Bossa Rio on Playboy After Dark

[Michael Hagerty]

I wonder if Sergio's thought process was to attempt more "American" music with his main group Brasil '66 and try the more Brazilian stuff with the Bossa Rio group. I've been listening to a bit more Bossa Rio of late since this thread surfaced.

For some reason, the song "Girl Talk" from ALEGRIA! and LIVE IN JAPAN seems to have entered my head and won't go away. The lyrics are clearly sexist by today's sensibilities.

Girl Talk by Bobby Troup

They like to chat about the dresses they will wear tonight,
they chew the fat about their tresses and the neighbor's fight.
Inconsequential things that men don't really care to know
become essential things that women find so "appropos".
But that's a dame, they're all the same.
It's just a game, they call it girl talk, girl talk.

They all meow about the ups and downs of all their friends,
the "who", the "how", the "why", they dish the dirt, it never ends.
The weaker sex, the speaker sex we mortal males behold
but tho' we joke we wouldn't trade them for a ton of gold.
So baby, stay and gab a way
but hear me say that after girl talk talk to me.

"Girl Talk" is a great melody---one of my all-time favorites--- with horrific lyrics.

Right up (down?) there with "Wives and Lovers", which boils down to "Get the curlers out of your hair by seven or your husband's going to nail his secretary":

Wives and Lovers by Burt Bacharach (music) and Hal David (lyrics)

Day after day
There are girls at the office
And men will always be men
Don't send him off
With your hair still in curlers
You may not see him again

As lj notes, "Girl Talk" was in the soundtrack of the movie "Harlow" in 1965, so it got a decent amount of airplay from several MOR artists at the time. And in 1968, the Sea & Ski suntan lotion people re-wrote the song for one of their ads:

The sky is blue
The sun is hot
The tans are tanning dark

Up on the roof
Beside the pool
And all around the park

Dark-tanning girls and guys
Who decorate the scenery
They get their tans so dark
By putting on that Sea & Ski

Get Sea & Ski
And soon you'll be
Dark as can be
A really dark tan
Dark tan

But what was behind it showing up in A&M-land in 1969? Not only Bossa Rio, but Herb:



And Herb's is my absolute favorite.

 

[Harry]

Agreed, Herb's is best. But let's not forget that Chris Montez did it even earlier:

 

[Harry]

And to send this thread back to the "Brazilian" fold, here's an even earlier take by Sergio Mendes on his GREAT ARRIVAL album:

 

[lj]

Here is a wonderful medley from the late 1970s in a concert that appears to be from Europe. I love the medley's acoustic sound which hearkens back to Brasil 66's very beginning. For me, the closer music can get to the basic acoustic sound the better.

Gracinha's singing sparkles. She along with Wanda Sa and Astrud Gilberto sing totally free of vibrato and make it work magnificently. Being able to sing well without vibrato is a rare feat. But this trio of singers pull it off with aplomb.

 

[Harry]

^ That video just confirms how much I love "Você Abusou".

 

[lj]

^ That video just confirms how much I love "Você Abusou".

Yes, for sure, Voce Abusou is a fantastic song. It comes from an unheralded album--Vintage 74. Brasil 77 performs four excellent Brazilian songs--along with Voce you have "Waters of March", "Lonely Sailor" and "Double Rainbow." For me, after that, Mendes and Co. didn't have a great album until 18 years later with "Brasileiro."

 

[braziliandrummers]

JMK, the musician on the grand piano could be Dwight Dickerson, who appears on the two pictures of the "Alegria" album (front cover and inside)
Bossa Rio's drummer is Ronald Mesquita. He was a former member of the second edition of Bossa Tres, one of the most famous Brazilian trios.
The group included Octavio Bailly (b) and Luiz Carlos Vinhas (p) and recorded 3 LPs with Pery Ribeiro in Brasil and Mexico in the mid-sixties.

 

[Stevenj]

I can't thank enough, the people who posted the Bossa Rio live videos. After hearing them live, I may actually like them better than Brasil '66.

 

[Mike Smith]

and very few stations in conservative areas (the deep South and Midwest) would carry the show.

Talk about stereotyping. I grew up in Kansas City and watched it every week it was on.

 

[JOv2]

The episodes with Harry Nilsson and The Byrds were a good watch, too. Thanks for the post. I always thought some CD entity in Japan would've issued that live Bossa Rio album. (I don't see it on Qobuz...)

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Talk about stereotyping. I grew up in Kansas City and watched it every week it was on.

Talk about anecdotal evidence.

First, "very few" is not the same as "none."

Second, out of nearly 200 TV markets in the U.S. at the time, Playboy After Dark was cleared in only 45. The bigger cities in the South and Midwest (Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Tampa and yes, Kansas City) cleared it. But they needed 100 markets to make it work, which is why it lasted two seasons and 52 episodes.

Besides, everything's up to date in Kansas City. Even was in 1969 and 1970.

 

[AM Matt]

Why was "Playboy After Dark" cancelled back in 1970?? Poor ratings?? People tastes in hard rock music??

 

[Harry]

PLAYBOY AFTER DARK was a syndicated show that didn't air on any one network, As I recall from Philadelphia, it aired on a local UHF station (WPHL-17) at around the 11:30 pm time slot, probably on Friday nights. As such, it was in competition with other late-night shows like THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JOHNNY CARSON. Other stations at that usually time ran movies, some had their own variety shows at that hour.

I'm fairly sure the reason that it was canceled was poor performance in the ratings.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Third paragraph of my post:

...out of nearly 200 TV markets in the U.S. at the time, Playboy After Dark was cleared in only 45. The bigger cities in the South and Midwest (Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Tampa and yes, Kansas City) cleared it. But they needed 100 markets to make it work, which is why it lasted two seasons and 52 episodes.

Why 100 markets? Because Playboy After Dark was a barter syndication show. The TV station got the show for free and Playboy got to keep a certain number of minutes of commercials (in an hour-long show, four would be typical) to sell to national sponsors. The more markets the show is seen in, the more the advertisers would pay, which is how the production costs are paid for and---ultimately and hopefully---a profit is being made.

Even with that deal---a late-night variety show with big-name guests for free that you get to sell the remaining ten minutes off, Playboy hit the wall at 45 markets. They may or may not have covered production costs. They certainly weren't making a profit.

 

[JOv2]

I'm unsure which of the LA independents carried it (KTTV, KHJ, KTLA, KCOP); but I surmise that it may have competed with This Is Tom Jones (which was on KCOP) for that late-night FRI/SAT time slot at that time.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I'm unsure which of the LA independents carried it (KTTV, KHJ, KTLA, KCOP); but I surmise that it may have competed with This Is Tom Jones (which was on KCOP) for that late-night FRI/SAT time slot at that time.

Playboy After Dark was on KTLA. It began its run on January 24, 1969 at 9:00 p.m. on Friday nights, opposite a movie on CBS, the last 60 minutes of "The Name of the Game" (a 90-minute show) on NBC, the Don Rickles variety show on ABC, the last 30 minutes of the 7:30 movie and the 9:30 news on KHJ, the last 30 minutes of the Donald O'Connor variety show and the 9:30 news on KTTV and "Run For Your Life" reruns on KCOP.

For its second season beginning January 23, 1970, KTLA moved it to 9:00 p.m. Tuesday, opposite the last half-hour of The Red Skelton Show and "The Governor and J.J. on CBS, a movie on NBC, the last hour of the ABC Movie of the Week, the last half-hour of the 7:30 movie and the 9:30 news on KHJ, the last 30 minute of David Frost and the 9:30 news on KTTV and the last half hour of "The Big Valley" reruns and the 9:30 news on KCOP.

In October, 1970, after the announcement that there would be no season 3, KTLA moved it to 10:30 p.m. on Saturday to finish out its run, opposite the last half-hour of "Mannix" and the 11 O'Clock news on CBS, the last hour of a movie on NBC, the last half-hour of The Rosey Grier Show and the 11 O'Clock news on ABC, the last half-hour of a talk show called "The Age of Aquarius" and the first half-hour of Fright Night with Seymour on KHJ, a college football replay on KTTV, the 10:30 news and the first half-hour of a movie on KCOP.

"This Is Tom Jones" was on ABC from fall of 1969 through summer of 1971. It appears it didn't enter syndication until fall of 1971.

 

[JOv2]

Thanks, Michael -- you're the authority on these broadcast TV topics. (What do I remember anyway? I was 7 years old and not allowed to see most of these things in the first place. As for Tom Jones, I could never stay up that late. In any event, by 7 I was too busy playing records in my room to bother with TV all that much, but I remember the promos for the show -- which apparently had a lot of music, which, naturally, grabbed my attention.)

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Thanks, Michael -- you're the authority on these broadcast TV topics. (What do I remember anyway? I was 7 years old and not allowed to see most of these things in the first place. As for Tom Jones, I could never stay up that late. In any event, by 7 I was too busy playing records in my room to bother with TV all that much, but I remember the promos for the show -- which apparently had a lot of music, which, naturally, grabbed my attention.)

All I possess is knowing where to look. There's a website I may have mentioned here before---WorldRadioHistory-dot-com----with a remarkable online archive of magazines related to broadcasting, including...um...Broadcasting Magazine....where news about shows in syndication and ads from the syndicators touting the stations they're clearing the shows on can be found.

As for what was on when, I finally broke down and subscribed to Newspapers-dot-com a few months ago. It's not cheap and I fought it for years, but the fact is that it's incredible useful if you write about media (especially minutia and detail) as much as I do.

 

[Harry]

As it was syndicated, it could air in any time slot the station chose, as long as it satisfied whatever they contracted it for. Being considered "adult" by nature, I'm sure a lot of markets ran it late at night. I know that both Philly and Baltimore did.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

As it was syndicated, it could air in any time slot the station chose, as long as it satisfied whatever they contracted it for. Being considered "adult" by nature, I'm sure a lot of markets ran it late at night. I know that both Philly and Baltimore did.

I watched it at the time, and I have to say I was surprised to see that KTLA ran it in prime time its first season. But I was 13 and wouldn't have been staying up until midnight then, so...yeah, it makes sense.

And seeing what was on the other channels, I mean....Playboy After Dark was going to be a better show than anything else on, with the possible exception of The Name of the Game or maybe CBS depending on the movie that week.

 

[Moritat]

Great video! Playboy After Dark and the earlier Playboy's Penthouse were outstanding shows. It would be great if the entire combined series were made available on DVD. The list of guests that appeared on these programs is quite impressive.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Great video! Playboy After Dark and the earlier Playboy's Penthouse were outstanding shows. It would be great if the entire combined series were made available on DVD. The list of guests that appeared on these programs is quite impressive.

I agree, but I think Hefner's legacy is too problematic at the moment for anyone to navigate. And the music rights clearances would be a nightmare.