From their experience with animation on Sesame Street and Free to Be . . . You and Me, Bruce and Carole Hart knew how animation could help reach children and convey messages. Consequently, Hot Hero Sandwich had animation integrated throughout the show from the opening credits, bumpers, music videos, short film — this wasn’t our parent’s cartoons. Some of the animation was traditional, other experimental, and others just absolutely trippy — and I mean TRIPPY! This was animation made by those in tune with the post-countercultural zeitgeist and pushed visual imagery well-beyond the bonds of traditional Saturday morning TV fare.
The animation on Hot Hero Sandwich is very stylistic and at the same time embraces a variety of styles, from more traditional anthropomorphic animals to rotoscoping to outright psychedelic imagery. The animation didn’t try to just zone children out between live segments with nonsensical cartoon schtick. It was also meant to engage us and and our imaginations with a sense of wonder. It wasn’t animation as much as it was art and the Harts trusted us kids to figure it out on our own.
Their trust was well-placed.
The following article includes all animated short film clips and animator credits.
Hot Hero Sandwich’s “What In, What’s Out”
segments are short clips of young people giving their opinion on the latest
crazes, music, and slang. The introduction’s primal drumming and crunchy, screaming guitar
work by the Hot Hero Band captures the unbridled teen spirit. What better way
to explore what kids feel then letting them speak for themselves?
The children are
from local schools on a field trip and coordinated with the show producers. The
segments, directed by Gail Frank, wife of Hot Hero Sandwich writer Joe Bailey
(who also wrote for Sesame Street and
The Muppet Show), also show how
difficult it is to pin down the likes and dislikes of the young teen
demographic. This is amply demonstrated in the episode 6 segment about the
great existential question in 1979, which is better, Rock or Disco music? Every
kid seems to have a different answer.
To the historian, these “person on the street” interviews have more
significance beyond just the entertainment value. Here, we see a snapshot of the
attitudes, fashion, and language of NYC teens in the late 1970s (which were
probably similar to teens in other urban areas). Whether it is a historian or a
movie production trying to recreate an era, these segments can be invaluable.
All clips are hosted on the Hot Hero Sandwich
Central YouTubechannel.
One big attraction
for Hot Hero Sandwich’s appeal to its
young audience was the music performances. Disco, New Wave, Rock, and even
Latin Jazz found its way to Studio 8-H and Hot
Hero managed to snap up some of the top names of the era, including Sister
Sledge, Eddie Money, Joe Jackson, Rex Smith, Stephen Stills, The Little River Band, and
more.
In the years
just prior to the debut of MTV in 1981, just one year after Hot Hero Sandwich, teen interest in
music videos was at an all-time high. Midnight
Special, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert,
Pop Clips, Friday Night Videos, and others, primed the late Baby Boomer/Gen X
crowd for this genre and Hot Hero
Sandwich was in an excellent position to capitalize on it. As noted by Paul
O’Keefe in his interview
for the Hot Hero Sandwich Project, “Studio 8-H was originally the radio studio
for the NBC orchestra. It had very good acoustics for a TV studio.” Additionally,
Hot Hero Sandwich shared crew with Saturday
Night Live, which by 1979 had four solid years of recording acts for that
show, so the performances for Hot Hero were
filmed by top-notch technicians who needed only one or two run-throughs to nail
down the acts on video. These taped performances are on par with anything SNL produced.
As for the
performances themselves, Hot Hero Band producer Felix Pappalardi acknowledges in a Nov. 24,
1979, Record Word article, due to all
the neon on stage, a loud hum was created when the amplifiers were turned on,
so the performances were lip-synced, though it does appear that vocally the
singers were still belting it out and the musicians hit their notes on target
and on time.
All clips are hosted on the Hot Hero Sandwich Central YouTubechannel. For all performances by the Hot Hero Band, please visit the article, Hot Hero Band Video Clips.
In addition to the performances on Studio 8-H, Hot Hero Sandwich also produced short
films and animation (by Jerry Lieberman Productions) for a variety of music
genres.
Animation and Short Films:
Episode 1, “I'm Only
Sleeping”: Originally The Beatles version, replaced with a cover version by
Go Fret due to a limited copyright release.
Episode 8, “When I'm
64”: Originally, this clip used the versions by The Beatles, here replaced with a cover version by the 101 Strings due to a limited copyright
release.
Episode 10, “Ebony Eyes”: A tribute to Black girls and women set to Stevie Wonder's “Ebony Eyes,” overlayed with a woman doing snippets of "Phenomenal Woman," and another poem (“I’m Gonna Draw Me a Black Madonna”).
(Opening narration
to the Ym and Ur segments on Hot Hero Sandwich)
NBC PR photo for Denny Dillon (left) and Paul O’Keefe (right)
as Ur and Ym (author's collection).
Ym and Ur ("Him" and "Her," Paul
O’Keefe and Denny Dillon respectively) are two alien teens who “borrow” Ur’s father’s
spaceship for a joy ride and cruise by the planet Earth close enough to monitor
our television transmissions. Despite their long lives (Ym is 615 and Ur only
500), they are unfamiliar with Earth culture and they mistake many of our
programs as accurately reflecting real life here on the planet. This naturally
leads to humorous and sometimes somber social commentary. These segments were
written by series writer Richard Camp (see Camp’s interview
with the project for more information).
Episode 2 Episode 3
As discussed by
Denny Dillon in her interview
for the Hot Hero Sandwich Project, the extensive make-up for the segments was the
work of makeup artist Barbara Kelly, whose father Bob Kelly was a renowned
Broadway wig maker and founder of Bob Kelly Cosmetics, a theatrical supply
company. Kelly herself established her reputation with such films as Fame (the movie), Three Men and a Baby, Birdy, Desperately Seeking Susan, Big,
Tootsie, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Star Dust Memories, Ragtime, and many more.
Dillon noted
that the Ym and Ur segments had to be filmed fast because the heat from the
lights would begin to heat up the make-up and cause the ends of the bald skull
caps to curl up. Often the segments would be filmed late with the shooting
going on until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. in the morning, according to Dillon.
Episode 4 Episode 8
Paul O’Keefe, in
his interview
with the Hot Hero Sandwich Project, particularly recalled the sometime problematic
costumes and make-up for the segments:
I should point out that the writing for the
show was very well done. It gave us a lot to work with. Since they were aliens,
we had some latitude in creating bits for the skits. You may be surprised to
hear that physically the roles were very demanding. The spacesuits had no
ventilation, so they were very hot under the lights. The makeup was very
extensive, and needed to be worked on because we would be sweating it off. . .
. our makeup lady . . . she and her father . . . developed a special color and
type of makeup for the aliens, and she would work on us between takes. The bald
cap also needed attention, but she did a great job keeping us looking like we
came from outer space!
Jerry Lieberman
provided an animated bit in the episode 2 segment — a commercial for a “Bermuda
Belt,” a take-off on the Hawaiian Punch commercials of the time, which the alien teens mistake for humans at war. Throughout the segments, beauty contests are mistaken for elections, politicians are mistaken for
beauty contestants, the numbers on football jerseys are mistaken for IQs, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade is mistaken for a religious procession
of Earth gods.
Hmm . . . maybe the kids
got it right all along.
Episode 11
Production breakdown sheets
for filming the Ym and Ur segment for July 20, 1979.
Episode
11: Parting comments.
Going home with special guest stars producer Howard Malley as the alien
dad and writer Andy Breckman (creator of the TV show Monk) as the Puberty Fairy!
Series' producer Howard Malley in real life (left) and
in character as Ur’s father.
All clips are hosted on the Hot Hero Sandwich Central YouTubechannel.
