Make Your Own Kind Of Music

^^Unfortunately, those same issues could be applied to the later
1976-1980 television specials
--and, those are the TV Specials for which
it is well-documented that the duo states they had total control !
If they were mishandled in 1971 (for television) due to poor management,
then, to what reason do we ascribe those same issues in the later full-on
(Weintraub managed & Weintraub produced) Carpenters' Specials ?
 
^^Could've had something to do with Karen's health issues and Richard's Quaalude addiction. Major distractions to the tasks at hand. How much control could they have possibly had over an entertainment medium in which they really knew nothing about. If they did have "total control", Richard sure contradicts this years later on the BBC documentary The Carpenters' Story Only Yesterday with the following statement;

"mentally I wasn't in the mood to be doing these things once we finally got one and secondly I didn't want anything with skits, I didn't want canned laughter, I hate that. Karen on the other hand loved all of this stuff and so she took to them. By this point in time when it came to the specials they really should have been Karen specials because; what do you do with me? I'm a behind-the-scenes guy."

That doesn't sound like a guy that is exercising "total control" of the content of these productions. More like Weintraub presented a "blueprint" for a typical late 70s variety show, and they signed off on it, not being in their proper minds (the issues mentioned above).
 
^^I'll dig up the references--that is, the references "of-the-day"
NOT later recollections; as Richard certainly did change his views later on.
I stand by what I have read, they exercised complete control over those later Specials,
and those specials were not much of an improvement to earlier television specials under
different management.
Let us recall--Richard later regretted any involvement in tht CBS-Movie.
Let us recall--Richard later relegated and demoted Voice Of The Heart to "staying on the shelf."

He sure seemed an "on-the-scenes" participant in those earlier MYOKOM Shows.
And, the Newspaper interview/article, 1978, during production of Space Encounters,
has both Richard and Karen ecstatic about its outcome.
 
^ Richard basically just played along and tried to be a good sport during the "Make Your Own Kind of Music" series and their run of TV specials from 76-80. In my opinion, Daryl Dragon had a similar role and approach with the Captain & Tennille series which ran from late 76 to early 77. Toni, like Karen was the more extroverted star of the duo and enjoyed the skits and comedy routines while each of their partners preferred to hide behind the keyboards and concentrate on the music.

Even the Sonny and Cher show focused more on Cher and tended to make Sonny appear to be second tier and the subject of insults which actually worked for the audience. The Donnie and Marie show was a little different from the other duos because they both had extensive television experience and show business savvy at early ages through the family entertainment empire which added greatly to their comfort level. Though the format was similar to Sonny and Cher due to Donnie being the fall guy for Marie's jabs.
 
Given Richard Carpenter's personality--or, what I know of it--
I find it difficult to believe he would "play along"
to anything he really did not want to be a part of.
 
Stating that he wasn't in the mood to be doing these things, didn't want anything to do with skits or canned laughter and using the "hate" word to sum his overall feelings indicated to me that he played along and was a good sport which is a positive character trait. Management, A&M, Karen, ABC, parents, money, professional pride and ego surely drove him to engage in projects he was not comfortable with. When my girlfriend wants me to attend an opera, pick strawberries, listen to Billy Idol, watch Hallmark movies, go kayaking, eat brussel sprouts or anything else I loathe, I sometimes tend to "play along".
 
The Carpenters' Fan Club Newsletter July 1971 emphasizes that.... "this is THEIR show"
(capitalized 'THEIR' in the original Newsletter).
Then this:
"To Karen, TV taping is a drag when not on camera. Ambitious young lady that she is, she
hates to stand around and wait. Then, there is rehearsing. Lots of rehearsing !
The same song, over and over again..."

The Newsletter does NOT mention Richard Carpenter and the taping of MYOKOM.
I stand by my belief: Richard Carpenter did not "play along."
He was fulfilling a contractual agreement, though.
 
Another bad lip-synced segment from the very dreadful summer TV replacement MYOKOM. The only good thing from that show was a very good thing; the live medley of Karen at the piano with Richard. The rest is dreck.
Even though this is now known as the "Zodiac" medley, each of the little songs with Karen and Richard in front of the Zodiac set were featured at the end of each episode ("Z" is for "Zodiac"). A fan must have gotten hold of the footage and stitched it together and called it a "medley," since each tune was so short.

But the flipside of this is that each live Zodiac song was so short! I wish they'd done full versions of "Trains and Boats and Planes," for example!
 
The skits for this show were asinine, the "canned" laughter irritating, the awful wardrobe of Karen, the lip-syncing (if they were allowed to perform their tunes "live" it would've been outstanding). The whole concept of having performers sitting on letters 15 feet in the air was dumb also. "violently mishandled" is an understatement.
But, on the flipside, its legacy was a treasure trove of what today could be considered promo videos. About half of Interpretations came from MYOKOM, and Herb Alpert's lipsynched performance of "This Guy's in Love with You" (where he's sitting on that big letter H) was recently featured on a PBS program about music from the 1960s and 1970s.
 
The Carpenters' Fan Club Newsletter July 1971 emphasizes that.... "this is THEIR show"
(capitalized 'THEIR' in the original Newsletter).
Then this:
"To Karen, TV taping is a drag when not on camera. Ambitious young lady that she is, she
hates to stand around and wait. Then, there is rehearsing. Lots of rehearsing !
The same song, over and over again..."

The Newsletter does NOT mention Richard Carpenter and the taping of MYOKOM.
I stand by my belief: Richard Carpenter did not "play along."
He was fulfilling a contractual agreement, though.
A little off-topic, but it would be really cool--as someone who was not alive at the same time as Karen or the Carpenters Fan Club--to see an online archive of Carpenters Fan Club Newsletters, scanned as PDFs... I wonder if there's a hardcore fan who kept the newsletters safe (in a dry, dark, cool space) throughout all of these decades.
 
A little off-topic, but it would be really cool--as someone who was not alive at the same time as Karen or the Carpenters Fan Club--to see an online archive of Carpenters Fan Club Newsletters, scanned as PDFs... I wonder if there's a hardcore fan who kept the newsletters safe (in a dry, dark, cool space) throughout all of these decades.

Here’s the next best thing, starting from newsletter #1. Just replace the “71” at the end of the URL with the next year to get the newsletters from that year (the fan club didn’t start issuing these until 1971).

 
I was able to get my hands on an audio-only CD of the first episode of Make Your Own Kind of Music. A really interesting broadcast. The intro started with that "A is for Alpert" intro that we're used to seeing in the bootleg videos, followed by Don Knott's "B is for beautiful body" and then "C is for Carpenters" performance of "We've Only Just Begun." Really odd audio that I've never heard before, even a Mark Lindsay performance. Right now, I'm on "K is for Karen" with that performance of "Rainy Days and Mondays" in the long yellow dress!
 
Oh, a bit off topic for the thread.....
Never heard this before....presumably 1971 audio from Make Your Own Kind Of Music,
Ticket To Ride:

Yes! Without the "T is for Ticket to Ride" voiceover, that is the single version of "Ticket to Ride." It's also the version of "Ticket to Ride" on those 7.5 ips "Ticket to Ride" reel-to-reel tapes.
 
I was able to get my hands on an audio-only CD of the first episode of Make Your Own Kind of Music. A really interesting broadcast. The intro started with that "A is for Alpert" intro that we're used to seeing in the bootleg videos, followed by Don Knott's "B is for beautiful body" and then "C is for Carpenters" performance of "We've Only Just Begun." Really odd audio that I've never heard before, even a Mark Lindsay performance. Right now, I'm on "K is for Karen" with that performance of "Rainy Days and Mondays" in the long yellow dress!
M was for Mark Lindsay on the first episode. He lip-synced to this song:

 
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Wow. Okay. So "Close to You" (as seen on Yesterday Once More/Gold) just finished (Y is for "You").

Now is the Zodiac. I think this is Mark Lindsay talking?

"The twelve signs of the Zodiac. If you were born between July 23 and August 23, you were born in the sign of Leo the Lion. You Leos are generally thought of as proud, generous, trusting, energetic, domineering, and authoritative. They say Leos have a personality as bright as the sun, and that's because the sun is the ruler of your sign. It might dominate your music too."

Then he starts singing "Here Comes the Sun" (the Beatles song).

Then Al Hirt I think starts singing "That Lucky Old Sun" (the Ray Charles song).

Then Richard and Karen perform "Good Day Sunshine" (the Beatles song).

I think the Doodletown Pipers are singing "You Are My Sunshine."

Then maybe the Doodletown Pipers? are singing "Let the Sunshine In" (the 5th Dimension song).

So, I suppose the "Z is for Zodiac' segment was a medley, but not in the way it was presented on YouTube. :D
 
Put yourself into the time period in question. It's the summer of 1971. Carpenters have exactly three albums and a Christmas single in the can. So all totaled, there were 35 non-Christmas songs available for this television program.

Now next one must understand that Carpenters were only two of a set of rotating stars/hosts of this show. Each one got to do something on every episode. Karen AND Richard shared duties in this series, and generally performed as a duo or part of the larger stage group that we see. Other hosts were Al Hirt, Mark Lindsay, comedians Patchett & Tarses, and musical group, The Doodletown Pipers.

Each episode went through the alphabet, doing a segment for each letter. With "X", there aren't very many words that start with X, so they came up with the X-ray bit. Each week, they'd throw one of these short sketches in for the letter X. A different one each week.

This was the era of ROWAN & MARTIN's LAUGH-IN, where short "blackout" sketches became the "in" thing, so this show incorporated them for some of the letters of the alphabet.

Since Richard was one of the hosts, when it came turn for him to perform, there weren't a whole lot of Richard-only songs in the Carpenters three-album repertoire, so "Druscilla Penny" and "Saturday" and "I Kept On Loving You" would be naturals, assuming they didn't want to dig too far into the failed album TICKET TO RIDE/OFFERING.
The first episode X-ray skit was pretty funny in a dry, political way. I don't know who said what, but one person said (paraphrasing), "Do we have those X-rays for Vice President (Spiro) Agnew?" The other said (again, paraphrasing), "Yes, doctor, here they are." And it was an X-ray of someone's shoe (foot) in their mouth.
 
Yes! Without the "T is for Ticket to Ride" voiceover, that is the single version of "Ticket to Ride." It's also the version of "Ticket to Ride" on those 7.5 ips "Ticket to Ride" reel-to-reel tapes.
Is this different than what we’ve heard before?
 
Is this different than what we’ve heard before?
That's news to me! I've got both the reel to reel tape of 'Offering' and 'Ticket To Ride', but I never knew about the single version being used instead. I'll have to dig them out now. : )
 
I think the piano at the beginning is different. Maybe just a different mix?
Hmm, interesting. That piano beginning from the reel-to-reel and the 45 sound the same to me. Maybe we can find two clips and compare?

I used the "Complete Singles" version here:



And here is a digital transfer from a 45:

 
Hi everyone, does anyone have MP4 or DVD (VOB) files for MYOKOM? (Would love to see a tape transfer with a time-base corrector)

Thanks!
 
This is hilarious. I just ordered the remaining 7 episodes of MYOKOM.

Here's how episode 2 begins:

Announcer: "A is for announcement!"
Richard: Hi, I'm Richard Carpenter, and this little lady to my right here is my sister, not my wife. Now, quite a few people think Karen and I are married, and...
Karen: Blech!
*Then Richard and Karen sing "Make Your Own Kind of Music" -- different audio than what we're used to.*

I would pay good money just to see that clip! :laughup:
 
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