert.
JODY: I'm Jody Schwartz, rockin’ and rollin’.
KEITH: And Keith “period” Loria.
ANTHONY: Let’s start with a little background here, quick as we come on February 9 1964, The Beatles made their first appearance on the Sullivan Show. They famously arrived at JFK a couple of days earlier, they were greeted by thousands of screaming girls.
JODY: It was still called Idlewild.
ANTHONY: Oh, okay. All right. Then we all know what it was. The three of us know what it's like to be greeted by thousands of screaming girls when we show up in a room. They filmed the rehearsal
JODY: It happened this morning.
ANTHONY: And then for the live, for their first appearance they were on Sullivan several times, but the first one’s really the most famous one. They sang five songs and 73 million people watched this. And as we talked about this occasionally, this is in the 60s; this is before our time. All those people were watching at the same time. Like there were no VCRs; there were no DVRs, there was no streaming. All those 73 million people were actually sitting in front of a TV at the same time.
KEITH: How long was the Ed Sullivan Show? I didn't realize they did some five songs. That's a lot of songs.
JODY: That's also unheard of– five songs.
KEITH: That's a mini concert.
ANTHONY: And they weren't the only people on it like he had – I never saw the Sullivan show, but I think it was pretty long and he had a lot of acts on.
JODY: I think it was 90 minutes because there wasn't a lot on that during those days.
ANTHONY: And it was truly a variety show because he would have a rock band on and then he'd have a Broadway cast on and he’d have the guys spinning the plate. Yeah, and a comedian
KEITH: He had Broadway guests on like the way they do now?
ANTHONY: if I have this right, don't hold me to this, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about this,…
KEITH: Oh, I’m holding you to it.
ANTHONY: …they had the touring cast of, from England, of Oliver on the same night as…
JODY: I think they did.
ANTHONY: … the Beatles and playing the Artful Dodger was David Jones.
KEITH: I think it was Phil Collins. I thought he was in it too
ANTHONY no no, no, no Davy Jones of The Monkees, I believe was on Sullivan the same night…
KEITH Wow.
ANTHONY: …As the Beatles
JODY: You know, one of the premises of that of Mr. Saturday Night was that Billy Crystal's character gets booked on The Ed Sullivan Show and he follows the Beatles.
ANTHONY: Yeah.
KEITH: That's something I've seen in other things as well.
ANTHONY: I think some magician, I think in real life there was like some magician who had to go on after them I think that's what Crystal … JODY: That's what they were basing it on. Yeah.
ANTHONY: That’s what they were basing it on
KEITH: And that guy disappeared.
JODY: I think that the cast of Camelot on too at one point
ANTHONY: On the Beatles night?
JODY: Not the Beatles night but the show.
ANTHONY: Oh, he had lots of Broadway. Yeah, he had lots of Broadway casts, but I think it's just Sullivan came out and introduced act after act after act. It wasn't like the Tonight Show where he’d, you know, have a little banter with people but it was just you know, boom. Here's a bunch of acts, opera singers.
JODY: Sometimes a dancing bear.
ANTHONY: Yeah, absolutely. So after this appearance, the Beatles sold I think supposedly they sold 2 million records in the first month after that appearance. They had the top five spots on the Billboard charts and from what you hear neighborhoods all across the country, people's kids started forming bands that led to the term Garage Band. Steve Van Zandt called it the second big bang when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan for the first time
JODY: It’s a good term for it.
ANTHONY: Yeah. It however, was not their first appearance on television. Their first appearance on television, Jack Paar sent the crew to England to film them so they weren't in America, but this is like a month before that I think Jack Paar wanted to stick it to Sullivan and so he sent the crew over to England and that crew I think included Hal Gurnee Letterman's Director.
JODY: Oh, OK.
ANTHONY: I think and they went and they filmed the Beatles performing a song – and it may have been in England, maybe in Germany, I'm not sure – and that aired on The Tonight Show, the Jack Paar program and the New York Times …
JODY: He seems to have a mean in him, Jack Paar.
ANTHONY Yeah, yeah. He's a little, he's a little sarcastic about the Beatles if you watch that clip of him introducing them. But after that aired, The New York Times wrote about it because the Beatles were like becoming a big deal. And whoever wrote the article for The New York Times said that “the band sang a song apparently entitled ‘with a love like that you know you should be bad’ ” The guy didn't know the name of the song, She Loves You. He said “Yeah, I guess I guess it's like I guess the name of the song is ‘With a love like that, you know you shouldn't be bad.’ ” That's what's in the New York Times review of the Beatles.
JODY: That's hysterical. And what finally happened to the Beatles? ANTHONY: Ya know, I don’t know, I think they might have had a movie and a cartoon show in the 60s. I love the Beatles, but how about each of you, like how big a Beatles fans do each of you consider yourselves? JODY: I like almost all their songs. I don't know that I'm at your level of Beatle fandom but…
ANTHONY: There are bigger levels than me by the way.
KEITH: Yeah. I’m at Jody’s level. Huge fan. I came to The Beatles a little later in life than most. I was more of 13, 14.
JODY: Same with me actually.
KEITH: My uncle, my Uncle Pete introduced me to them and just fell in love with their music and obviously I knew some of the songs. I don't know if I really knew the Beatles like I knew Penny Lane when I was very young. Probably like after Billy Joel, my favorite musicians of all time. But I will say my wife is not a Beatles fan. And I didn't learn this until after we were dating for quite a while and we always joke that had I known that, I don't know if I would have continued dating her.
ANTHONY: Like she dislikes them, like if it comes on the radio, she says “I can't listen to it,” like that kind of thing or she just doesn't care?
KEITH: She doesn't care at all.
JODY: One thing I'll add with The Beatles is that literally six to eight months after I started getting into them John Lennon was murdered.
ANTHONY: Oh wow. They were always part of my life. My sisters listen to them. Somehow I had a scratched-up 45 of Daytripper and We Can Work It Out when I was a kid and I had all their albums on vinyl. Then I re- bought their albums on vinyl because my original copies got scratched and scratched up and then CDs came out and I bought all the CDs but I still only have the original CDs from the 80s. I haven't bought like any of these, you know re-issues or anything like that, but there are people who can analyze, I'm an amateur really because there are people who can tell you the differences between mono versions and stereo versions and you know, this printing and that kind of thing. And remixes and …
JODY: Those people scare me.
ANTHONY: They're all very nice, I’m sure.
JODY: I'm sure but that whole level of…
ANTHONY: The Beatles also made an impact on television because a lot of shows said, “Hey, the kids like these Beatles, let's do something with this.”
JODY: Bee-tles.
ANTHONY: There are quite a few bands that showed up on TV shows that were inspired clearly by the Beatles and some other bands will talk about that maybe weren't quite directly. I don't know where do we want to start with this?
KEITH: We'll start with the Monkees. The most direct comparison because they really were trying to be a Beatles band right? What was …
JODY: And the whole show looked like a Beatles movie. The Monkees Looks like A Hard Day's Night but
ANTHONY: I think it was pitched as A Hard Day's Night.
JODY: Yeah But it seems to them running around and music in the back. Yeah, it was.
KEITH: And I knew the Monkees before I knew the Beatles. So because I and I have to say, you know this, this just came to me. The way I actually learned a lot of Beatles music was from the Sergeant Pepper movie, and I had that album so I knew Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees singing the Beatles songs before I knew the Beatles singing the Beatles songs and I love that movie.
ANTHONY: Did you see that – did you see that movie when you were a kid?
KEITH: Yes, yes. And I loved it. I love that.
ANTHONY: OH MY GOD! It’s so bad.
JODY: I've actually seen it since I watched it on YouTube, like about a year ago.
ANTHONY: It's about like five years ago or so, maybe even longer, it was on Netflix and I forced myself to sit and watch it and I was like, oh my god, this is just as bad as…
JODY: It's fairly bad.
ANTHONY: It really damaged Peter Frampton’s career unfairly, but he thinks it really, really hurt him.
JODY: It helped George Burns.
KEITH: I talked to Peter Frampton about that actually.
ANTHONY:Oh, what'd he say?
KEITH: He did talk about how he just said his career back a little bit. He actually didn't think it was that terrible movie.
ANTHONY: It is.
KEITH: I did the interview a long time ago. But I really liked the movie. But I haven't seen it probably since I was a kid.
JODY: If it's any consolation to Peter Frampton.-Paul McCartney's Give my Regards the Broad Street is much worse
KEITH: I saw that in the theaters
ANTHONY: Oh my god, which one would I rather sit through? The premise of Sergeant Pepper movie was pretty good that this band that always exists.
KEITH: Oh yeah
ANTHONY: and different men like that thought that was a pretty good premise. But after that …
JODY: Steve Martin scene as a Maxwell Silver Hammer was interesting. ANTHONY: And Aerosmith was good; Earth, Wind & Fire was good
KEITH: IT WAS ALL GOOD! It was a great movie!
ANTHONY: We should host a screening of the Sgt. Pepper movie for all of our listeners
JODY: And all our listeners are invited.
KEITH: I'm sorry to take everyone away from the Monkees. Alright, let's return to the Monkees.
ANTHONY: Listen, we can talk about the Sgt Pepper movie all day as far as I'm concerned. Weren’t there robots singing She's Leaving Home in that movie?
JODY: Yes they were!
KEITH: And they were perfectly on key.
JODY: Because of course they were.
ANTHONY: We’re getting off the rails but I don't care.
JODY: This is good stuff. This is gold.
ANTHONY: But my, I don't know. I don't– tell you the truth. I think I heard the Beatles before the Monkees but that would be close but I loved the Monkees. The shows were rerun, the shows were on reruns when we were a kid and their albums were not in print. The only album that was in print was their greatest hits album which I had and any friends of my sisters who walked into the house when I'm like five years old, I would ask them if they had Monkees album and I ended up like getting four of them.
KEITH: Wow
JODY: I'm gonna take an …
ANTHONY: Imagine going to someone's house and their five year old is like, “do you have any Monkees albums you can give me?” that's what I was doing. And I ended up getting their first four albums that way and then somebody lent me the fifth album and made you give it back
KEITH: Were these like friends or they're like boyfriends and they were trying to impress?
ANTHONY: Oh, it was a mix. That's a good question. It was good. There was someone who was interested, a guy who I think was interested in one of my sisters. He gave me their fourth album. And then another was some of the others were definitely women
JODY: I’m going to take a page from Keith's book and say I thought the Monkees were actors on the show before I knew it was a band.
ANTHONY: Well, they were cast as actors.
JODY: No, I know that and then they became a band on their own, but I just didn't know that it was with your music. I didn't even know they had music. I just knew music was on the show.
ANTHONY: They had a casting call for different actors. Those were the guys who got cast in the parts and then they became a real band. As Micky Dolenz jokes hundreds of times it's like Leonard Nimoy really became a Vulcan. Yeah, absolutely love the Monkees.
JODY: We have to get our regular Happy Days thing here. So I am going to say up in terms of fans on TV, there was an episode of Happy Days from season two where the hot band in town was Johnny Fish and the Fins.
KEITH: (Singing) Young blood.
JODY: Everybody wanted to go see them. Everybody wanted to go see them and Richie went to summer camp with the leader of the band whose name was Rocky Roads. And that guy knew Richie as Freckles. That’s his nickname, and somehow because they wanted to rehearse without groupies showing up at the hotel, they were going to stay at the Cunningham house and rehearse there but Richie's not allowed to tell him about it. So we can't tell his friends that this famous rock band is staying there.
ANTHONY: and he's telling everyone that he knows the guys
JODY: yes, he's telling everyone he knows the guy but now he can't say that the guy actually does know him back and that he's staying in his house.
ANTHONY: And then he gets them tickets to…
KEITH: Horrible tickets.
JODY: Up in the rafters
ANTHONY: And they're up in the rafters and everyone thinks – I have to say everybody on, I would not have been friends with any of these people after that episode if I was Richie. I would have told them all the screw off because …
JODY: And Potsie was particularly mean to him in that episode. ANTHONY: Yeah, even Fonzie was, yeah. And then at the end, they're in the rafters. They're in these really bad seats. And because they've in the bad seats, Potsie and Fonzie think Richie's lying to them and then the guy the fish guy or Rocky Roads…
JODY: Rocky Roads.
ANTHONY: Rocky Roads, he gives Richie a shout out and then that makes everyone like Richie again and Richie should have just kicked their butts out of their seats and said, “Get away from me.” That should have been the last episode.
JODY: He throws Potsie from the balcony.
KEITH: He had a date too, right, who got a better seat and then she came up…
ANTHONY: Yes, yes.
KEITH… to see Richie after.
ANTHONY: Yea.
KEITH: Do you remember who — it wasn't Gloria — but do you know who it was?
ANTHONY: Nah, I think there's someone whose face I can kind of picture but I'm not sure it's really her.
JODY: Random girlfriend. The band that actually played Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids.
ANTHONY: Oh yeah, they were in American Graffiti.
KEITH: They were, yes.
JODY: Right, they actually played Herbie and the Heartbeats in American Graffiti.
ANTHONY: Yeah. Yeah.
JODY: They’re now known, apparently as Flash Cadillac. I didn't know that. But I wrote that down.
KEITH: They do still tour and I know this because I made a card – as I’ve talked about, I make television cards to try to get autographs – and I wrote to their agent ahead of time or you know, whoever handles their website and said I have this card, can I send it to them? And they wrote me back and said sure. And they gave me the address and I sent it and never came back.
ANTHONY Ahhhh! Was it a Happy Days card or an American Graffiti card?
KEITH: No. Happy Days card of Johnny Fish and the Fins
ANTHONY: We have to check and see if they're showing up in any of our areas. We got to see them.
JODY: We got to interview them for the podcast.
ANTHONY: I want to see them and I want to see them in concert. That would be great. But that plot point ties into an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show where Dick Van Dyke’s character, Rob Petrie, wrote for a successful comedy show the Alan Brown radio show and in this episode, the a band called The Red Coats was going to perform on the Alan Brady show and they have to stay at Rob and Laura's house and it has to be kept secret. Garry Marshall probably said, “Remember when the Dick Van Dyke Show did that? We'll do that.”
JODY: So the dig Van Dyke was actually in 65. The Happy Days episode was 75. So exactly 10 years apart.
ANTHONY: And the Dick Van Dyke Show was clearly playing on the immediacy of the Beatles.
JODY: Oh yeah.
ANTHONY: The guys who play –who were they again? You guys know who they were.
JODY: They were Chad and Jeremy.
ANTHONY: They were British and they had the Beatles-like sense of humor and everything and it was clearly a ripoff or homage or something like that. And we were talking about this earlier in the week and Keith made a good point. Where did they stay? Was there room for them down that and the layout of that house in New Rochelle has always baffled me. I don't know what was going on down that hallway. There was a basement, there was Richie's room. And maybe there was another guest room.
JODY: There always seemed to be another room somewhere in the house and they kept walking like you know, beyond that layout, there always seem to be something else going on.
ANTHONY: And sticking to this theme. One more episode of bands sleeping in the home of our favorite families, the Standells who are a real band. I think they did the song Dirty Water. There's an episode where they sleep in the Munsters house, only it's not– it doesn't have to be kept secret. I think the Standells are in town. Eddie, of course, is a huge —that's another thing about these episodes: whenever the band is on, like the kid’s a huge fan of the band at the beginning of the episode even though they never talked about it before. And Eddie is a huge fan of the Standells and they're coming to town and, I don't know, somehow the Munsters find that they can rent out their house to them. And so the Munsters leave; the Standells move into the house. They love the Munsters house but then the family comes back for some reason and they all have a rock and roll party.
KEITH: The Munsters created Airbnb before you know
JODY: I can reveal to you guys now that Taylor Swift has been staying in my basement all week.
KEITH: Sure, Jody.
ANTHONY: If that was true, I know someone who would be really angry at you.
KEITH: Me too.
ANTHONY: But yes, you have to see the Standells rock with Grandpa on the Munsters. You haven't lived until you've seen that.
JODY: I think, god I actually have seen it. I saw that. I actually saw that this morning. I found it on YouTube.
ANTHONY: Do I have it? Do I have the basic premise right?
JODY: Well, I didn't see the whole episode. I just saw the scene that you're talking about.
ANTHONY: I think the episode’s called Way Out Munsters. Oh, speaking of way outs…
KEITH: The Flintstones!
JODY: The Flintstones. Weren’t they the Way Ups?
ANTHONY: No the Way Outs.
KEITH: (Singing) We’re talking the Way Outs, Waaay, oouuut!
JODY: The Way Out. Okay. That’s right.
ANTHONY: They look like Ringo a bit. They all looked identical. They had like, they had the moptops. They had the Ringo nose and they had feet and then their bodies were like…
JODY: It’s good they had feet.
ANTHONY: Yeah, but the bodies were like cylinders. And then when they jumped, the cylinders separated and you could see through the cylinders. And that freaked me out as
JODY: That was insanity.
ANTHONY: I was horrified by, I’m like, “What's going on with these things?” I love the Way Outs. I was like sort of fascinated with what was going on with those things. Were they from out of space or something?
JODY: Oh no, the premise was the DJ was making up that there was like a an invasion from out of space so it's like it was supposed to be like a War of the Worlds type of thing.
ANTHONY: Oh, OK.
JODY: And and then like later, and everyone's afraid that there's gonna be some invasion and, then later on, the DJ’s like “We've been asked to announce” and then you see two cops behind them, “Actually forced to announce” and then they reveal it’s a singing group. but they don't ever reveal why when they jump up you don't see, that never, that's never revealed.
ANTHONY: Again, I want to emphasize that their bodies separate and you can see through the sections of their bodies; it’s horrifying.
JODY: There's also an episode of The Flintstones where there's a Beatles-like band called The Four Insects.
ANTHONY: Oh I don’t know that. I don’t remember that.
JODY: And they say they don't like the bug music with those four insects. ANTHONY: And there's also the one where Fred becomes a rock star.
JODY: Yes, Rock Roll.
ANTHONY: Yeah. And boy with that Way Outs, episode they got old radio fans with the War of the Worlds angle and they got Beatles fans with the Way Outs. They had it all covered.
KEITH: Let’s move on to one of my favorites, the Mosquitoes from Gilligan's Island.
ANTHONY: Yes, great episode. What do you want to say about them, Keith?
KEITH: Well, for those who don't know, they were played by a band called The Wellingtons, which was the band that sang the original Gilligan's Island theme though they were placed in later seasons.
ANTHONY: And how did they end up on the island? Were they on a boat? Jody, do you know how they ended up on the island?
JODY: I seem to remember a little bit about it, but no, I don't.
ANTHONY: Boy, I should look this up. I think their names are like, I'm not getting this right, but like Droopy, Shooby, Snoopy and Irving. It's like four – Bongo?
KEITH: Bingo and Irving. You’re right. Bingo, Bango, Bongo and Irving.
ANTHONY: And Irving. I remember their song was “He's a Loser,” right?
KEITH: And Irving wasn't actually part of the Wellingtons; they brought in another actor to be the fourth member of the band.
ANTHONY: OK don't they hear? I think the castaways hear this music and then they come across the Mosquitoes and the Mosquitoes are playing the song called “I'm a – He's a Loser. “I'm a Loser" is actually a real Beatles song. And then the women form a band called the Honeybees.
KEITH: Yes and the men are the Gnats.
ANTHONY: I think because – did the Mosquitoes do not want to save the castaways but then they use the Honeybees as a way to convince them to take them or something. Am I right about that?
KEITH: So what happened was yes, they came to the island in search of peace and quiet so they actually just came on a boat.
ANTHONY: Oh, okay.
KEITH: And so they're trying to appeal to them. So the men go first and the Gnats and they sing some songs. And then they come sneak out of the jungle and watch him sing but that doesn't do anything. So then the girls do the Honeybees with Mrs. Howell. Ah, what a singer! And then they see it but then what happens is they're worried that if the Honeybees come back to Hollywood that they will take all the concert gigs and they have to leave them on the island.
ANTHONY: And the song was “You Need Us,” right?
KEITH: Yes. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Natalie Schafer doing that song.
ANTHONY: I gotta say, Keith, I wasn't watching Natalie Schafer. I was watching Dawn Wells. I'm not even sure I knew Mrs. Howell was in that scene.
JODY: I don't think I've seen that episode since the 70s.
ANTHONY: Really?
JODY: I remember watching it but I don't think I, you know, I've seen so many of the reruns so many times over the years, but I think that one I may have seen once or twice when I was a kid. I don't think I've seen it since but all these things are coming back to me that you're talking about.
KEITH: So the creators of PacMan love this episode so much that they paid homage to it by naming their characters Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde as a tribute.
ANTHONY: Ah okay, wow. Wow, so that’s why there's a Clyde guy.
JODY: All right, listeners. You heard that your first.
ANTHONY: I’m sure it's online somewhere obviously.
JODY: We're breaking this now.
ANTHONY: Another one that I don't really remember this well. I know I watched F Troop, but it's probably been more than 40 years since I've watched F Troop but there's a band called the Bedbugs.
JODY: Do you own a television?
ANTHONY: And they show up on an episode F Troop, which took place in the 1800s Right?
JODY: Yeah.
ANTHONY: And there's a Beatles-like bands with the drum and an electric guitar.
KEITH: No idea what that is.
ANTHONY: Yeah. So this Beatles-like band shows up at this calvary in the 1800s Calvary post in the 1800s. And they're called the bedbugs. And this guy named Lowell George who was in the band Little Feet, he was in the Bedbugs.
JODY: The Beatles stole their act.
ANTHONY: The Beatles stole the Bedbugs act. I would love to see the writers room, you know where they're like, “I don't care if it's the 1800s. Just put some Beatles on it. Who Cares?”
JODY: And you gotta figure there was one writer who was pushing ‘We can't do this.’”
ANTHONY: “Excuse me, this doesn't work this way chronologically. They did not have electric guitars in the 1800s.” The band’s logo was on the drum like the Beatles and everything so you know and they roll into town JODY: That's amazing.
ANTHONY: Yeah, this I don't really know the story behind this one but there's an episode of I Dream of Jeannie that has Phil Spector on it which gives Jeannie credit, she survived an encounter with Phil Spector, and boy, Boyce and Hart, who were the songwriters for the Monkees are also on this episode, and I don't know anything. I don't know anything about it.
KEITH: Speaking of the Monkees, Davy Jones was also on the Brady Bunch.
ANTHONY: Yeah.
JODY: Of course.
KEITH: Did he sing a song? He sang, right?
Jody: He did.
ANTHONY: He sang Girl.
JODY: Girl.
ANTHONY: (singing) Look what you’ve done to me. Yeah. And that's another episode where it never came up before but all Marsha can talk about in this episode is Davy Jones. Yeah.
JODY: Yeah, yes. What's also amazing about it is that she actually, she tells all her friends she could get Davy Jones to perform because he sent her a letter saying “I will do anything for my number one fan.”
ANTHONY: Got a little too literal.
JODY: And she took that way too literally because she actually thought Davy Jones would perform at a high school.
ANTHONY: I actually don't know how hard it would have been to get Davy Jones to perform at a high school.
JODY: At that time, it would have been, maybe not a few years later. ANTHONY: They make him out to be a huge, you know, star at the time. JODY: And he was also in the movie. He came back and when he came …
ANTHONY: Yes, he sings, he sings an electrified version of Girl in the movie.
JODY: But what's funny …
KEITH: All the moms rush the state.
ANTHONY: Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah.
JODY: They bring him on stage and none of the kids have any reaction to him. But like the 40-something teachers are always like, “Oh, look!” ANTHONY: Another show that had kind of a similar thing was the Odd Couple when Edna was a huge Paul Williams fan.
JODY: Yes, again for some…
ANTHONY: Does he sing Old Fashioned Love Song on that?
JODY: No, he has a song that like he wrote for Felix about his daughter and that but what happens is…
ANTHONY: You don't see him in the nightclub scene rehearsing, .
singing a song?
JODY: You see him in the nightclub finishing up, I don't think it was Old Fashioned Love Song. I think it was, maybe it was You and Me Against the World. You see him in a nightclub finishing the song. I don't remember what it was. Now. I'd have to check that.
KEITH: He did that on the Muppet Show though.
ANTHONY: He sang Old Fashioned Love Song on the Muppet Show?
KEITH: Yeah
JODY: And I think Donnie and Marie .
Anthony: Paul Williams, absolute genius. One of the all-time great careers. I don't know how many teenage girls were following him around.
JODY: Well, Edna was gonna run away to follow Paul Williams.
ANTHONY: She did.
JODY: She did and they had to find her in a nightclub waitressing.
ANTHONY: It made no sense. She's gonna follow Paul Williams around nightclubs and wait and be a waitress in whatever club he happens to be working ?
JODY: No one's gonna hire her that way “I will hire you for four nights.”
ANTHONY: Yeah, and it doesn't work. “I'll bus tables for you as long as Paul Williams is in town.” And what did Oscar Know him somehow?
JODY: Yeah.
KEITH: Oscar knew everybody.
JODY: Oscar was writing an article on him. Oscar knows everybody. Actually there was a line in that where Paul Williams is hang gliding and Oscar was going with them and he’s explaining to Felix what hang gliding is and Felix goes, “Why would a man do that?” And Oscare says “Why would a man change paper five times a day?”
ANTHONY: So yeah, that's a Yeah, that's another great another great plot device that was used in a lot of these shows.
JODY: One of the best ones actually. That's an amazing plot device.
ANTHONY: And as far as the real band goes – this is a little after our era that we talked about – the Beach Boys were on Full House.
KEITH: Yes. Right.
ANTHONY: Stamos drummed for the Beach Boys sometimes. Right?
KEITH: I think so. Yeah, they went on tour.
JODY: And Menudo was on Silver Spoons.
ANTHONY: Wow. Menudo was on silver spoons. I missed that. But you know Stamos, I think, is a huge Beach Boys fan.
JODY: He loves the Beach Boys.
ANTHONY: and I think he drums for them at like some…
JODY: He loves the Beach Boys and Don Rickles.
ANTHONY: We all do. All right. Anybody else have any bands, real or fictional, that they want to talk about?
KEITH: Well, my favorite fictional band is the Partridge Family.
ANTHONY: Oh my God! Of course!
KEITH: But we’re gonna have to do a whole show on that someday, but I just want to get that out there.
JODY: (singing) We'll make you happy…
ANTHONY: Based on the Cowsills? Is that the name of the band?
JODY: They were based on the Cowsills, yeah.
ANTHONY: Yeah. I don't really know anything about the Cowsills. They were real, like family?
JODY: Didn’t they sing “Hair,” the song “Hair?” Am I getting that wrong?
ANTHONY: Oh no, it was on Broadway originally and then the Fifth Dimension had a hit with it.
JODY: Maybe it was the Fifth Dimension I’m thinking of. Yeah, OK, I'm thinking of the Fifth Dimension but the Partridge Family was based on the Cowsills.
Anthony: Yeah, I've forgotten about them. And another, similar to the Monkees, they had real hits.
KEITH: Yes.
ANTHONY: But David Cassidy was the only one…
JODY: David Cassidy wanted to be a singer.
ANTHONY: Yeah, yeah.
JODY: He wanted to be like Ricky Nelson, because, you know, Ricky Nelson was in a TV show when he wanted to sing and he did. He had hits, Ricky Nelson; Cassidy wanted the same thing.
ANTHONY: The Monkees did learn to play their instruments and they did play their instruments on some records. I don't think Tracy ever really learned how to play the tambourine.
JODY: Oh, no, no, I don’t think Danny was playing the bass. I don't think that was happening there.
ANTHONY: But funny how each member in that family had a different instrument they could play, enough to form a band.
KEITH: That's good parenting.
JODY: Did you ever see…?
ANTHONY: Either that or really bad parenting.
JODY: They did a TV movie on the Partridge Family on the, you know, the making of the show and everything of the behind-the-scenes stuff with actors playing them. The first scene where they're playing music, the guy who's directing the show’s like “I don't hear that instrument. I don't hear that instrument.”
ANTHONY: Anything else guys?
KEITH: I'm gonna just go put on some of my Mosquito records now and then…
ANTHONY: Vinyl or CD? Are you a vinyl guy?
KEITH: I’m more an eight-track guy
JODY: I thought so.
ANTHONY: Oh, how I wish you had an eight-track of the best of the Mosquitoes, I’d be so jealous.
JODY: I’m just gonna pretend that you do.
KEITH: I don't have any track recorder but I do have a two XL and that plays the tracks tapes.
JODY: Oh, remember that?
KEITH: I have one in my office.
JODY: I had one of those.
ANTHONY: My family had an eight-track and one of the crazy things was if a song crossed over a track, it would fade out …
JODY: … And fade back in.
ANTHONY: ….and then you'd hear the click and then you'd hear the rest of it. We had them and they would also change the order of the songs of albums on the track to make it fit the section.
JODY: You also couldn't rewind it, you couldn't fast forward it. You know if there was a song you wanted to hear again, you had to wait for it to come back or there was nothing practical about this thing.
ANTHONY: I'll bet you there's somebody out there going on, “The sound on an eight- track is amazing. I have everything I need.”
JODY: No doubt.
ANTHONY: “You listen to vinyl? No way, eight-track is the way to go.”
JODY: No doubt.
ANTHONY: Thanks for listening everyone and go watch some TV and go listen to The Beatles.
KEITH: And watch Sgt. Pepper.
JODY: Yes.
Thanks for listening to Don't Touch That Dial, a classicå TV podcast. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe. Please leave a review on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen we'll be back soon. With another journey back in time to the days of static left tracks and seven channels