Thursday, October 12, 2006
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE HENRY HIGGINS KIND
This brings up an odd bit of trivia. Oddly enough, Mie and Kei aren't *officially* mispronouncing UFO when they say "yoo-foe."
This is a weird bit of Forteana.
When UFO's were first being talked about in the 50's, and well through the early 70's, "yoo-foe" was a popular way to pronounce it in English. I have footage of latter-day Fortean guru, John Keel, referring to them as such. Similarly, the underrated Gerry Anderson tv show from England, UFO, has many of the characters calling them "yoo-foes."
By the time Mie and Kei were singing that AMAZINGLY WEIRD song, the USA had switched over to saying "yoo-eff-oh." This was in the wake of CE3K, and "you-eff-oh" had become the preference. Another example of how Japan and the West are always several years behind each other's media.
Yes, PINK LADY AND DAVE could have happened. If Netflix offers PL&J, it's worth putting in a request, just for the Jeff Altman interviews. He has an appropriate mix of "this was a ridiculous concept" and "what the hell, a network was offering me my own show" and "this kind of wrecked my career" and "if your career is going to be wrecked, this is as good a way as any" and "looking back on it all, it was weird and also kind of fun."
Without a doubt, Jeff Altman comes across as a super guy. Ironic. Funny. This is a guy who, had the deck been stacked a little differently, could have at least had a likably Alan Thicke-or-Bob Saget-level career. No, they're not luminaries, but they have a niche. He looks like he could hold his own in a Christopher Guest movie.
And there were a number of places where he got to sneak in his own material. Most of it is good enough, in a "poor man's Carol Burnett" kind of way. The only piece that's a real time warp is when he does a character named "Leonard Moon," who is clearly a punch-drunk, sub-moronic black boxer... but not in black-face. It's, um, well, um, I don't think anyone got offended by it, but it wouldn't fly on TV, now. Probably for good reason.
(Also funny on the show is Jim Varney. Varney was a very, very talented comic actor. He could have easily been a Not Ready For Prime Time Player had the chips fallen differently. He does no "Ernest" at all on the show... in fact, I'm pretty certain that his work here pre-dates Ernest. Varney was a good comic with that trademark, manic intensity and Shakespearean training. He died too young... another reason not to smoke. He never seemed to resent getting stuck with the Ernest character, which is in his karmic favor. But I would have loved to have seen him play Dogberry in MUCH ADO. He had the training, and he would have stolen the show. If you "youtube" Jim Varney, you can find a great clip of him playing a southern sleazeball on Norman Lear's legendary "America 2-Night," with Martin Mull and Fred Willard.)
Another odd thing...
The show, as the credits indicated, is NOT called PINK LADY AND JEFF. The title in the opening credits was just PINK LADY. In the interviews, Jeff Altman says that he and his agent got into some pretty heated discussions over this with NBC, because he was going to carrying the brunt of the labor on the show. The credits never changed, but the name of the show when discussed in the media somehow became PINK LADY AND JEFF. Be careful what you wish for...
This brings up an odd bit of trivia. Oddly enough, Mie and Kei aren't *officially* mispronouncing UFO when they say "yoo-foe."
This is a weird bit of Forteana.
When UFO's were first being talked about in the 50's, and well through the early 70's, "yoo-foe" was a popular way to pronounce it in English. I have footage of latter-day Fortean guru, John Keel, referring to them as such. Similarly, the underrated Gerry Anderson tv show from England, UFO, has many of the characters calling them "yoo-foes."
By the time Mie and Kei were singing that AMAZINGLY WEIRD song, the USA had switched over to saying "yoo-eff-oh." This was in the wake of CE3K, and "you-eff-oh" had become the preference. Another example of how Japan and the West are always several years behind each other's media.
Yes, PINK LADY AND DAVE could have happened. If Netflix offers PL&J, it's worth putting in a request, just for the Jeff Altman interviews. He has an appropriate mix of "this was a ridiculous concept" and "what the hell, a network was offering me my own show" and "this kind of wrecked my career" and "if your career is going to be wrecked, this is as good a way as any" and "looking back on it all, it was weird and also kind of fun."
Without a doubt, Jeff Altman comes across as a super guy. Ironic. Funny. This is a guy who, had the deck been stacked a little differently, could have at least had a likably Alan Thicke-or-Bob Saget-level career. No, they're not luminaries, but they have a niche. He looks like he could hold his own in a Christopher Guest movie.
And there were a number of places where he got to sneak in his own material. Most of it is good enough, in a "poor man's Carol Burnett" kind of way. The only piece that's a real time warp is when he does a character named "Leonard Moon," who is clearly a punch-drunk, sub-moronic black boxer... but not in black-face. It's, um, well, um, I don't think anyone got offended by it, but it wouldn't fly on TV, now. Probably for good reason.
(Also funny on the show is Jim Varney. Varney was a very, very talented comic actor. He could have easily been a Not Ready For Prime Time Player had the chips fallen differently. He does no "Ernest" at all on the show... in fact, I'm pretty certain that his work here pre-dates Ernest. Varney was a good comic with that trademark, manic intensity and Shakespearean training. He died too young... another reason not to smoke. He never seemed to resent getting stuck with the Ernest character, which is in his karmic favor. But I would have loved to have seen him play Dogberry in MUCH ADO. He had the training, and he would have stolen the show. If you "youtube" Jim Varney, you can find a great clip of him playing a southern sleazeball on Norman Lear's legendary "America 2-Night," with Martin Mull and Fred Willard.)
Another odd thing...
The show, as the credits indicated, is NOT called PINK LADY AND JEFF. The title in the opening credits was just PINK LADY. In the interviews, Jeff Altman says that he and his agent got into some pretty heated discussions over this with NBC, because he was going to carrying the brunt of the labor on the show. The credits never changed, but the name of the show when discussed in the media somehow became PINK LADY AND JEFF. Be careful what you wish for...
# posted by Doctor Lao @ 1:24 PM 
