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Gloriously pointless trading cards for the awful ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ movie


 
I’ve never seen the movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which came out in 1978. The movie was directed by Michael Schultz, whose best-known movies are probably Cooley High and Car Wash, both of which are pretty good. Considering the inescapable Britishness of the Beatles and especially Sgt. Pepper, the cast of Sgt. Pepper’s LHCB is simply an extended head-scratcher, with few Britons (Peter Frampton, comedian Frankie Howerd, Donald Pleasence and Paul Nicholas) to be found among a group that includes, most prominently, the Bee Gees, George Burns, Earth, Wind & Fire, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Steve Martin and of course, Frampton. (How could Billy SHears not be English?) The real problem with this movie seems to be its essential California-ness, as it was clearly conceived poolside at a Hollywood bungalow by some coked-up asshole who had never once pondered the lonely existence of Eleanor Rigby.

Late-era Beatles songs didn’t exactly lack for colorful characters, and the people behind the movie crammed a bunch of them in there, including Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Mr. Kite, Billy Shears, and the eponymous sergeant (all from the album), as well as Maxwell (of “Silver Hammer” fame), Mean Mr. Mustard, and, erm, “Strawberry Fields,” none of whom have anything to do with the album. How they neglected to find someone to embody Lovely Rita, who is just begging to be turned into a mesmerizingly gorgeous movie character, I’ll never know. Rather than recruit Bungalow Bill, Polythene Pam, Desmond and Molly, Sexy Sadie, my dear Martha, or Rocky Raccoon, the movie features several wholly invented characters like B.D. Brockhurst, played by Donald Pleasence, and Billy Shears’ brother, whose name is Dougie Shears. (This is the guy that really gets me. THERE ARE NO “DOUGIES” IN THE BEATLES CANON!!!)

Over the weekend, I spotted a trading card with Steve Martin from early in his career, and the caption read “Dr. Maxwell Edison” and I just couldn’t for the life of me figure out who the fuck that was supposed to be—my best guesses were the protagonist of The Man with Two Brains (actual name: Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr) and the sadistic dentist in Little Shop of Horrors (actual name: Dr. Orin Scrivello). That led me to the usual bout of Internet research, through which process I learned that Donruss released a set of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band trading cards in 1978, the same year the movie came out.

From the vatange point of nearly 40 years after the movie came out, every card really reads as a devastating critique of the movie; in essence the entire set is an extended series of exhibits as to why the movie sucks. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.
 

 

 

 
Much more after the jump…...

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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08.14.2017
10:27 am
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Steve Martin and a cast of monkeys act out a gunfighter ballad
04.02.2015
08:51 am
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When I think of my family’s first VCR, a massive, noisy metal box, I think of one of the machine’s early missions: recording a rerun of Steve Martin’s 1980 NBC special Comedy Is Not Pretty (not to be confused with Martin’s album of the same name). It’s a brilliant collection of sketches, and as a lad I put even more wear on that tape than I put on the local library’s copy of Cruel Shoes. The dry-cleaning evangelist bit with Louis Nye, the insurance ad for “Mutual of Steve,” Socrates drinking hemlock, the search for the Abominable Snowman, the date with Joyce DeWitt—they’re all solid gold.

The special’s greatest moment, however, is an ambitious fusion of the sublime and the stupid that comes right at the beginning. In the opening sketch, Martin, a burro, an elephant, and a cast of simians dramatize Marty Robbins’ love-and-death gunfighter ballad “El Paso.” There has never been a spectacle quite like this on TV, and—dare I say it?—there never will be ever again.

There’s not much else I can tell you about this wonderful artifact, but I will pass along a suggestive detail: according to a biography of Robbins, Martin opened for the country singer at the Sahara Tahoe in March 1973. Might that encounter have contained the germ of this sketch?
 
Only “El Paso” is embedded below, but you can watch all of Comedy Is Not Pretty on Hulu.
 

 

Posted by Oliver Hall
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04.02.2015
08:51 am
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How a pre-fame Steve Martin and bachelorette duped ‘The Dating Game’ into a romantic Tijuana getaway
03.03.2015
08:47 am
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In this adorable 1968 clip from The Dating Game, a very young and dashing Steve Martin competes against two other (super creepy) bachelors for the affection of sweet Marsha Walker, the real-life sister of Martin’s childhood friend, Morris Walker.

At this time Martin was a comedy writer for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and had already made a couple of appearances on The Dating Game. Using his clout as a writer, he was able to convince Dating Game producers to bring his “long lost” friend, Marsha, onto the program; the idea being that she wouldn’t know that one of the bachelors was, in actuality, her old friend, Steve.

Of course, Marsha Walker was indeed aware of Bachelor Number One’s identity in advance. The two had gotten together and planned possible questions according to Morris Walker’s book, Steve Martin: The Magic Years:

This was a great opportunity for a professional comedy writer like Steve to write some great material. Steve and Marsha got together and came up with some hilarious questions and answers.

Marsha asks the stumped Bachelor Number Three,“If you were a holiday, how would you like to be celebrated?” When he thoroughly drops the ball, Marsha quickly redirects the question to Steve who responds, “I’ve always had a great respect for Arbor Day. I’d love to be Arbor Day and be potted.”

Another question allows Martin to get in a fantastically biting jab at the nonplussed (not to mention, incredibly lame) Bachelor Number Two.

Considering the vast inferiority of his competition on this particular episode, even if Marsha Walker had not known Steve Martin in advance, it’s fairly obvious the two would have ended up together by show’s end.

Things being rather different in 1968, the pair was awarded an all-expense-paid trip to ever-romantic Tijuana to watch the bullfights(!?)
 

 
Morris Walker states in his book that he believes this trip served as an enormous inspiration for Martin’s film The Three Amigos. Walker relates that the pair witnessed a very upsetting goring at the bullfight and afterwards took in a pornographic movie. It being 1968, porno movies were the kind of thing you’d have to go to Tijuana to see. Later, Marsha Walker confided to her brother that her and Steve’s previously platonic relationship was taken to the next level at the hotel in Tijuana. According to Walker, Steve Martin’s “performance between the sheets was as entertaining and fulfilling as his wild and crazy performances in front of the curtain, only without the white suit.”
 

 
Here’s Steve and Marsha getting one over on ‘The Dating Game’:
 

 
H/T Robin Bougie at Cinema Sewer

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Steve Martin: A Wild and Crazy Guy
Andy Kaufman punks ‘The Dating Game,’ 1978

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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03.03.2015
08:47 am
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Watch all four Johnny Cash Christmas specials

The Christmas Spirit by Johnny Cash
 
From 1976 to 1979, CBS ran a Johnny Cash Christmas special every year—it must have been a significant Christmas tradition in many homes (alas, not my own). For those who remember Cash as the ultimate rebel par excellence, these specials make for some interesting viewing. During the 1970s Cash experienced a slump in record sales, and during this period he was a familiar face on TV, appearing as a guest star on Columbo and Little House on the Prairie and doing commercials for Amoco.

In these specials, the sentimentality of the occasion can’t be ignored, so Cash gamely refashioned himself as a family-friendly country music TV host. We’re far from the middle-finger Johnny Cash or Folsom Prison Blues; there’s a decent amount of corny levity to be seen here. You might say that this is the closest that Cash came to a figure on Hee Haw (of course, he appeared on Hee Haw as well).
 
Johnny Cash as Santa Claus
 
Of course, June Carter Cash is every bit as present as Johnny—the emphasis here is charmingly on family, and many of June and Johnny’s wide-ranging clan of relatives are featured, especially in the 1976 and 1979 specials, which were taped in Tennessee.

If you find yourself inundated with cheesy Christmas songs in every retail establishment you dare to enter, you can surely improve your life by dialing up The Johnny Cash Christmas Special, with its mix of Christmas classics and country-western fare, in their stead.

Taped in Nashville, the special that kicked it off is the most homespun of the bunch. The entire second half of the show is framed as an expansive musical visit around the Cash family hearth. Earlier, Johnny and June join Tony Orlando for “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” and (back at the hearth) Barbara Mandrell, several years before she and her sisters got a show of their own on NBC, engages in some ass-kicking steel guitar wizardry before singing “A Beautiful Morning with You.” Billy Graham ends with a downbeat sermon.
 

 
The 1977 edition may be the strongest from a musical perspective, or maybe it’s just my own bias in favor of rock over country. There’s scarcely any humor sketches, which would predominate in the next two years, and the core of the show is dedicated to three of rock and roll’s most venerable heroes, all associated with Sun Studios, just as Cash himself was. In rapid succession we get Carl Perkins singing “Blue Suede Shoes,” Roy Orbison singing “Pretty Woman,” and Jerry Lee Lewis singing “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” before Lewis essays a reverent rendition of “White Christmas.” Then the three of them and Cash come together to sing “This Train Is Bound For Glory” in a tribute to Elvis, who had died just a few months earlier. Also, Johnny spends a good chunk of the show wearing Army fatigues (!).
 

 
The 1978 Johnny Cash Christmas Special, like the 1977 edition, was taped in Los Angeles, and it shows a little. The guests include Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, and Steve Martin, who as a budding superstar is given a fair amount of time for his hijinks. The high point is probably Cash and Kristofferson singing the latter’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” together.
 

 
It’s not news that DM is very Andy Kaufman-friendly, so it was something of a shock to hit play on the 1979 special and see none other than Kaufman himself in the opening bit. For this version of the special, Cash returned to Nashville, and the presence of an appreciative Opryland audience is a blessing. Kaufman scarcely strays from his Latka character, except when he does a completely straight version of Elvis Presley’s “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.” It’s well known that Elvis loved Andy’s impersonation; here’s a fine chance to see it.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Johnny Cash Sings Austrian Jams
Shit-hot: The PERFECT Johnny Cash set from German TV, 1972

Posted by Martin Schneider
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12.06.2013
02:23 pm
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Steve Martin and Richard Pryor on ‘The Tonight Show,’ 1978
08.15.2012
03:13 pm
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Steve Martin conducted this awkward/awesome interview with Richard Pryor when he was the guest hosting for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show on June 19, 1978. Glen Campbell was also on the couch that night.

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.15.2012
03:13 pm
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Steve Martin reading a book on Bob Dylan circa 1970
06.27.2012
02:38 pm
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Just thought I’d share this great photo of Steve Martin—long before his hair turned gray—circa 1970. Martin had been a staff writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour which had been canceled by CBS the year before.

Source: Mr. Garcia at Flickr.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:

Steve Martin promo video for ‘A Wild And Crazy Guy,’ 1978

Steve Martin’s funny response to fan mail

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.27.2012
02:38 pm
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Steve Martin promo video for ‘A Wild And Crazy Guy,’ 1978
06.20.2012
05:25 pm
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Hilarious record store “sales tool” made by Steve Martin to promote his 1978 comedy album, A Wild And Crazy Guy. The LP went on to become one of the biggest selling comedy albums of all time, eventually being certified double platinum.

I saw the “Wild And Crazy Guy” tour when I was in the seventh grade, at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh on January 13, 1978. We were seated so far away that it could have practically been anybody with grey hair in a white three-piece suit and an arrow through his head.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.20.2012
05:25 pm
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Steve Martin has not died!
11.30.2010
01:00 pm
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No need to correct me in the comments… it’s been fixed below.
 
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(via Certified Bullshit Technician)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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11.30.2010
01:00 pm
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Steve Martin: A Wild and Crazy Guy
06.23.2010
06:35 pm
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In 1978, when I was in the seventh grade, I was a total fanatic for Steve Martin. Comedy was as important to me at that time as punk rock was and Steve Martin, Fernwood 2Night, National Lampoon, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Marx Brothers and (especially) the Firesign Theatre were every bit the equal of the Clash or Sex Pistols in my eyes.

I saw Steve Martin “in concert” on the A Wild and Crazy Guy tour just as his career went supernova. King Tut was in the singles charts (I still have the picture sleeve 45) at the time and his latest album had just gone double platinum. Martin, is of course, still a big star, but in 1978, he was a rock star among comedians, arguable the biggest.

It was the first really big show I’d ever seen, held at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, a venue normally reserved for the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Emerson. Lake and Palmer. The place was huge and we sat in the very, very last row of the section furthest back from the stage. I get vertigo easily and it was acute for me sitting there, but no matter, I was about to see one of my heros in person!

When Steve Martin walked out onto the stage that night, frankly he could have been anybody with a white 3-piece suit (his then trademark attire), grey hair, some balloon animals and an arrow through his head. He was so far away that it was impossible for him to have had any rapport with the cheap seats other than to do the standard “How are we doin’ up there?” banter. But like I gave a shit, I was in heaven. Here I was in the same room with Steve Martin!  Well me and 11,000 other people…

The encore, predictably, was King Tut. Performing to a recorded backing track, at one point an electric guitar was lowered from the flies, Martin grabbed it, attacking it furiously, strumming five chords in the space of about two or three seconds and up and and away it went again. I was buzzing about this show for at least the next three days.

Below are some examples of primo 70s Steve Martin appearances and an in-concert clip of King Tut. I noticed that one guy on YouTube has a 7 DVD set of Steve Martin on TV in the 70s. I might have to get that.

 

 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.23.2010
06:35 pm
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Steve Martin’s funny response to fan mail
06.05.2010
12:15 am
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Read the full story behind Steve Martin’s letter over at Chattering Teeth.
 
(via Mister Honk)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.05.2010
12:15 am
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