The Rocky Horror Treatment & more!

THE ROCKY HORROR TREATMENT is a TV special that was released in syndication in 1981 to help promote SHOCK TREATMENT, the follow-up to THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. The bulk of the special focuses on RHPS, which wasn't widely known outside of the midnight circuit at that point. The special briefly touches on the roots of ROCKY HORROR, but mostly it documents how the film became a cult sensation. The second part of the special chronicles a bit of the making of SHOCK TREATMENT. There's a bunch of behind the scenes footage (including the filming of the titular song), as well as interviews with the cast and crew, and Christopher Malcolm does a lot of camera mugging in-character as Denton's resident cop, Vance Parker. Some of the RHPS footage from this special was recycled in other RHPS specials, but very little of the SHOCK TREATMENT footage has shown up elsewhere. And sadly, they didn't bother to put this one on DVD. The special is available to view online at Rocky Music, but if you'd prefer to download a higher quality .avi...

THE ROCKY HORROR TREATMENT
DOWNLOAD!

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1985 marked the 10th anniversary of RHPS, and there was a helluva lot of press coverage to promote it -- as I remember it, writer/star Richard O'Brien and fan club president Sal Piro seemed to be running to every camera they could find! But on The Morning Show, O'Brien and Piro were joined by Barry Bostwick...

THE MORNING SHOW INTERVIEW
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The '80s music series "Night Flight" was responsible for exposing people to things they probably wouldn't otherwise see, and in 1985, it offered Americans their first glimpse of the Brad & Janet's verses of "Superheroes," which were inexplicably trimmed out of ROCKY HORROR after its initial theatrical release. Hosted by a camera mugging Richard O'Brien, this 1985 episode of "Night Flight" gives some backstory on the cult of Rocky Horror, though it mainly features the songs from the film, snipped out and edited like music videos. Excerpts from this show have turned up on You Tube in the past, but this is the complete episode.

NIGHT FLIGHT:
ROCKY HORROR 10th ANNIVERSARY
DOWNLOAD!

Thanks again for these, Rick! Sorry it took me a year to post 'em!
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Michael Jackson Memorial Program

Rather than paying ridiculous triple-digit prices on eBay for the program that was given away at Michael Jackson's memorial service, wouldn't you prefer to just download it instead? I know I would.... and dear Lord, the idiots on eBay are bidding it up -- even copies of this PDF, which is freely available on a LA TV station's website... I googled it and found the program on some other sites, but I don't see this particular hi-res version being shared elsewhere in blogland. Don't want to horke KTLA's bandwidth, so I uploaded it to Sharebee.

DOWNLOAD LINK:
MultiUpload, Sharebee

And in case you missed 'em, I shared two other Michael Jackson books right here.
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The Relaxed Wife

If Dr. Seuss had made an educational film about "how to relax," it might have turned out something like this utterly bizarre 1957 short from Pfizer labs. With rhythmic narration, intentionally comical moments, trippy, whacked out visuals (and disembodied hands!) and a late endorsement for the tranquilizer Atarax, this weird little short is truly one of a kind (in a 5,000 Fingers of Dr T sort of way)...

This aired last night on TCM's Underground, and near the end I instantly recognized a portion of the music and dialogue -- it was sampled on Everclear's 1997 album "So Much for the Afterglow" under the title "Ataraxia" as the intro to "Normal Like You." The film made such an impression that I was gonna rip it and post it, but then I discovered I don't have to...

DOWNLOAD
At the Internet Archive!


No, this is not a porno. I know you perverts were assuming by the name....
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Love, American Style ('99 Pilot)

While racking my brain to think of something to post for the 4th of July, it hit me -- there's always (various types of) fireworks on "Love, American Style!" So... 30 years after the debut of the original show (which spun-off "Happy Days" and the animated "Wait 'til Your Father Gets Home"), there was an attempt to revive the series. The revival didn't get picked up, but the pilot did air during the 1999 February sweeps. Featuring a slew of familiar TV actors, the pilot included a series of 6 vignettes. Here's a breakdown (which include links to watch each segment on YouTube)...


In the running skit "Love In The Old South" Melissa Joan Hart ("Sabrina the Teenage Witch") and Matt Letscher ("Good Morning Miami," "Eli Stone") star as an unwed couple in the old South who attempt to make love while her father's away...


In "Love And The Heimlich Maneuver," Joely Fisher ("Ellen," "'Til Death") stars as a woman who comes to the realization that she may be too good for potential beau Tom Verica ("American Dreams," "The Naked Truth").


In "Love and the Case Against It," an elementary schoolgirl (Sarah Haspel) runs to her teacher (TV writer Winnie Holzman, "ThirtySomething," "My So-Called Life") and accuses her classmate (J.B. Gaynor, "Grounded for Life") of sexual harassment.


In "Love and the Internet," Leila Kenzle ("Mad About You") arrives at the airport with plans to wed the man she's been talking to on the internet for the past year, whom she has never laid eyes on.

In "Love And The Blind Date" Mariska Hargitay ("Law & Order: SVU") stars as a woman who's stood up by her blind date, so she winds up at a bar, where she butts heads with Steven Eckholdt ("Friends," "It's Like... You Know," "My Big Fat Greek Life").


And they saved the best for last! In "Love And The Jealous Lover," b-movie queen Sherilyn Fenn and Jon Tenney ("The Closer") plan to spend a sweaty romantic evening together, but their plans are foiled by her schizophrenic dog.

DOWNLOAD LINK:
Love, American Style '99!

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RIP Mollie Sugden

With so many celebrity deaths recently (including the misreported death of Jeff Goldblum), it's hard to keep up, and one who barely blipped on the radar here in the USA is British actress Mollie Sugden, who passed away on July 1st at the age of 86. Although Sugden was hardly a household name, she's known to fans the world over as Mrs. Slocombe, the rainbow-haired biddy who was head of the ladies at Grace Brothers Department Store in the long-running British comedy Are You Being Served?.


With her sharp-tongue, crazy shenanigans, multi-colored wigs and anecdotes featuring blatant sexual innendo (generally revolving around her "pussy," Tiddles), Mrs. Slocombe and her cohorts have been popular here in the USA on PBS stations for decades. In addition to Served, the big-screen movie and its belated and hilarious follow-up, Grace & Favour (aka Are You Being Served? Again!), Sugden also starred in the series Hugh and I, That's My Boy, My Husband and I, Coronation Street and, most recently, The Liver Birds. May you rest in peace, Mollie... along with the petrified pussy.

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1998 & 2001 Fall Preview Shows

It's always funny to look back at fall preview specials and see shows that you remember fondly, shows that you don't remember at all, and early promotion for long running hits... So here's a look back with a few fall preview specials!

First up is "CBS Sneak Peek" 1998, hosted by Ray Romano. In addition to returning shows, then-new shows that are featured are The King of Queens, the incredibly short-lived Brian Benben Show, Faith Ford's Maggie Winters, To Have and to Hold, L.A. Doctors, the Dennis Farina vehicle Buddy Faro (why can't that man get on a hit show?) and Martial Law.

DOWNLOAD LINKS:
1998 Sneak Peek, Covers

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Next up is CBS's 2001 preview, which is hosted by Survivor's Jeff Probst. New shows that season include The Richard Dreyfuss vehicle The Education of Max Bickford, The Amazing Race, The Ellen Show, Daniel Stern's Danny, the short-lived cult werewolf show Wolf Lake (with Lou Diamond Philips), The Agency, and George Cromwell's Citizen Baines.

DOWNLOAD LINKS:
2001 Sneak Peek, Covers

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And finally, for those of you who were kids in the late '90s (and since most of you are now adults, that makes me feel ancient), here's Disney's One Saturday Morning on Friday Night from 1998. MeMe (Valarie Rae Miller, Dark Angel, Reaper), the host of "Disney's One Saturday Morning," Jelly Roll the Elephant (Brad Garrett) and Salem the Cat (Nick Bakay) from Sabrina the Teenage Witch offer a sneak peek of the children's Saturday morning lineup -- shows included Doug, Pepper Ann, Recess, Hercules, Mrs. Munger's Class, Tube Dwellers, and How Things Werk. Also included are a few commercials, such as one heralding the debut of the update of Hollywood Squares with Whoopi Goldberg, a fun "Got Milk?" spoof for Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, spots for the fluffy TGIF fare Brother's Keeper and Two of a Kind, and a great Beverly Hillbillies take-off to promote The Hughleys. Unlike the specials above, this comes from its sole TV airing on September 11, 1998, so it's not pristine quality.

DOWNLOAD LINK:
One Saturday Morning on Friday Night (1998)

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