(Untitled)

[warrenjabali]

and then my mind split open...

Comments

[righteousfist]

It was a dark time, my friend...

[warrenjabali]

dark and rainbow-colored! :)

[vena_cava]

Way, way, way back in the 80s when I was a bored little dork living in glamorous suburban NYC in a house without that new-fangled thing called cable, I was an avid viewer of U68, a Newark-based all-video UHF station. It was pretty cool because they were so weird. They'd play this nonsensical mix of videos by underground-ish bands (Ramones, War-era U2, obscure metal, new wave crap, etc) and then throw an MTV stalwart like Madonna in for good measure, shoot station identifications featuring Jonathan Richman in their bare-bones studio wearing an ugly shirt and playing his saxophone, and give ample airtime to the low-budget videos of unsigned local bands...like Bon Jovi. This Howie Mandel classic was also in very heavy rotation. I haven't seen it in ages. So glad you dug this gem up. Thanks for the memories, Marc.

(By the end of the decade, U68 was gone. It was bought out by the Home Shopping Network.)

[jtemperance]

We had WHT in Brooklyn about 1981-83. It was vaguely affiliated with Channel 68 Newark. Part of the day was pay TV and we had a special receiver to descramble the signal. I think U68 might have been the successor to WHT after the pay service went under.

[warrenjabali]

Yer welcome! :)

the horror

[vena_cava]

My only exposure to Mandel prior to this was through his portrayal of Dr. Wayne Fiscus on St. Elsewhere (of which I was also an avid viewer), a character who I felt I identified with as he was a Bostonian Lithuanian who was slightly unhinged and who spewed black comedy all over the place. This made "Watusi" particularly traumatizing for me, as I didn't identify with that shit at all.

[theskycankill]

Thank god, I think this was before my time...or rather, it was before I was ever interested in watching MTV.

[warrenjabali]

I think we all missed this, even those of us who were there. It feels like someone made it then and hid it just so it would look more insane now.

[accordionbursts]

Part of me just died?

[warrenjabali]

dude, where ya been? I've been craving some of yr one-line movie reviews...still burning the midnight cathode-ray at all?

more later?

[accordionbursts]

Still up in it, but just not around here.
I waste most of my time lately here,
when I'm not maxing out my netflix queue,
and/or amassing lots & lots of books on ebay.
I need to get out more.

Seriously though, this video was funnier than comic relief 2006.
Or at least as painful.

[pinkfrost]

now that is just unbelievable!

this reminds me of watching bad videos with you, like robbie robertson

[warrenjabali]

those were the days! we're getting a new TV soon so maybe we can watch bad videos in HD sometime soon!