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Let's Give Joan Rivers Her Due

What seems to be getting lost in all this discussion of Rivers' Late Show in the '80s is that it was intended as a vehicle to attract younger stars (and thus, younger viewers) to late-night TV. Whether this was successful is open for debate. There was some concern that anyone who appeared on the Late Show would be blacklisted from also appearing on Tonight, but it seems to me that NBC didn't even want the type of stars who would have appeared on the Late Show, whether they actually appeared there or not.

As for Joan, the failure of this particular show was one of only a very few (albeit a very high profile one) in an otherwise very successful career. She had a talk show in the '60s (That Show or something like that) that only lasted one season. (Maybe she should have avoided shows with very bland names!) But her daytime talk show (I never saw it) lasted for years, and of course, her deal with QVC lasted many many years.

According to the Internet Movie Database and Amazon, "That Show" (you were correct about its title) was a daytime program just like her other talk program ("The Joan Rivers Show").
 
It should be noted that even in the 80's viewers weren't as brain-dead and stupid as some folks seem to believe. Audiences didn't only respond to TV hosts who happened to be the same age. Attempts to appeal to "younger demographics" meant finding artists and acts that appealed to younger people, not necessarily artists and acts the same age as the target demo.

One of the movie stars who had an outstanding rapport and appeal to younger audiences in the 1980's was Rodney Dangerfield. Joan Rivers appealed to 20-somethings and 30-somethings despite her age because she came across as the "crazy aunt" that most families had.
 
Younger viewers? In 1986, Joan was 53 - already out of the money demos - and just eight years younger than Johnny.
In contrast, Arsenio was 30.
I wasn't referring to her age. I was referring to the guests that she wanted to have on the show. One of the guests that she supposedly wanted was George Michael, about 23 at the time. Whether or not she got him on the show, I don't know. But I am fairly certain that he was never on Tonight, at least in the Carson days.
 
Apparently much of the problem with "The Late Show" on Fox was Joan's husband and his conflicts with Fox management.

Much of the problem with "The Tonight Show" in the 70s and 80s was Frederick De Cordova who was stuck in the age of old time radio and early television. Among other things, he'd been show runner for Jack Benny and for Burns and Allen, and directed "Bedtime for Bonzo" starring You-Know-Who. He kept booking guests from that era, people most charitably described as the heroes of Johnny's youth growing up in Nebraska. When Johnny took over from Jack Parr, "The Tonight Show" from New York and produced by Perry Cross, was hip, edgy and cool. De Cordova, LA and Johnny's massive ego turned it into warm milk for senior citizens.
 
De Cordova, LA and Johnny's massive ego turned it into warm milk for senior citizens.

I was a very infrequent viewer of Carson but my college-age buddies, of which there were hundreds, would stay up every weeknight watching the entire show. I liked Carson but was not as fond of Ed McMahon and especially Doc Severinsen's music (although the replacement bands have been much worse).
 
FredLeonard, why did you use "You-Know-Who" rather than the name of one of the main actors for "Bedtime for Bonzo"?
 
I have "Back to School", one of Rodney Dangerfield's big blockbuster movies, on a VHS...SOMEWHERE. Should pull it out and watch it soon. Also got "Caddyshack" in that vintage Warner HV clamshell!

-crainbebo
 
Apparently, many of you didn't get Joan. In an interview replayed after her death on "Fresh Air from WHYY," Joan told Terry Gross...
I hate obituaries that don't tell the truth.

Based on that, Joan would hate being given "undue" credit for putting Fox "on the map." From the interview, she didn't have much use for Fox, either.

I bet she'd hate lemmings who come on message boards and post stuff like "condolences to her family" or "RIP." Those who cop out on a discussion of her career when confronted posting, "She's dead now. I'll not speak ill of the recently dead." (Joan made her career not hesitating to speak ill of the dead, or all sorts of other taboo subjects).

Does anybody think her relatives are sitting around right now trolling message boards to read condolences from people they don't know and who never met or possibly never even saw Joan? The only thing worse are those idiots who show up and leave flowers on the sidewalk after some complete stranger has died, and the local TV mic holders who show up to interview them on camera.
 
Just for the record.....when I said I didn't like Joan Rivers what I meant was I didn't like her performances. I didn't know the woman, never met her, so how could I possibly not like her in person? Just as many performers had a public and private side so she may have had and in another life, should we have been neighbors, we might have become famously friends. Unfortunately, the only thing I can know her by was her public persona and it grated upon me like few others in the biz. But I hold no ill will towards Joan. None at all.
 
The queen is dead, FL is the new king of endless, pointless bitchery...All hail!

This from the guy who goes around stalking people and posting personal attacks having nothing to do with the subject at hand. He must have a very dull life.
 
Only when I have to put up with reading boring, pompous posts.

You don't contribute anything substantive to threads - just insults and snarky comments. And those insults and snarky comments are not in response to posts you reply to but because at some point you decided you didn't like somebody, so you seek out their posts to flame. That's stalking. Apparently your intent is to bully people. Any reasonable person would just use the "Ignore" button.
 
What Killed Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers went to an out-patient clinic for an endoscopy. Her voice had gotten raspy. She was worried. After all, she makes her living talking. So, she went for a procedure where she gets an anesthetic and they stick a tiny TV camera on a very thin, flexible tube down her throat to see what's happening. Normally, a patient goes home in a couple of hours. Also, normally, a family member comes along to take the patient home (docs are worried about after-effects of the anesthesia). But Joan's next of kin, Melissa, was in California. She stayed there and Joan came back to New York. (They don't have these clinics in LA???)

Instead of a relative or friend, Joan shows up at the clinic with an "entourage." Including her own (as yet unnamed) doctor, who says he is an ear-nose-throat specialist. He goes into the room where they do the procedure to kibitz. One of the docs doing the procedure thinks the "sees something" on her vocal cords. So, Joan's concierge doctor decides to step in and do a biopsy, which are normally only done in hospitals. Why? Because there's a risk the patient's air could be cut off, which is exactly what happened to Joan. Joan had only given consent for an endoscopy - not a biopsy. There was no imminent danger from whatever was seen on Joan's vocal cords. They could have taken her to a hospital and done the biopsy the next day (possibly after doing some less invasive tests). But no!

Joan Rivers had surprise throat biopsy that cut off her air supply, source claims
EXCLUSIVE:
The late comedian went to Yorkville Endoscopy for a routine endoscopy on Aug. 28, but a doctor — who arrived with Rivers' entourage — offered to perform a biopsy after another doctor noticed 'something' on the entertainer's vocal chords, a medical source told the Daily News.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...iopsy-cut-air-supply-source-article-1.1934178
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As it turns out Joan Rivers died as a result of her airway being constricted due to a biopsy that is normally performed in a hospital, and one that she neither knew about nor authorized. Negligent homicide??

You don't contribute anything substantive to threads - just insults and snarky comments. And those insults and snarky comments are not in response to posts you reply to but because at some point you decided you didn't like somebody, so you seek out their posts to flame. That's stalking. Apparently your intent is to bully people. Any reasonable person would just use the "Ignore" button.

That to which you replied is best kept on ignore rather than engaged. Unfortunately there is still "this message is hidden because < > is on your ignore list.", although you don't have to see the insults, snark and gutter speech, since the intent is to disrupt, control or halt what others might say, not knowing that the Internet is a very large place and this is a very limited space.
 
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Did the entourage have a medical directive to say yay or nay? The correct response to the offer would have been, "No, that exceeds the scope of our practice here. We will let her know and she can schedule a biopsy for another day at the hospital with qualified physicians".

Sooo many "notice something". Some end up unwittingly and unwillingly donating an organ over someone else allegedly "noticing something".
 
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