Pink Lady

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.

This was from the period when NBC was horrible and Fred Silverman was running the show (no pun intended). This from the man who help develop gems like "Three's Company" and "Laverne and Shirley" for ABC and beauties like "All in the Family" and "M*A*S*H" for CBS.

It baffled me that he went to NBC and came up with crap like this. How could you give a show to 2 women or anyone for that matter who could barely speak English??? I still remember both Kei Masuda and Mei Niemoto at the beginning of the show tell the audience who that night's guests will be. You could barely make out what they were saying and it was very painful to listen.

Jeff Altman as well; This had to set his career back 2-3 steps. I like his comedy, but even he couldn't save this show.

Every episode would always end with Mie and Kei say something to Jeff you couldn't understand, then they would remove their kimonos revealing the swimsuits they were wearing under it and would drag him fully dressed into the hot tub. It was one of the few funny things I can remember, but they did that every week and it got old fast.

Clearly, not one of television's best moments.

I caught a showing of this variety show over on Trio, and cannot say I'm overwhelmed by this relic of the Carter Years. The idea was certainly original enough: Take a popular (and actually pretty talented) idol-singer duo from Japan, team them up with a second-banana American singer and craft a variety show around it. Nice idea, lousy execution. Where to begin...

1. The writing is rivaled only by those apocryphal monkeys trying to write Shakespeare, an sad fact as Mark Evanier is easily capable of much better than this dreck (look at his consistently funny co-writing work on "Groo the Wanderer")

2. Mei and Kei are talented enough singers, and probably were talented actresses in Japan, but they didn't have enough of a command of the English language to grasp the right comic timing for the language.

3. Jeff Altman DOES have enough of a command of the English language, and he couldn't make a man being tickled to death laugh.

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...

Pink Lady and Jeff is widely considered one of the worst shows ever made for

television. I didn't think anything could be worse than "That 80s Show," but Pink Lady is.

The sketches are horrendous; as we sat around watching the DVDs (a gag gift

my friend gave his brother), we argued about whether they had actual writers, or the performers made it up as they went along. My best guess is that the writers had a big bottle of tequila and a bunch of funny cigarettes in the writing room.

File this one under "so bad it's funny." I can't imagine watching it alone, but if you're with a bunch of friends who want to make fun of it, the DVD's worth a

view.