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How did 'Deep Throat' ever become mainstream in 1972?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
It was so mainstream I assumed you were asking about W. Mark Felt, whose testament to the Washington Post under that pseudonym also occurred in 1972.
Seriously though, it became mainstream because celebrities like Mr. Carson brought it up. He didn't just bring it up -- the star of the film, Linda Lovelace, eventually had a guest spot on Tonight on April 3, 1973.
Seriously though, it became mainstream because celebrities like Mr. Carson brought it up. He didn't just bring it up -- the star of the film, Linda Lovelace, eventually had a guest spot on Tonight on April 3, 1973.
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Why did Carson have her on the show? Seemß like that kind of entertainer doesn't get that kind of publicity.
This is a case where we can't believe everything we read on the internet.
Linda being on Tonight appears to be based on a single IMDB entry.
There are no quotes, no pictures, no references to the appearance---and offsetting it, a 1978 New Yorker piece on Johnny and the show that specifically discusses Carson's boundaries. Among them: He wouldn't have Linda Lovelace on as a guest.
The World of Johnny Carson
Kenneth Tynan’s 1978 Profile. “I once asked a bright young Manhattan journalist whether he could define in a single word what made television different from theatre or cinema. ‘For good or ill,’ he said, ‘Carson.’ ”
She did, however, reportedly appear on Tomorrow with Tom Snyder. It was a fairly serious discussion about the felony obscenity trials surrounding the film. Again, no photos nor quotes, so grain of salt time, but that's absolutely a show Snyder would have done.
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Purely adult theaters. However, in California, X-rated theaters bought time on radio stations that would sell it to them. In San Diego, KGB, KCBQ and even (until Perry Allen lost it doing a live tag for a film called "Lickety Split") KFMB ran them. Up in the Bay Area, it was mostly KSAN.
But in Los Angeles, KROQ-AM, KKDJ and KHJ were running ads for Deep Throat and the Pussycat Theaters for months on end.
Cue to 18 minutes into this aircheck of Charlie Van Dyke in morning drive on KHJ, January 22, 1974:
Mixcloud
What you had to be here to understand, I think, was that this was the first of its kind. Hardcore porn had only been legal in the USA since 1969. "Deep Throat" was the first to attempt humor, star-making hype and to point to a specific---um---ability. And, arriving at the crest of the sexual revolution, where "prude" was more of an insult than "perv", a lot of "open-minded" Americans decided they needed to see for themselves, resulting in what both TIME Magazine and the New York Times called "Porno Chic".
“Hard‐core” grows fashionable—and very profitable (Published 1973)
R Blumenthal article on controversial x-rated film Deep Throat, which has grossed over $3.2-million in more than 70 theaters throughout US, is object of obscenity case in NYC and has engendered a kind of 'porno chic' in NYC social circles; D Vandor, Mayor's Office of Midtown Planning and...
It was inescapable at the time. Crying out for jokes---the trick was to do it and not lose the license. Here's Robert W. Morgan doing just that at KHJ in Los Angeles---and not just once---he goes back to it after the commercial break:
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Fair enough. I actually read it in this piece, which is dated 2005, before IMDB was the in depth database it is now (although it did exist). 14th graf:
Oral History: How Deep Throat Changed America - Poynter
From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.
www.poynter.org
Fair enough. I actually read it in this piece, which is dated 2005, before IMDB was the in depth database it is now (although it did exist). 14th graf:
Oral History: How Deep Throat Changed America - Poynter
From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.
Yeah. And I respect you and Poynter. But there's nothing to corroborate that. Tape of that night's show exists. Carson's channel on YouTube has the Clint Eastwood interview from that night. But nothing with Linda.
The Wikipedia page for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, showing episode dates and guests, reads the same as IMDB, but does not include Linda Lovelace.
Since Linda died in 2002, I'm betting the IMDB page was more or less complete (apart from more recent bios of her) and that Poynter relied on IMDB.
One last bit of ephemera. In 1973, another big (if slightly less explicit) film was "Last Tango in Paris".
Herb Alpert and the TJB recorded a version of the film's theme and released it as a single:
Julius Wechter and the Baja Marimba Band had been on Herb's A&M Records label, but had lost their contract over poor sales. Their first release for Bell Records, shortly after Herb released "Last Tango"---and it HAD to be a jab at Herb---was the "Theme From Deep Throat".
It sank without a trace (Herb only made #77 with "Last Tango"), but it's been pulled out of the vault recently:
Catchy little number.
Herb Alpert and the TJB recorded a version of the film's theme and released it as a single:
Julius Wechter and the Baja Marimba Band had been on Herb's A&M Records label, but had lost their contract over poor sales. Their first release for Bell Records, shortly after Herb released "Last Tango"---and it HAD to be a jab at Herb---was the "Theme From Deep Throat".
It sank without a trace (Herb only made #77 with "Last Tango"), but it's been pulled out of the vault recently:
Catchy little number.
I am guessing it knocked the wind out of a lot of movies which got an X rating, but were not merely "adult" films in that since but had artistic value, as those films developed a bad reputation. Even NC-17s today are very hidden.Purely adult theaters. However, in California, X-rated theaters bought time on radio stations that would sell it to them. In San Diego, KGB, KCBQ and even (until Perry Allen lost it doing a live tag for a film called "Lickety Split") KFMB ran them. Up in the Bay Area, it was mostly KSAN.
But in Los Angeles, KROQ-AM, KKDJ and KHJ were running ads for Deep Throat and the Pussycat Theaters for months on end.
Cue to 18 minutes into this aircheck of Charlie Van Dyke in morning drive on KHJ, January 22, 1974:
Mixcloud
www.mixcloud.com
What you had to be here to understand, I think, was that this was the first of its kind. Hardcore porn had only been legal in the USA since 1969. "Deep Throat" was the first to attempt humor, star-making hype and to point to a specific---um---ability. And, arriving at the crest of the sexual revolution, where "prude" was more of an insult than "perv", a lot of "open-minded" Americans decided they needed to see for themselves, resulting in what both TIME Magazine and the New York Times called "Porno Chic".
“Hard‐core” grows fashionable—and very profitable (Published 1973)
R Blumenthal article on controversial x-rated film Deep Throat, which has grossed over $3.2-million in more than 70 theaters throughout US, is object of obscenity case in NYC and has engendered a kind of 'porno chic' in NYC social circles; D Vandor, Mayor's Office of Midtown Planning and...www.nytimes.com
It was inescapable at the time. Crying out for jokes---the trick was to do it and not lose the license. Here's Robert W. Morgan doing just that at KHJ in Los Angeles---and not just once---he goes back to it after the commercial break:
Depends on when you're talking about. In 1973, when "Deep Throat" was at its peak, "Last Tango in Paris", a legit film starring Marlon Brando that was rated X for one explicit scene, ended up being the 7th biggest film in terms of box office for that year.
Major studios, though, were looking for the largest audiences possible for their films, so most of their films that got an X when the MPAA reviewed them were edited and re-submitted to get an "R" before release.
The handful of non-hardcore films that got X ratings and kept them were pushing the boundaries in some other way---gore (the Andy Warhol Frankenstein and Dracula films), graphic language (I believe the number of F-bombs you could have in dialogue and keep an "R" was two), or extremely sexual content, even if it was not hardcore pornography.
Fun fact is that in my rural, mostly Catholic area in Western Ohio, at least one of the drive-in movie theatres stayed open well into the fall, after the summer season, running X-rated movies. They even offered car heaters.
"Rated X! No one under 18 admitted! Not even babies!"
Yeah, I'd forgotten that a lot of those films did the rounds of drive-ins. There was one in the 70s and early-mid 80s along Interstate 80 near Davis (about 15 miles west of downtown Sacramento):
SN&R • Opinions • The Republic's People of Davis • Porn as high as an elephant’s eye • Dec 13, 2007
Remembering the good ol’ dirty days of Westlane Drive-In.
www.newsreview.com
I was more than a little surprised the first time I drove by there at night---and can only imagine how many distracted driving accidents happened.
Turns out there were more of those drive-ins. I found this piece while looking for the specific one about Davis---and this says 70 drive-ins around the country were showing hardcore at one point:
The Big Daddy of Drive-In Porn Theaters
How a small-town Midwestern businessman saw cash in putting flesh on the outdoor screen and rode that to the charmed life of playing golf in the Central American jungle.
www.thedailybeast.com
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So where did the IMDB reference to Lovelace on Carson come from? Did someone there just pull it out of his butt, or insert it in the article as a prank? Or was it a mass "Mandela effect" that somehow convinced everyone responsible for the website that she actually appeared on the show?
I knew this thread was going to end up being a bad influence...
See, the whole topic causes subliminal thoughts...
From IMDB's "Help" page:
It's basically the Wikipedia of film and TV. And, assuming that entry was there before the Poynter piece from 2005, IMDB was smaller then and very likely less well-vetted.
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This reminds me of an article in Time or Newsweek at some point in the 1970s. The article was about small-town movie theaters in Iowa who were showing X-rated films late on Friday or Saturday nights in order to stay in business. This caused some consternation. The best such quote came from a minister in one of these towns, who was not happy about such showings. "Why, it's getting to be almost as bad as Des Moines!"
Yeah, by the 1950s, the society ladies of Ward Parkway and Johnson County, Kansas had spearheaded drives to clean up corruption, which meant an end to the goings-on of the wide-open Pendergast years. Robert Altman's Kansas City is a better fit to the city's actual history, was filmed in Union Station right after the city finally got back control of it in the 1990s (I was there the weekend after that happened), and has a way better musical soundtrack.
Don't forget the version by Linda and the Lollipops!
And a photo of the 45 label:
I guess the Kama Sutra/Buddah promo rep forgot all about KIBS in Bishop when they were shipping that one...