SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The Academy Awards are Sunday night. I'd like to thank my director, my agent, my - oh, wait. You know who we need? Bruce Vilanch. He's co-authored 25 Oscar shows and Tony Grammy and Emmy ceremonies, as well as written for Cher, Barbra Streisand, Lily Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams. I could go on. But Bruce Vilanch also had a hand in this.
(SOUNDBITE OF 61ST ACADEMY AWARDS)
MERV GRIFFIN: Isn't it exciting, Snow? Isn't it thrilling? It gets better. Meet your blind date, Rob Lowe.
SIMON: The 1989 Oscars and Snow White's duet with Rob Lowe - a legend of the worst kind. Bruce Vilanch has written a spirited memoir that makes more fun of himself than anyone else. "It Seemed Like A Bad Idea At The Time: The Worst TV Shows In History And Other Things I Wrote." Bruce Vilanch joins us from Hollywood. Thanks so much for being with us.
BRUCE VILANCH: I'm delighted. (Laughter) I had no idea that that Rob Lowe clip actually existed. I thought the Academy stomped all of them out.
SIMON: You are known as kind of the poet laureate of award shows. What's the challenge in the art to that?
VILANCH: Well, you have to write for everybody. I mean, it's not like being a playwright where you come up with the characters. People present themselves to you with what persona they have. The hard part is when actors who are movie stars are accustomed to just stepping into a role. They don't really have a persona. They don't do their one-night stand at Carnegie Hall. So you have to come up with a way for them to speak to the occasion. But you have to exercise some due diligence and figure out who they are so that when they come out on stage, they seem to be natural (laughter) - harder than you think.
SIMON: Yeah. Do you have to prepare ad-libs in advance, if I might put it that way?
VILANCH: Well, we do. But, you know, we rarely get to use them because on an award show, which is, you know, coming to you live, things happen, and the host has to come out and react to them so you know it's live, live. You can kind of plan for something. But just when you think you've got the perfect jokes, something happens and the show takes a left turn and you can't use it. So it's more about just kind of being on your feet the whole time.
SIMON: I can't delay much longer - 1978 "Star Wars Holiday Special."
VILANCH: I know. It's irresistible.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL")
HARRISON FORD: (As Han Solo) That's it. I'm turning back.
PETER MAYHEW: (As Chewbacca, vocalizing).
FORD: (As Han Solo) I know your family's waiting.
MAYHEW: (As Chewbacca, vocalizing).
FORD: (As Han Solo) I know it's an important day.
MAYHEW: (As Chewbacca, vocalizing).
SIMON: That's Harrison Ford as Han Solo trying to rush the starship.
VILANCH: Yeah. Well, that was our problem. The wookiees were the stars, and you heard what the wookiee had to say. We were writing for characters that spoke no known language, couldn't sing, couldn't dance, couldn't move in their costumes.
SIMON: Wow, that is a challenge. So what...
VILANCH: I know it. And I think if George Lucas knew that a CBS variety special would involve a lot of singing and dancing, he would not have sold them a story that featured the wookiees.
SIMON: Well, in its own way, it's quite famous, isn't it?
VILANCH: Oh, my God, yeah. Whenever they put the list of the worst shows ever on television, it's right up there with the "Brady Bunch Variety Hour," another one of my stepchildren.
SIMON: What went wrong there?
VILANCH: Well, the idea was that they were a singing, dancing family that had a television series, where they sang and danced every week. Clearly, it was conceived for "The Partridge Family," which was another show that was about a singing, dancing family. So it was a ridiculous idea. It was about this famous family in Hollywood with their famous guest stars. And at the same time, they were the Bradys. So you had to have a Brady kind of storyline. And, you know what those storylines were like - oh, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, you threw a tennis ball and broke my nose. You know, hard to do that kind of a story in the middle of a Vegas spectacle.
SIMON: Yeah. All right, back to 1989 - Snow White, Rob Lowe, the opening number - lot of big names involved...
VILANCH: Oh, yeah.
SIMON: ...At the time - Merv Griffin, Vincent Price, his wife, Coral Browne, Dorothy Lamour, Allan Carr, the producer.
VILANCH: That is the one.
SIMON: What were they thinking?
VILANCH: Well, he had seen a show in San Francisco called "Beach Blanket Babylon," which was a big deal up there, 'cause he thought it was young and hip. The show they were doing currently featured Snow White, who had found herself in San Francisco. And it was all about all the things that she found in San Francisco that were the kind of things that Snow White would not be ready for. And in his version, Snow White had left Hollywood and now was coming home.
Cocoanut Grove nightclub, which features in a lot of movies, and was real - he had a set built that looked like the Cocoanut Grove. And Merv Griffin, who as a lad, sang at the Cocoanut Grove, sang as an older person "I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts." So it was as gay as could be right off the start. And he peopled it with legends of the golden age. What he didn't take into account was that they were a little bit more than golden at this point...
SIMON: (Laughter).
VILANCH: ...And nobody really wanted to see them in their current state. It kind of looked like a waxworks. And so to liven it up, he said Snow White should do a number with a young, hot guy. And nobody wanted to do that. But Rob Lowe, much to his credit (laughter)...
SIMON: Yeah.
VILANCH: ...He has the imp of the perverse, like I do - he signed on. The show got lambasted for that number, but it had died down by the time - two weeks afterwards when his sex tape surfaced. And it was big news.
SIMON: Yeah.
VILANCH: And every...
SIMON: We should explain Rob Lowe and some other...
VILANCH: There was a Rob Lowe sex tape.
SIMON: ...At the Democratic convention.
VILANCH: He had gone to the - you should pardon the expression - Dukakis convention, and there was a tape of it. And it circulated. Everybody in Hollywood saw it. And every announcer said, Rob Lowe, most recently seen dancing with Snow White on the Academy Awards - over which the Disney Company sued. It put that show in the doghouse for the rest of time. It was known as the scandalous 1989 Academy Awards.
SIMON: It provoked no less than Dame Julie Andrews to sign a letter...
VILANCH: (Laughter).
SIMON: ...Referring to it as an embarrassment to both the Academy and the entire motion picture industry.
VILANCH: Yeah, I know. I know but I've spoken to Julie about that over the years, and she says she never signed the letter, that somebody put her name on it.
SIMON: Yeah. Listen, I'm struck by a line that really got me in your book. You say nothing ever happens if you don't say yes, even if it's a bad idea.
VILANCH: It's true (laughter). I don't think this is a great idea, but how much are we paying me? Oh, OK. Let me see if I can make something out of it. It's also, people will pitch you an idea, and you say well, that might work, and it winds up, you know, being fabulous. So if you reject out of hand, you'll never know.
SIMON: You watch the Oscars even when you don't have a hand in them?
VILANCH: Oh, I do, absolutely. Yeah. I wind up getting calls from people who don't like what's been written. Sometimes that's because the last decade or so, there have been a great many talk show hosts who've been hosting it, and they're not necessarily geared up to write for Keanu Reeves. People like that, who I know, call me and say could you fluff this up a little bit?
SIMON: You're still in the game, then?
VILANCH: I'm still in the game. Yeah, exactly. I'm offsides, but I'm in the game.
SIMON: Bruce Vilanch, his memoir "It Seemed Like A Bad Idea At The Time: The Worst TV Shows In History And Other Things I Wrote." Next time we speak, may it be on a happier occasion.
VILANCH: (Laughter) Thank you so much. Yes. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
