Marvin Kitman Show National boycott of 'Cruising' planned

by Marvin Kitman

'Mr. Mike's Mondo Video'

I've seen the future of television comedy and it is "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video." Quite simply, it's the greatest TV show never shown on TV. It will be shown eventually, however, in movie theaters.

I mention this now as the new season arrives because of the irony. There is nothing new on television this season. Wait, you'll see.

And here is "Mr. Mike's," the best comedy show of the century, produced for TV but showing on movie screens. What a shame we can't be starting off in September with Mr. Mike.

"Mr. Mike's Mondo Video" began as a 90-minute special made by "Saturday Night Live" people for NBC last year. It was conceived by the brilliant, weird, wildly fertile, bizarre comic genius Michael O'Donahue. He also stars in the show as Mr. Mike. (He's the one with the little spectacles made out of a blue Noxema jar.)

The show was put together under the auspices of Lorne Michaels. Dan Akroyd plays a genetic mutant. Sid Vicious sings. Margot Kidder, Carrie Fisher and other SNL visiting greats tell what disgusting things guys do that turn them on.

The NBC censors called the final version of the show "raunchy gross... tasteless

They refused to play it.

It was so bad, even cable TV turned it down. And we all know what stupifying standards they have. "Raunchy... gross... tasteless the good-taste maven at one cable outlet called it.

There was only one place to go with truly tasteless material-the movies. After the film mouldered in the can for a year, movie rights were bought by Paul Klein, who had been the programming honcho assigned to show at NBC. The movie is a mondo way to break the censorship game they play in commercial TV. I wouldn't be surprised if the ad campaign next month for "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video" reads: "Raunchy... Gross... Tasteless"-NBC Censor.

Those are three of the biggest words of praise today. You can also throw in "disgusting," "vile," "shocking," "repugnant beyond belief," all of them selling words which describe the show. But it's also unique, bizarre, and very funny.

"Mr. Mike's" would not be possible without commercial television, Standard TV humor, as flat and limp as a wet, cold noodle, feeds mondo video. It's what we used to call sick humor, black humor. Going too far with a gag-that's mondo. Showing you the girls in their bras is mondo.

Mr. Mike may be the Benny Hill of American TV, and he doesn't know it. That's mondo too. Commercial TV has drawn the lines and Mr. Mike does his best to step over them. It's all in incredibly bad taste and at least two-thirds of it hysterical.

What is mondo TV? One picture is worth a thousand words. Go to the movie house when it opens and find out for yourself. A guide or two: Dan Akroyd confessing that he is a genetic mutant is mondo. He shows his webbed toes to prove it. Mr. Mike is the only impresario to give, as an act, Dan Akroyd's feet. Yech.

Showing you how cats are taught to swim at the Royal Dutch Swimming School for Cats is mondo. (Have you ever wondered why no cats drown in Amsterdam, the city of canals and cats?) And then taking us to the Royal Dutch HangGliding School for Cats is also mondo. Cat lovers may not love Mr. Mike.

There is a report on a religion based on the worship of Jack Lord. We go to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to see services at the Mainland Temple of the Perpetual Wave, with flashing red lights on top of the steeple and parishioners crying out, "Bust me, oh Jack Lord." Very inspirational, and it should only enrage about three million Christians.

Stupid dinosaurs that don't look real... Jo Jo, the Human Hot Plate

Looking up Cheryl Tiegs' dress ... The song of a harpooned humpback whale An expose of the American war machine, and a look at its most diabolical weapon, Laser Bra 2000 (here, truly, is one weapon we hope will never fall into enemy hands) ... A visit to the world's largest mountain of garbage... Pat Nixon and the Mondo Video Dancers... Gig Young's grocery bag...

A training camp for Kate Smith's pallbearers... The clips from a 1928 porno film... A visit to Paris, "or the city of frogs," as Mr. Mike likes to call it, to a quaint restaurant where American tourists go to be treated like dirt... A report on the sleazy side of living in New York, with Mr. Mike taking us to the swank Party Doll Lounge, where a group sings "Boogie, Till You Puke." Obscene gestures of other

lands...

I'm not even going to bother to list all the hilarious things in the show. Why give the censors at this newspaper a chance to cut it out?

"Mr. Mike's Mondo Video" also features the music of Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols. He's dead now, but you can see why he was a star. Mr. Sid does Frank Sinatra's "My Way." The Vicious footage is shot hot and crude, really spectacular visual stuff. And then there is the show's theme, sung by Julius La Rosa. That's mondo casting.

"Mr. Mike's Mondo Viseo is the true "Tomorrow" show. It should have been on TV at 11:30 p.m. The script was approved by NBC censors before the show was actually made. If Mr. Mike is ahead of the times, it's by 10 or 12 minutes.

It would have made a great variety-comedy series for NBC this (Continued on page 30)

GAY NEWS-Sept. 21, 1979

(Continued from page 8)

been to appeal to the cops by drawing attention to how cops, too, looked bad in the film script. But the crowd was in no mood to fraternize with the Sixth Precinct. The. crowd began chanting. "The cops and the Klan work hand in hand!"

New groups of protesters gathered round the film site on West Street, and new barricades greeted them. At one point several people began shouting, "Move down this way! They're filming further down!" Word was passed on through the crowd, and about 150 people began moving down West Street. Shortly after, a group of about a dozen mounted police charged into our midst swinging clubs. The crowd retaliated by throwing bot-

tles.

Friedkin and his crew finally. showed up. A cop car rigged with lights and cameras followed them. (In the script, this would have been the scene where two cops force two transvestites to blow them.) Over a hundred whistles were blown shrilly, and the crowd chanted, "All Three Pigs: Friedkin, Bryant, and Briggs!" Shortly after arriving, they left. Two busloads of "extras" dressed in leather had been similarly driven off with shouts of "Traitors!" and "Artificial Faggots!"

The following night there was another rally at Sheridan Square. The crowd marched to Mayor Koch's apartment building at 14 Washington Place. Some cops smiled shit-eating grins at us, which we smiled back. The crowd had come here to let Koch know that gay people had not been

bought off or silenced by a piece of paper-namely, Koch's pro-gay Executive Proclamation. Why hadn't the mayor at least spoken publicly about the bigotry of Friedkin, even if he felt obliged to defend Friedkin's free speech? A new chant erupted from the crowd: "Koch-you liar! We'll set your ass on fire!"

And then another chant: "Out of your closet, Koch!" But Joe Smenyak, a Marshal leader, took this occasion to address the crowd and say, "No! I say let Koch stay in the closet! We don't want to be associated with him!" This got a roar of approval.

From Koch's apartment-the crowd marched the long blocks all the way to 46th and Broadway, where we sat down in the street. The nightly Broadway crowd gathered round the demonstration. Joe Smenyak grabbed a loud speaker and said, "We're here because this is the heart of the movie district and we want the film industry to know that we won't take their shit any more! We want Koch to know that he is not our friend! He is Public Enemy #1-Koch is the man who closed down hospitals that the black and Latin communities needed, he's the man who took gay votes and gave us nothing! We'll work with any minority in this city. against the mayor!"

During the following day, Friedkin's crew attempted to film in front of the Mine Shaft bar, but the bar owners gave the Marshals permission to spray paint the premises with anti-"Cruising" slogans. One woman drove Friedkin to distraction by walking up and down the

sidewalk tossing gold glitter in front of the cameras. The crew moved on.

That evening, Wednesday night, August 22, there was another march and rally. Friedkin was filming at Washington and Gansevoort, and the cops were barricading the crowd far from the film site. The crowd chanted, "The cops are on Friedkin's payroll!" Sue Cummings, a Marshals leader, addressed the crowd in anger; "Tonight our free speech has been.denied. The cops are collaborating with the film crew; they're keeping us so far from the film site that we have been silenced. The gay community has a score to settle with the Sixth Precinct!"

The crowd marched back to Sheridan Square. On the way, a cop clubbed a woman in the ribs, and clubbed a man in the stomach who came to her aid. The crowd chanted, "Harvey Milk-Arthur Miller-We know the cops are the killers!" (Arthur Miller was a black civic leader in Brooklyn who was strangled to death by a gang of cops; Milk's assassin, Dan White, received a mere slap on the wrist from an all-straight jury in part because he had once been a cop.) In Sheridan Square, Joe Smenyak spoke again to the crowd:

"We've been shut out of streets our taxes paid for-by strangers who came in to profit from our oppression! Koch stood by and did nothing. The cops collaborated with the film crew. Well, word is out: the cops are our enemies. Let's remember the folks who aren't with us now: our sisters and brothers in (Continued on page 20)

GAY PERSONA for SEPT. 79 by Thom Shafer

LILY TOMLIN~Sept. 6, c.1941. Detroit. Proved that 'Love is blind when judging

friend's movie script.

RODDY MCDOWELL~Sept. 17, 1928. Former child actor model for chicken porn.

MARY RENAULT Sept. 4, 1905, London, Still plays field hockey and wears tweed bras. Expert novelist of classic Greek culture.

a dear

TRUMAN CAPOTE Sept 30,1924, New Orleans. In his new roman d clef,claims the Shah to possess "about eleveh inches. thick as a wrist,"

GRETA GARBO~ Sept.18,1905, Stockholm. Her losing the film role of Dorian Gray led to her fleeing Hollywood. A younger queen called Hurd Hatfield made a less intriguing Dorian.

BOBBY SHORT~ Sept.15,1926, Danville, Ill He is either the bastard son of Cole Porter and Mabel Mercer. Lena Horne in butch drag...well, sort of.

Lesbianism, titled The Captive, opened On Sept. 29,1926, a drama concerning on Broadway. The play provoked a NY.state law banning immoral plays. It closed. The stars were Helen Menken & Basil Rathbone. c.19791. ShafER

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