Recollections of Old TV Shows - "The New Show"

"The New Show" (Do you remember it?) was a one-hour comedy-sketch and variety program similar in format to Saturday Night Live, which also was produced by Lorne Michaels, and which aired weekly on Fridays in early 1984 in prime time on NBC. (I'm not sure if it was broadcast live, or if it was just taped before a studio audience.) Among its regular cast of players were frequent SNL guest host Buck Henry and SCTV alumnus Dave Thomas. I recall that its guests included comedienne Andrea Martin (also of SCTV) and performance artist Laurie Anderson.

As with SNL, its bits didn't always hit the mark, but I recall having enjoyed its brief (less than three months?) run, and thought that it had the potential for success. Unfortunately, I taped only one show - a best-of compilation, which did not contain Steve Martin's parody of the Michael Jackson "Billie Jean" video, "The Den of Revulsion," or the Frightened Family. I'd like to see more, but I'm not holding my breath for it to ever be commercially released.

Here are the contents of the best-of show:

  1. Randy Quaid inquiring Catherine O'Hara about working on her farm. (The first few seconds of this sketch are missing from my taping.) Here's a snippet of lines from this sketch:
    O'Hara: "What else can you do?"
    Quaid: "Well, I'm strong. I can pick up a horse and squeeze the manure out of him."
    O'Hara: "What good is that?"
    Quaid: "I don't know, but it's fun."
  2. Opening credits, listing this cast:
    • Candice Bergen
    • Valri Bromfield
    • John Candy
    • Teri Garr
    • Buck Henry
    • Steve Martin
    • Catherine O'Hara
    • Dennis Quaid
    • Randy Quaid
    • Gilda Radner
    • Dave Thomas
    • Cyndi Lauper (musical guest)
    • The Pretenders (musical guest)
  3. Commercial break
  4. Steve Martin's opening monologue - on fashion and on what kind of guy watches "The New Show." ("He knows the difference between suave and salve. He likes his sushi well-done.")
  5. "Floont Artney: Private Eye" - Buck Henry as Artney; Dave Thomas as Sgt. Zud Botnip; Teri Garr as Mrs. Nesselfarr. Botnip is investigating the murder of Mr. Nesselfarr, Artney shows up at the scene of the crime, and they rattle off a bunch of hard-to-pronounce names.
  6. Dave Thomas, Buck Henry, Al Franken, Tom Davis, et al as a group of scabs discussing their future now that the strike has been settled.
  7. Commercial break
  8. Candice Bergen and Buck Henry, while on vacation in Yosemite National Park, and having forgotten their camera, keep encountering fascinating sights: a spectacular waterfall; a big moose; an erupting volcano; Bigfoot; a pterodactyl; Jackie Onassis (Valri Bromfield), who indicates that she is more than happy to have herself photographed; and a flying saucer, whose occupants encourage the two to take pictures of them. The sketch ends with the two deciding to have a picnic. But where? Bergen deadpans: "Over there, where that angel is sword-fighting with Hitler."
  9. Cyndi Lauper performing "Girls Just Want To Have Fun." (Steve Martin joins in at the end. Boy, she sure was a bundle of energy!)
  10. Commercial break
  11. "Weekend Tonight" - Buck Henry and Dave Thomas interviewing celebrities and introducing news items. The original broadcast date of each piece was indicated.
    1. From March 16, 1984:
      Taped segment of Henry sitting in on an acting lesson being given to a class of young British women by Michael Caine (Thomas). I believe that it must have been a take-off of some movie, but not being much of a movie-watcher I'm not sure which one it was.
    2. From February 3, 1984:
      President Reagan addressing a session of Congress, and showing a clip from one of his old movies in which he, as a World War II fighter pilot, shoots down an enemy plane. Funny remarks are dubbed over the news footage and Reagan's comments about the movie clip.
    3. From March 23, 1984:
      Henry and Thomas discussing rowdiness during spring break in Fort Lauderdale, and presenting these two lists:

      Five Leading Causes Of Injury For Students On Spring Break
      Choking on own vomit 38%
      Leaping into empty swimming pool 27%
      Falling off motel balcony 15%
      Hurled onto pavement by bouncer 10%
      Sunburn 8%

      Top Five Bad Apples Who Give All College Kids A Bad Name
      Greg Liedke Syracuse U.
      Joe Rothing U. of Wisconsin (Stevens Pt.)
      Randy Galloway The Citadel
      Dave Odenthal Southern Illinois U.
      Elliot Weinblatt Brandeis U.

    4. From February 17, 1984:
      Supposedly the first practical joke in outer space, on the Space Shuttle Challenger. News footage is dubbed over with funny lines.
    5. From January 20, 1984:
      Henry interviewing Liberace (Thomas) and getting a tour of his mammoth closet in taped segment "Closets of the Stars."
  12. Commercial break
  13. Dave Thomas as a movie director; Buck Henry and Valri Bromfield as stars in the foreground; Steve Martin and Catherine O'Hara as extras in the background who keep calling attention to themselves and who are generally disruptive to the production.
  14. Commercial break
  15. Dennis Quaid in a library, reading a book on mental telepathy; Buck Henry and Catherine O'Hara as other readers; Valri Bromfield reading a book entitled "Ventriloquism by Mental Telepathy;" Dave Thomas as a librarian. Brief, with a clever twist ending.
  16. The Pretenders performing "Human." (Did they also perform "Back on the Chain Gang" on one of the regular shows?)
  17. Gilda Radner as a person mailing a package without a return address or a ZIP code; Dave Thomas as a "good" mailman; John Candy as a "bad" mailman; Valri Bromfield as a postal worker. Thomas and Candy work over Radner in the back room.
  18. Commercial break
  19. Closing credits, including this production staff:
    • Producer: Lorne Michaels
    • Director: Heino Ripp
    • Head writer: James Downey
    • Writers:
      • Valri Bromfield
      • Tom Davis
      • Al Franken
      • Tom Gammill *
      • Jack Handey
      • Buck Henry
      • George Meyer
      • Lorne Michaels
      • John Murray
      • Sarah Paley
      • Max Pross *
      • Dave Thomas
      • Alan Zweibel
    • Music producer: Howard Shore
* Over the years, Gammill and Pross have worked together on several TV shows (source: us.imdb.com):

I found this article which I had clipped from the New York Daily News, with the heading "Sibling ribaldry from Quaid Bros.," dated April 26, 1994:

"The Quaid boys are joining forces in a big-screen project at Paramount being put together by producer Lorne Michaels. It's a big step removed from Dennis' romantic comedies and the dramas in which Randy excels - such as NBC's May 30 'The Roommates' telepic about AIDS.

"Based on a skit the brothers introduced on Michaels' short-lived 1984 'The New Show' (a failed attempt at a prime-time version of his 'Saturday Night Live'), the feature will have the Quaids playing rubes. 'From the back woods,' says Randy. 'In the original skit, we saw an ad in a girlie magazine about phoning to talk to a naughty lady, learn we have to have a credit card to charge the call, then learn we have to have jobs to get a credit card and ... well, it got complicated - and funny.'

"The film is being written and will mark the first time the brothers will have teamed onscreen since 1980's 'The Long Riders.' They had planned to combine their talents in a big-screen adaptation of the Thomas Savage novel 'Power of the Dog,' about two rural Montana brothers. Randy optioned the work and was going to direct. But, he says now, 'The project never got going. It's dead.'"

It appears that this project, too, never got going, and it died. It sounds suspiciously similar to the 1994 movie "Dumb and Dumber," which starred Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. I wonder if that film's appearance put the kibosh on the Quaid effort. Oh, well. Some ten years after the sketch's original airing, I'm surprised that it even got as far as they said it did.

On May 7, 2004, a correspondent, Anthony Preziosi of Mantua, New Jersey, wrote me the following:

Found your site while searching out "The New Show". Still hoping to find it on DVD someday. Maybe I'll call Franken on that AirAmericaRadio thing and put the bug in his ear.
Favorite Moment: John Candy plays the owner of a "Food Repair" shop. Paul Simon comes in with a bag of salted pretzels that have lost all their salt (at the bottom of the bag). He wants Candy to put the salt back on the pretzels. Candy asks, "What did you pay for them?"
Simon replies (in the typically deadpan manner) "A dollar nine."
Candy: "Dollar nine. Well, I think you should just buy another bag. It'll cost you a lot more than that for me to do the job."
Simon agrees and walks out.

I used to watch it every week (which didn't last long), because I loved the format and was a big SNL fan, but mostly because it was anti-Dallas, which ran at the same time.

I found some, but not much, info at these sites:

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0086768 While there, be sure to click on "User Comments ... (more)," then click on "Check for other user comments."
http://www.jumptheshark.com/n/newshow.htm Viewer reminiscences
http://www.geocities.com/televisioncity/9348/new_show.htm

Do you have recollections of "The New Show" that you'd like to share? Can you confirm or dispute any of my recollections?

Please e-mail me at pizzabagel@prodigy.net

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