I watched a show on vh1 about Kiss once and they showed a clip from the old Mike Douglass show.
Gene comes out in all his glory and one of the other guests (an older female comedian) looks at him with disgust and says something like…“Your probaby a nice Jewish boy under all that makeup”
To which Gene replies…“If you only knew”
Then she says …“You can’t fool me…I see your hook” 
But she does. It’s the first thng you notice about her. Even my kid mentioned it.
Why the shock?
I live in the town the Perdue Corporation is headquartered in, and in his heyday Frank Perdue may have been a hard nosed, canny businessman, and a demanding PITA, but he was also a master marketer, and would loved to have been called “The Chicken Man”. His entire marketing persona was predicated on being “The Chicken Man”.
That he would have responded in such a nasty and vituperative way to someone asking him about the very image his marketing dept was spending millions of dollars to create is beyond nuts (IMO).
Thanks Mr. Blue Sky…
I’ll not disagree, astro.
As I said, take it with a grain of salt… I seem to remember it happening, and what made it so shocking was the fact that Perdue came off, in his commercials at the time, as a kindly, humorous old fart. The racial remark was totally out of his public character.
Also, I have no recollection at all of what exchanges might have preceeded this… if, in fact, it occurred (as I said, after all this time I’m not sure if I saw it, or someone else told me about it… you know how memory works…).
Did anyone else see this, or hear about it?
David Letterman and Charles Grodin have a long-running act going, with Grodin pretending to be peeved, and Dave pretending to be bewildered. It’s a pose, not the real thing.
Ditto with Richard Simmons — it’s planned ahead of time. Dave does not normally keep a fire extinguisher behind his desk.
Letterman had a pretty awkward moment with Harvey Pekar once. It’s in the movie American Splendor and it’s the only Letterman scene in the movie that’s done with actors rather than the actual clip.
I remember an interview with Motley Crue on MTV shortly after they had canned their singer, Vince Neil. They were on with their new singer (whose name I don’t remember, he didn’t last long) and the first thing they said was “We’re not answering any [bleep] questions about Vince!”
The interviewer (I think it was Kurt Loder) pushed them about Neil anyway and asked them if they knew he had recently been injured in a water skiing accident when he had crashed into a coral reef.
[paraphrasing] "I’m really sorry to hear that. How’s the coral reef?’
They were surly and hostile throughout the interview and then Loder asked them a question about whether they were still into “women, hairspray and fire.”
The band went ballistic. Nikki Sixx stood up and said something like “Women hairspray and fire? Who wrote these [bleep] questions?”
Then they all walked out of the interview.
The whole think was kind of weird. Itw as like they were pissed at Kurt Loder before they even sat down. I have no idea why thy found that last question so offensive. Have their ever seen their own videos? Women, hairspray and fire sums them up perfectly.
Actually, La M was very gracious. She was very composed and seemed bemused by the whole thing. Her publicist, however, could be seen milling worriedly around the perimeter, probably begging anyone to who had the ability and inclination to end the segment gracefully, to do so. In a subsequent interview, Madonna said; “I am fascinated by Courtney Love the same way I am fascinated by someone with Tourette’s Syndrome.”
I saw that show! He was *staggering *drunk, literally; he took several minutes to negotiate the stage stairs and get to the chair. I don’t recall the Wild Thing performance, but the truly noteable thing was that Aspel didn’t know how to handle him; fortunately the previous guest, still on camera, was Clive James, who proceeded to question Reed as if it were his show: “Tell me, why do you drink like that?” (Reed’s reply was something like “you meet the nicest people in pubs” - possibly true but not an answer). Aspel was reduced to “me too” questions. From that episode grew Clive James’ own chat show.
The infamous Sex Pistols vs Bill Grundy incident on Today back in 1976 - never saw it live, but it’s in The Filth And The Fury: Grundy was drunk, obviously despised these scruffy oiks, and started baiting them. The Pistols {mostly Steve Jones} rose to the occasion, and the whole thing escalated from there into a torrent of four letter words {including the majestic “You fucking rotter.”}. There was a media furor, the Pistols were further excoriated in the press as being foul-mouthed harbingers of mindless nihilism, and Grundy was sacked. Ah, they don’t make bands like they used to.
Drew Barrymore on Letterman. What the hell was she on?
Rosie O’Donnell’s constant whining about the money she lost on “Taboo” because people wouldn’t come see the show. Apparently she doesn’t know the first rule of investing–sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Madonna seemed obviously angry to me. Courtney started mouthing off down below the platform where the interview was being conducted. Kurt Loder said something like “Let’s bring her up here.” and Madonna said “Let’s not,” or something along those lines. Then Madonna sat in icy silence while Courtney hijacked the interview.
Or the second rule: if everybody who sees the show [i.e. uses your product] says it sucks, either it sucks or it might as well and your choices are fix it or pull the plug. (She kept that turkey running out of her own pocket for months even though it was critically panned and the people who saw it were mostly in the “not horrible but not worth the money” camp- that was just madness- cut your losses and close the show.)
On Arsenio one night a group of gay rights people were shouting him down during his monologue and he goes off saying things like “no-ones a bigger minority than me…”. When he introduced his guest Paul Hogan, Arsenio kept on bringing up the incident, while Hogan had a “get me outta here” look on his face.
Can’t believe no-one has mentioned Rush Limbaugh and his first attempt at a TV show. I think after Pat Sajaks (SP?) show ended, they tried many other shows in that slot. Rush came on and was shouted down by the audience and then cleared the audience. When he came back he explained that the audience was gone and was clearly shaken and nervious. I also remember him talking to the “Mayflower Madam” and taking here hand and taking here wherever he went. I was surprised he got another show many years later.
No, he also had a neck injury, and got a nice settlement. He’s commented on how Hulk Hogan bought him a house in the south of France.
There was a marvelous moment on a Montel show where the subject was putting together guest on a show with people who had responded to a show. A trailer park white racist stereotype was back with a black woman who had responded to her. The white racist wouldn’t accept an invitation to have lunch with the other woman, didn’t want anything to do with her, etc. Montel mentioned that the trailer park’s son and the two children of the other person were in a room backstage and Ms. Trailer Park started going on about how she had taught her son not to have anything to do with any n*****s. So they showed the children in the room playing together nicely.
Ms. Trailer Park damn near had a fit. She was sitting there not knowing what to do while all the guest were hooting, and Montel and the other woman were sitting there with smug looks on their faces. It was priceless.
It would be great if people could provide links and such to some of this–I’m sure some has gotten garbled over the years, others are completely legendary, and still others are even better than our memories say. I’ve long been interested, for example, in the details of Crispin Glover’s meltdown.
Great moment. Wonder what happened to the kid after he got back home? A good thrashing for playing with black kids and making mom look stupid on TV?
This wasn’t a talk show but an interview. Elton John and Bernie Taupin were being interviewed together and Bernie began an answer with, “I remember when we were living with Eltons mum and we’d be in our bedroom…”
At which point Elton cuts in loudly and angrily with, “And whatever happened in that room is nobody’s business but ours!” There were a few REALLY uncomfortable seconds of silence as Bernie gave Elton a murderous look. Then he continued with the totally benign anecdote about writing songs together.
Ouch.