worldofwonder.net/archives/basement_tapes.php
swholidayspecial Producer Gabriel Rotello wanted to include footage f rom the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special in his Christmas Special Christma s Special special, but couldn't get clearance for it. Seems the show was so bad, so stultifyingly unwatchable that George Lucas confiscated all copies of it and had them destroyed. Even guest stars Bea Arthur , Ha rvey Korman , Art Carney , and Diahann Carroll couldn't help s ustain interest over two hours as Chewbacca and family prepare for Life Day. The WOW Report found a, like, fifth-generation version down in the basement.
ru-xmas In 1991, for the "Christmas Extravaganza" episode of WOW's Ma nhattan Cable show that aired in the UK, a seemingly teenage RuPaul took cameras behind the scenes at Radio City Music Hall, where the donkeys a nd Rockettes were preparing for the annual Christmas show.
Porn star turned disco diva, Andrea True, talks about doing porn for the rebellion rather than the money in the WOW - Imagine Films documentary Inside Deep Throat, hitting theaters early next year. Her 1975 dance hit, "More, More, More," popped up as # 45 in VH1's 100 Greatest Dance Songs. The listomania show, hosted by Pau la Abdul, was produced by World of Wonder back in 2000.
stantay01024903 Almost 10 years ago, Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey directed a short movie (famously 15 minutes) called Shantay. The Touchst one 35mm film was a spy adventure starring RuPaul as a kind of James Blo ndish supermodel secret agent up against villainous Kathy Najimy and Gle nn Shadix. It sashayed around the festival circuit back in '95, and now here's a fifth of it for you.
tammy_fudge Just in time for the warm and chewy holiday season, Tammy Faye instructs you on how to make her "unfailable" fudge. It's an outtake from WOW's 19 99 documentary, The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Kids, the WOW Report wants to kn ow why you don't take lovable Tammy Faye as your role model instead of M ichael Alig.
political_pops In 1988, a George Bush was running for POTUS against M ichael Dukakis. That year, Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, then a music al duo called The Fabulous Pop Tarts, were running around Atlanta, Georg ia, meeting RuPaul and the crazy Atlanta club-scene crew, and made this pertinent video, Elected, for MTV's 120 Minutes. This year, a George Bus h is running against John Kerry, and the former Pop Tarts are running th e World (of Wonder production company).
clubusa_piggie_de For all you Michael Alig fans who are registered to vote and will be helping to elect John Kerry president, this Basement T ape is for you. The club was called USA and was the only nightclub we know of that h ad a commercial on broadcast television. The shiny, frenetic commercial was directed by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey and features Michael Ali g dancing in a pig costume.
susan powter It was a few weeks ago that the infomercial celebrated i ts 20th anniversary. Twenty years of dicing, slicing, spraying, grilling , creaming, dehydrating, polishing, and getting another one absolutely f ree if you order now. When you think infomercial, you probably think Sus an "Stop the Insanity" Powter. If you don't, well, you do now that we've brought her up. Brought her up from the basement where we keep old Worl d of Wonder shows, that is. This clip is from her infomercial and it wil l bring back memories. WOW aired it on Channel 4 i n the UK in 1994 on an episode of United States of Television that was d evoted to infomercials.
marthapic In honor of Martha Stewart's first day in the slammer, we'v e dug up footage of her in happier and roomier days, before she'd launch ed her TV show. In this 1991 clip from WOW's Manhattan Cable series for the UK's Channel 4, correspondent Laurie Pike interviews Stewart as they survey the gardens of Stewart's expansive property in Connecticut. Note how Stewart and Pike have barely aged or changed their looks in 13 years.
Watch the clip) Martha Stewart garden trivia extra: In the WOW documentary, Party Monste r, the Special K sequence was shot in Stewart's garden and superimposed with animated squiggles and James St.
hitchcock_leigh We're still sad that Janet Leigh is dead. Remember th at weird scene she has with Frank Sinatra in the vestibule between train cars in The Manchurian Candidate, the scene that's kinda sex-charged ev en though it's a festival of non sequiturs? But we've gone to the basement to find Leigh talking about the clothes she wore in Psycho. It's a 1999 clip from WOW's Hollywood Fashion Machine series for AMC, w ritten and produced by Gabriel Rotello.
jeff-lisa_branded Back in 1995, World of Wonder made "wraparounds" fo r Showtime Nighttime's late-night four-hour block of soft-core movies. T he premise was that, between the short films, the lonely nerd host would talk via TV to his various friends who lived in cyberspace.
naked_palyers_meet_sm Actress Jennifer Coolidge, who could have retir ed from the biz a cult icon after her gig as Stifler's mom in the Americ an Pie trilogy, is now stealing the sitcom Joey from its purported stars Matt LeBlanc and Drea de Matteo. So we thought we'd dig up this clip fr om a World of Wonder show called The Naked Players Meet the People, in w hich hidden cameras caught the reactions of unsuspecting members of the public as they encountered the likes of a hilarious Coolidge in various audacious guises. This segment from the 2000 show that aired on HBO feat ures Coolidge in a frowsy wig as a slightly horny mattress salesperson w ho seems to want to try out the product right in the store.
fentonwarhol Officials of the little town of Medzilaborce (pop. Because Medzilabor ce is where pop artist Andy Warhol's parents, Julia and Andrej Warhola, married and lived (or at least very near where they married and lived be fore moving to Pennsylvania), it's received a European Union grant for $ 54,625 to fund its transformation into an eye-popping all-Warhol-all-the -time tourist attraction.
Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art (once the HQ of the communist party), which brings in 10,000 visitors a year, despite a piece of art by Ultra Violet in the lobby. O ddly, but of no apparent significance, Warhol never stepped foot in Medz ilaborce. Pity the town fathers didn't know that all they had to do was send him airline tickets. In the town of Medzilaborce, there's a local art teacher who it is said b ears a striking resemblance to Andy especially after he applies some m akeup, black clothes, and white wig and hangs around the Warhol museum t here.
blog-rupaul-xmas Back in 1993, a suprisingly adorable LaToya Jackson was a guest on RuPaul's Christmas show on Channel 4 in the UK. RuPaul's Christmas Ball was like an off-color Laugh-In, with skits, cameos, and commercial spoofs. LaToya pretended to be Ru's little sister, RuPauline, and did a reasonable impression of Ru's "you better work" shtick. Eleve n years later, both would have hits on Billboard's dance chart Ru with "Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous," LaToya with "Just Wanna Dance."
James exposed you to the naked d ead flesh hanging in the California Science Center. On Sunday, HBO will air this season's penultimate episode of Six Feet Under, the sensational drama about the Fisher family of California morticians (well, at least one of them still is). And today, in this tape that we, um, dug up, we t ake you back to 1992 as cute correspondent Laurie Pike visits with mortu ary-science students on the University of Minnesota campus for WOW's Mad e in the USA TV series.
blair In celebration, er, make that in honor, no, that's not it eith er. In acknowledgment of the wide release today of Exorcist: The Beginni ng, we got dust all over our knees and fingers digging around in the bas ement looking for this clip of comic Laura Kightlinger (now Jack Black's squeeze that must hurt) interviewing a pretty Linda Blair (the origin al head-spinning, pea soup-spewing, crucifix-fucking hellcat) for a WOW show called TV Pizza, which aired in the UK in 1996.
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