Hot Seat was a syndicated talk show, running from 1983 to 1992, hosted by raving reactionary conservative commentator (and estranged father of actress Rebecca De Mornay), Wally George, who termed his delivery “combat TV.” The show’s format was a precursor to the popular “shock talk” shows hosted by the likes of Morton Downey, Jr. and Jerry Springer, with a profoundly right-wing posture. Hot Seat‘s studio audience was generally comprised of aggressively out-of-control meatheads, and George was a fist-pounding, screaming, Reagan-worshipping bully whose shtick was so over-the-top that one often wondered if the whole thing wasn’t a put-on.

In an interview I conducted last year with Nikolas Schreck who appeared on Hot Seat three different times, Schreck described George as “a consummate showman, no more or less insincere or fake than his showbiz idol Ronald Reagan, who both cunningly played exaggerated roles for their niche Neanderthal audience in the grand old tradition of American populist demagoguery.”

I love watching old Hot seat clips on YouTube. Although I find myself disagreeing with George’s positions 99% of the time, his delivery is just so much fun in a pro-wrestling sort of way that you can’t turn away from it. Generally Wally and his guests are both playing the part of the heel, and the “debates” almost instantly devolve into name calling and posturing with the rabid audience members getting into the mix, shouting everyone, including Wally, down. If you’re not a conservative, Wally is still a guy you “love to hate.”

But then there’s that really weird 1% of the time that you find yourself actually agreeing with him. For instance, when he appeared as a guest on (White Aryan Resistance leader) Thom Metzger’s public access hateshow, Race and Reason to debate him about racism having no place in conservatism. And then there’s this clip we’re going to look at today, with Wally debating a man named Mike Hubbell who claims that there’s “no such thing” as date rape.
 

Mike Hubbell: “If a woman says ‘no’ she doesn’t necessarily mean ‘no.’”
 
George, who often comes off as rather sexist in old episodes of Hot Seat finds himself in the accidental feminist role debating Hubbell. George is clear in his rebuke of Hubbell that women do not “owe” men sex after a date and that “no” actually does mean “no.” Now one could chalk this up to a broken clock being right twice a day, but I’d prefer to think that Hubbell’s argument is so out-of-line that even most dyed-in-the-wool “male chauvinist pigs” would find it entirely egregious.

Hubbell unleashes one profoundly moronic statement after another about consent:

“If a guy takes a girl out and spends a hundred bucks on her… most gentlemen want a return on their investment.”

“If a woman invites a man back to her place after a lengthy date, she’s not having him over for crumpets and tea.”

“You don’t lead a horse to water and then decide he can’t drink from it.”

“If a woman says ‘no’ she doesn’t necessarily mean ‘no.’”

“If a woman doesn’t really want [to have sex], then why does she set the guy up in a situation where she’s vulnerable?”

Wally puts Hubbell in his place, even at one point implying (in a way only Wally George could) that Hubbell is himself a rapist:

“Could you imagine in your wildest dreams that someone would voluntarily have sex with this guy?”

Mike Hubbell was apparently a frequent guest on Hot Seat and in contrast to this appearance defending rapists, he appeared on a different episode defending a sexual harrassment bill, asserting that eliminating sexual harassment from the workplace would be a positive end result of the bill. But that’s the thing about Hot Seat—you’re never really 100% certain who on the show believes their own bullshit and who’s there simply for the kayfabe spectacle.

Regardless, check this out and find yourself identifying with the Hot Seat audience shouting “Wa-lly! Wa-lly! Wa-lly!
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘80s ‘sicko, freako’ goth band hilariously hardtrolls this kooky conservative TV host
Wally George, insane, screaming Reagan-era TV demagogue interviews GWAR and The Mentors