Blast from the Past: Joan Rivers, Elton John and Cher

Image from source, Wonderland-site

I recently threw out all of my old VHS tapes, when we swapped the rooms that house my office and guest bedroom. I'd been saving them since the very first one I recorded, which dates to approximately 1985. It was a huge loss psychically, but not practically. In truth, I hadn't hauled one out in years, and when I did, the VCR ate it. Now, the VCRs in our house have been retired, though there is still a dusty one tucked away in the armoire in the master bedroom. For emergencies.

There were many pop culture moments stored away on those tapes, now crushed in a landfill somewhere here in the Las Vegas valley. One of them contained the below clip, so I was sort of excited when I found it.

Picture it: it's 1986. While cable TV exists, it consists of your local channels, some "independent" channels that run The Andy Griffith Show in an endless loop, MTV, CNN, C-SPAN and pay services like HBO. In all, most people had 20-30 channels, but they mostly watched the big three networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. There was no internet. Renting video tapes had only recently come into vogue. So the introduction of a new nationwide over-the-air television network was a very big deal.

But it didn't start out that way. When the FOX television network started, it consisted of exactly one show, at 11:30 pm. In fact, it wasn't even called "FOX" yet, it was called "FBC." And that show was a variety program, hosted by the recently departed "permanent guest host" of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Her name was in the title of the new show, The Late Show starring Joan Rivers. You might not remember this, but at one time (briefly as it turns out) in the mid-1980s, Joan's career was hot. Not just with adults either, but with high school kids too.

It probably had to do with how bawdy she was. Most female entertainers didn't talk that way back then. Now, you've got your Sarah Silvermans and your Janeane Garofalos, but in the 1980s there was just Joan. The show didn't catch on, and was replaced (eventually by Arsenio Hall) fairly quickly, but to be fair, it wasn't given much of a chance. This was a brand new television network, mostly cobbled together from local UHF stations. And Joan Rivers isn't everybody's cup of tea, especially when you consider that she pissed off the very popular Johnny Carson, an American institution.

But check out who Joan managed to book for her debut show: Cher, Elton John, Pee-Wee Herman and David Lee Roth (don't laugh, Pee-Wee and Diamond Dave were big in the 80s too). In this clip, a very big-haired, and completely tone deaf Joan sings along to Elton John's The Bitch is Back, which was a brilliant idea. And eventually, Cher comes out and sings along. This was a treat for viewers, as Cher had been in her "serious actress" stage, and hadn't been a singer for years. Anyway, the clip brought back memories for me, so enjoy.