Welcome to The Hot Hero Sandwich Project, the online home of a research project documenting the 1979-1980 Emmy Award-winning NBC Saturday morning children’s educational entertainment television series, Hot Hero Sandwich.
Use the tabs on the left to navigate this extensive archive of articles, interviews, and video, or jump right into some of our most popular posts on right. If you're new, start with the Introductionand learn about the series in A Second Serving! and the FAQ tabs on left. The latest updates are noted in the Updates tab on the left and the Project Posts list on the right.
You and Your World, Vol. 12, No. 18, February 18, 1980.
Publisher: Xerox
Education Publications and the Xerox Corporation.
No advertising.
Cost 40 cents.
One of the
better write-ups on Hot Hero Sandwich
I’ve read, it’s unfortunate that it was published in Feb. 1980, after the show
had been cancelled that January, though reruns would run through April 5.
I haven’t been
able to find out much about this publication. With no advertising, I initially
thought it might have been distributed to schools like ScholasticMagazine, but the
40 cent cover price seems to suggest otherwise. According to the Internet Archive, it was published 28 times
a year from 1969 to 1981.
Front cover and inside full-page photo.
Special thanks to Hot Hero Sandwich Music Coordinator Jimmy Biondolillo for saving this issue of You and Your World in pristine condition!
The complete transcript and scans of the entire article are provided below. Original spelling and punctuation retained. All images from You and Your World. The information provided in brackets [ ] are my own editorial notes.
Well, it’s
Saturday morning again. Since you have nothing better to do, you switch on the
TV. Suddenly it’s as if you’re in a zoo.
First, you watch
Mighty mouse slam dunk a squadron of ferocious cats. Then you are amazed as a full
moon turns a loveable creature into the wolflike Fangface. A half-hour later
the great Godzilla’s nephew Godzooky saves a crew of scientists, Bugs Bunny
wisecracks across the screen a few minutes before Wile E. Coyote gets sliced in
half by his Acme Road Runner Trap.
After a few
hours of wandering through this comic-strip jungle, you stumble upon an oasis.
It’s high noon and suddenly you’re face to face with a spot on the tube
reserved just for you. Now you can take a break from that steady diet of
cartoons — you can try a bite of NBC-TV’s “Hot Hero Sandwich.”
What’s on the
menu? Basically, this new series aims to deal with the problems all teenagers
face.
“The teenage
years are an extremely stressful time,” comments Carol [sic] Hart, who helped develop
the program. “Young people want to be on their own. Yet they need their parents’
support. It’s a period of pain and joy, We set out to make a program that would
show teenagers aren’t alone in their feelings. They should understand that
everyone goes through these changes.”
Most of the action
in the series occurs at the Hot Hero Cafe, a sort of disco luncheonette. That’s
the hangout for a group of teenagers who seem right out of your own
neighborhood. For example, Stanley Dipstyck is terribly shy. In fact, he’s so
shy he wears a sack over his head and never tells anyone his problems. A couple
other characters include Ted, a high school dropout who manages the café and
Tapedeck, whose recorder always blasts a cloud of sound around him.
The program has
a reasonable aim and the characters seem lively enough. But how does it all
work? Generally, each hour-long program contains three segments:
Short interviews
with today’s heroes such as Julius Irving, Bruce Jenner, Sally Struthers.
Cheryl Tiegs, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Comedy sketches
that focus on teenage problems such as being too short or unpopular, first
dates, parental divorces, etc.
Music by the Hot
Hero Band or guest groups like Sister Sledge, KISS, or Little River Band.
Let’s back up a
minute and talk about those interviews. Where else could you discover Hal
Linden (“Barney Miller”), who had been raised in the Jewish religion, failed to
pass along his strong beliefs to his children? When “Holocaust” was on TV, Linden’s
kids didn’t watch it. “There was no greater influence in my life than that
event,” he says, “Yet, somehow, I didn’t get it over to the next generation.
In one interview
Donna Pescow (“Angie”) told about her hunt for her father whom she hadn’t seen
in eight years. And Erik Estrada explained how he felt when he found his best
friend dead, a victim of drug overdose.
These interviews
aren’t the kind you’ll find in fan magazines. They’re not gossip. Dr. Tom
Cottle, who handles the interviews, doesn’t ask anyone about her favorite kind
of ice cream or his latest movie. These celebrities talk about more important things.
All the people interviewed on “Hot Hero Sandwich” focus on the changes they’ve
gone through and how they coped with their own special problems.
“We really
wanted people who were heroes to kids,” Carol [sic] Hart explains. “There’s
nothing more encouraging than to know that people whom you admire went through
the same kinds of things you are going through. You can get the message across
that there will come a time when you can smile at the problems you’re encountering
now.”
The interviews
make “Hot Hero Sandwich” exciting. And the comedy sketches present problems with
a lighter touch. For example, suppose a
celebrity tells about the nickname he had in high school. In a sketch a new kid
in town goes to a party. Everyone there has a nickname, but the new kid is too embarrassed
to reveal his. Finally he gives in. Instead of calling him Mark Johnson his
buddies in his old school called him Mark
Swivelhead Dinosaur Breath Pizza Face Donut Brain Wombat Jelly. With that name,
he’s accepted by the group.
[Note: For the record, Mark Johnson’s (JarettSmithwrick) nickname in episode 1 is actually, “Mark Swivelhead, Motormouth,
Dinosaur-Breath, Pizza Face, Donut Brain, Yellow-belly, Bugger-eyed, Silly
Putty, Sniveling, Bowlegged, Barfbag, Dipstick, Hangnail, Wombat, Johnson.”]
In another skit
two aliens Ym and Ur [Denny Dillon and Paul O’Keefe] are traveling to Earth. They wonder if there is
intelligent life on our planet — their only information comes from picking up
TV waves/ Sometimes they don’t understand what they’re seeing. For instance, when
they spot a beauty queen being crowned, they believe they’re watching an
example of Earth’s politics. And when they catch the President smiling for the cameras,
Ym and Ur think they’re seeing a beauty contest.
But not all
sketches are funny. Some of the episodes deal in a real way with problems that
don’t have easy answers. In one sketch Sam [Matt McCoy], a football player, has
just learned that his parents are divorcing. He’s very upset about it, His
friends at the Hot Hero Cafe help him work it out — but they don’t really wrap
up his problem in a neat solution as you might expect. They suggest that Sam
use that anger he feels on the football field. Maybe if he lets out some of his
inner feelings, the team might break its losing streak.
Finally, the
loom of music weaves all these segments together. In the first show Sister
Sledge sand “We Are Family” after telling how the profits they received from
their first hit record were used to buy braces for their teeth, And in a recent
program a minimovie followed KISS’s Gene Simmons as he touched up his vampire
makeup and then showed the rock group entertaining an enthusiastic audience.
Well, that’s “Hot
Hero Sandwich.” YYW thinks it’s a
pretty good show that doesn’t offer much baloney. Some top critics agree. A Christian Science Monitor writer says
the show “is filled with a mix of fun, fear, and wackiness.” And a Los Angeles TV
writer says the program is “a classic novel hidden inside a comic book.”
But not everyone
is satisfied with “Hot Hero Sandwich.” A writer for Chicago New Expressions comments that the skits
are too humorous, the scripts and acting sometimes too corny, and the show “another
stereotype of how adults see teen life.”
Not all the
scores are in for the program. But it seems the show’s creators have achieved their
main goal. “We want to show teenagers that they are not alone in their
feelings, “ Carol [sic] Hart remarks.
Maybe that’s a
lot to crew on. But it’s an idea that almost all the heroes interview on the program
support.
When Leonard
Nimoy (“Mr. Spock”) spoke on “Hot Hero Sandwich,” he recited something that he
written: I may not be the fastest. I may
not be the tallest or the strongest. But one thing I can do better than anyone
else, and that is to be me. Nimoy concluded. “Finally, that’s all you can
do, isn’t it? You can do a really good job of being yourself.”
“Wild Night” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, animation by Al Jarnow.
From the Hot Hero Sandwich Central YouTube channel.
@bsquared4604 Mar. 24, 2025
I've been looking for this. I typed
"hot hero sandwich wild night video" and here it it is. I remember
taping this on my cassette recorder and listening to it over and over. Decades
later I found that it was Martha Reeves and found the 45 RPM on ebay. Thank you
for posting this great childhood memory.
The above comment is not unlike many
we get here at the Hot Hero Sandwich Project, and one which never fails to
astonish me. Despite being absent from the airwaves for forty-five years,
something about the show stuck with its young audience. A song, a sketch, a
short film, or in this case the animation, struck a chord with its young
viewers which resonated for decades afterwards.
The animation on Hot Hero Sandwich is one of the most distinctive elements of the
series. The Harts didn’t want to dumb down the material for the tweens and
teens watching. Instead of listening to network fears that the material would
be above their heads, Bruce Hart said, “Well, we’ll just have the kids stand up
and then it won't be over their heads” (as reported by Dr. Tom Cottle in his interview with the Project).
While I recalled bits of the
animation, unlike the music and a couple sketches, absolutely none of it was
available in the years following the show. So, when I finally got my hands on
the series and viewed the animation for the first time on over four decades, I
was completely blown away. I felt like I had discovered some long lost
masterpieces that had been buried away in someone’s attic — which is very close
to the truth — and yes, they are masterpieces.
Al
Jarnow is the artist behind “Wild Night” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. This is the only segment of Hot Hero Sandwich to have aired in two
different episodes (episodes 6 and 9). The look of the animation combined with
the song anticipates the music videos of the 1980s.
Al Jarnow.
Jarnow
was educated at Dartmouth, taking courses in pre-med, architecture, and the
fine arts. He later attended the Brooklyn Museum Art School under a Beckman
Fellowship. In addition to his work as an artist, Jarnow has served as an
adjunct instructor of Film History and Motion Graphics at the Pratt Institute,
where Hot Hero’s logo designer David Kaestle graduated from. His work has also appeared on Sesame Street, where he contributed more
than 100 short films, and 3-2-1 Contact
(where Hot Hero’sNan-Lynn Nelson was a member of the Bloodhound Gang). His films
have been collected at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), the Met, and the Centre
Pompidou.
While I do have a number of original
production documents, they are incomplete which led to some misconceptions
about the production of the animation. Jarnow clears these up and goes a bit
further, sharing with us how the animation as created, a bit of background
about the group of animators, and a bit about the Harts themselves, including a
rather surprising revelation about a very forward-looking project they invited
Jarnow to join them on.
The
story behind the animation has always been something of mystery to the Project,
and Al Jarnow helps set the record straight.
Hot Hero Sandwich Project [HHSP]: First of all, at the time you did the video, “Wild Night” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas,” were you working as a freelancer
or were you actually employed by Jerry Lieberman?
Al Jarnow: I was working as a freelancer.
HHSP: There
were a number of videos animation done for the show and there wasn't a lot of
time to do it. How did you get assigned to “Wild Night?” Did you choose it? Where
you assigned?
Al Jarnow: I'm
pretty sure it was Carole Hart and Terry Kemper, the animation producer. He was the animation producer, and it came
through as a call from him saying, “Are you interested? We've got this one and
that one available,” and I chose “Wild Night.”
HHSP:It looks like some rotoscoping was done for
the video, is that that correct?
Al Jarnow: Oh,
absolutely correct. It was a weird kind of kind of rotoscoping. Xerox had
released a machine for document scanning and document printing, which took 16mm
film as input that could print out rolls and rolls of both film and scrolled
paper print out with registration coming from the from the sprocket holes [on
the 16mm film]. So we printed out — this is black and white, obviously — a
couple of rolls of film and slice them and color them in with colored pencils and
whatever else was available.
Al Jarnow at work in 1975 (credit: Numero Group).
HHSP: How long did that take you to do?
Al Jarnow: A couple
weeks probably.
HHSP:Do you remember approximately how many cells
may have been used for the final cut of the piece?
Al Jarnow: Probably
about five or six hundred.
HHSP:It looks like there were actors and dancers
involved who served as the models for rotoscoping. How did they get involved?
Did they come from an agency or general auditions. Do you remember that that
aspect?
Rotoscoped dancers in
“Wild Night.”
Al Jarnow: Yeah,
sure. When I subbed some of the animation production to a guy named Eric Durst
and his wife, Marcia [or Marsha] White, was a choreographer and a ballet
company leader and a dance company leader. Rather, and it was her troupe. I
don't remember their names, but we shot at the studio of a friend of mine and
they danced and we recorded.
HHSP:So, the actual production of this was this
done on your own, not at Jerry Lieberman Productions?
Al Jarnow: No.
Jerry Lieberman had nothing to do with it. I knew Jerry, but he was not
participating in this.
HHSP: Oh, really?
Al Jarnow: Jerry
did not participate in this part of it. It was totally Independent.
HHSP: Well, that really reframes this topic for me and clarifies a big
misconception on my part. I’ll have to update some of the information I’ve
posted. His studio's involvement then was limited to the two videos credited to
him, “Yakety Yak” by
the Coasters and “Stork Deliveries,” based on "Rollin' Rig" by Dave Dudley.
Al Jarnow: I
don't know if I ever met with Jerry on this project, but this was totally
independent of him. I vaguely remember Terry explained that they wanted to go
with some independents to get a crazier look, to get something different, and
they went with maybe three or four different animators . . . Mary Beams being one of them. Tony
Eastman, another [Note: Other animators
include Bruce Cayard and Eli Noyes].
HHSP: I love the work Mary did on the piece titled “Space” set to “Have You Seen the Stars
Tonite” by Paul Kantner. It’s a great joining
of imagery and song.
“Space,” by Mary Beams set to “Have You Seen the Stars Tonite,” by Paul
Kantner.
HHSP: OK, moving on, here’s something that caught my eye, but a bit too late
for me to acquire it. A cell from “Wild Night” was sold in 2021 with Historic Auctions,
so I'm curious if you might know how that particular cell became available?
Al Jarnow: Well,
it was a set of cells and yes, I gave it to heritage to try to auction. I still
have a box of.
HHSP: Really, there are so few relics left over from Hot Hero it’s
wonderful that you saved them after all these years.
Al Jarnow: Is
your interest in Hot Hero Sandwich or an animation?
HHSP: Both, actually. I started the project because I was a fan of the
show, but at the time Hot Hero came out,
I just got turned on to non-network animation, through a wonderful little series
on PBS in the 70s called the International Animation Festival show [Note: Which I write about on my other
website, Aeolus 13 Umbra. See link]. It was hosted by Jean Marsh of Upstairs Downstairs and it had animation
from all over the world — behind the Iron Curtain, Eastern Europe, Central
Europe — and in a variety of animation styles. It just kind of blew my mind that there was
something else out there besides Hanna Barbara and Warner Brothers and
Filmation animating because whatever aired on Saturday mornings was
pretty much all we saw.
There were also other things in the cinema at the time like Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi [1978]
and, of course, Heavy Metal [1981],
which, as you know, every teenage boy at the time just had to see.
Al Jarnow: [laughter]
Lord of the Rings (1978) Heavy Metal (1981)
HHSP: Having spoken with so many people associated with the show, the
animation keeps coming up as something special that gave the series a unique
look. Can you tell me anything about the other animators?
Al Jarnow: I
was part of a group that came to be known, or called ourselves, “The New York
Animators,” and we'd meet pretty regularly . . . show work in progress and get
feedback, comments, and suggestions about things that were happening. So, the
four people that were involved in that part of the project that I was were all
part of that group, Mary [Beams], myself, Tony Eastman . . . let’s see . . .
HHSP: There was also Bruce Cayard and Eli Noyes who also did animation
for the show.Were you all hired because
you knew each other?
Al Jarnow:It might have come from recommendations from
one member or the other, but it wasn't because we knew each other that we were
all hired. We were in New York doing that different kind of animation than most
other people were.
I subbed part of the production to Eric Durst who would go on to become a special effects animator in
Hollywood, and he subbed out to Howard Danelowitz, another New York animator at the
time . . . and a couple of other people, but that was primarily it.
Sesame Street Animated Short Film by Al Jarnow: “Yak,
You Yes (Y) aka Yakety Yak.”
HHSP:Interestingly, on the
morning of the day I first contacted you, someone posted in the comments of the
“Wild Night” video [see comment at top of
article] about how he remembered it all these years. That magic moment of
recognition when you find something you remember from your youth.
Al Jarnow: How
old are you?
HHSP:I’m 60, so I was about 14
and 15 in 1979 - 1980 when the series aired. The fan who commented that he had
been looking for that clip for years then one day he types in “Hot Hero
Sandwich Wild Night” and that video pops up — I get a lot of these types of
memories from people who remember a sketch, a song, a film clip they saw so
many years ago, and when they finally find it, it creates this wonderful little
moment for them. In some ways, it’s like reuniting with an old friend you
thought you’d never see again.
The animation and the music really stood out from among the rest of the
Saturday offering on TV. Having Felix Pappalardi from Mountain on board gave
the show a very distinctive sound.
Sesame Street Animated Short Film by Al Jarnow: “Pegboard.”
Al Jarnow: I remember him ‘[Felix] as being a really nice guy.
When I presented the rough cut of the film, he was in the room and it had some
very nice things to say.He had nothing
to do with Martha Reeves . . . that was not his music. It actually Van Morrison
[who wrote the song]. I don't know what kind of releases they ever had with
him, with Van Morrison, but I know that somebody posted it on YouTube or
somewhere, and his estate, or someone had it taken down. They didn't want it
on.
HHSP: Well, we’ve been fortunate here at the Project. Every music clip posted
has been allowed to air. The only exceptions are for film clips for “I’m Only Sleeping” and “When I’m 64,” which I had to replace with
instrumental versions. The Harts got only a very limited license for their use
— one airing and a repeat I believe. They could have selected songs with a more
affordable licensing, but quality comes with a cost. I wish I could share the
original clips.
Al Jarnow: About six months or a year after the project, after
Hot Hero, Bruce gave me a call, or maybe it was Carole, and asked if I was
interested in doing something else and they were pitching a show to NBC, I
believe, or to whoever would take a look at it, called, The Story of X, about a couple of parents who raised their child
without letting the kid know whether it was boy or girl, male, female, or
whatever. To see how it would change their lives.
HHSP: Really?
Al Jarnow:They pitched it and they
called me in and I went into the city, in Manhattan, and I went up there and I
put on a jacket and tie, thinking this was pretty, pretty cool. And I walked in,
the elevator opening right into their apartment, and they said, “What are you all
dressed up for? Do you think there's a lawyers meeting?
[laughter]
So, I felt a
little embarrassed.It was a beautiful
apartment, totally white. And they said, “Well, I think you should get an
entertainment lawyer,” which I did and then nothing ever came of that. It
didn't obviously didn't come to pass.
HHSP: Unfortunate, but, really, an idea ahead of its time!
Al Jarnow:Well . . .it was of the time, but it wasn’t a
widely-held public view.
HHSP: It must have
blown the network’s minds forty-five years ago.
Al Jarnow:I'm sure it
did . . . I'm sure.
HHSP: That's a great insight into who the Harts were.
Al Jarnow:Roughly at the same
time, shortly after Hot Hero ended, I
got a second check in the mail for the same amount. They paid me twice.
HHSP: Because it aired on two episodes?
Al Jarnow:No, I don't
think that. I wasn't getting paid by the
episode I was getting paid by the production.
HHSP: Ah, I see.
Al Jarnow:I called
them and said, “You made a mistake,” and they said, “Oh, you should you should
have just kept it,” which I didn't.
HHSP: Honesty is always the best policy. Still, it's a great insight into the Harts. They were certainly loyal to those they worked with.
Well, Al, we’ve covered a lot today, not only on the background of “Wild
Night,” but also about the Harts. You’ve really helped us complete more of the Hot
Hero Sandwich picture. Thank you!
Al Jarnow cleared up some
misconceptions about the animation produced for Hot Hero Sandwich, the techniques he used, and a peek into the New
York animation scene. He also provided us with a closer look at Bruce and
Carole Hart. Their attempt to produce The
Story of X, about parents who decide to raise their child without revealing
the gender to the child, shows how forward-thinking they were. While gender
issues have come to dominate the headlines today, forty-five years ago the
Harts recognized that there were children who didn’t neatly fit into the boxes
society created for them and they needed a voice too.
Saturday mornings were very much like
church for kids. We would plant ourselves in front of the TV for hours, if we
could get away with it, and consumed a steady diet of cartoon shows from the
likes of Warner Brothers, Hanna Barbara, Filmation, and others. While all those
studios produced some classics in their time, by the late 1970s the classic era
of Saturday morning cartoons was long in the past.
Yet, there were other animation
styles out there and shows like Sesame
Street, The Electric Company, and
Schoolhouse Rock, integrated various
styles that were definitely outside the network box. Indeed, Al Jarnow and two
other Hot Hero Sandwich animators,
Bruce Cayard and Eli Noyes, also produced animated shorts for Sesame Street. The Harts, having worked
on Sesame Street, were well
acquainted with the New York animation scene and their style, so they knew
exactly what they wanted and who they needed to hire to get it. It also
provided a visual point of continuity in that the tweens and tweens watching Hot Hero Sandwich also grew up watching Sesame Street.
The comment left by bsquared4604 for the “Wild
Night” short has been echoed by others on Hot
Hero Sandwich Central, the project's YouTube
channel. Although the series was broadcast only once, something
about the animation on Hot Hero Sandwich stuck
with us. It was different. The styles varied with each artist,
infusing their own sensibilities and perspectives the project. It left us
thinking, and we continued to think about it for forty-five years.
In one sense, perhaps the networks had a point.
Maybe some of it was a little over our heads in that it was not what we
expected to see on a Saturday morning, but Bruce Hart was also right. We kids
stood up to take a better look at it.
Felix Pappalardi had great interest
in the animation for the show beyond Al Jarnow’s recollection. Mike Ratti, the
drummer in Hot Hero Band, noted also how Felix also liked the animation in the “Stork Deliveries” piece set to “Rollin’ Rig” by Dave Dudley.
I remember Felix commenting on animation in the show and how great it was
at what they were doing. I would have never remembered that little bit of conversation about
animation and cars that Felix talked about but because of your posting it all
came back. I even remember where he told me about it. We were at a HHS music
rehearsal for the show, in a practice studio called “Starz Sound” on Lafayette
St., NYC.
It figures that the two pieces of animation Hot Hero’s resident Rock God is known to have commented on are
the ones set to “Wild Nights” by Martha and the Vandellas, and “Rollin’ Rig” by
Dave Dudley.
My latest acquisition
for the Hot Hero Sandwich Archives is the six-page A Viewer’s Guide to Hot Hero
Sandwich. It was written by Cultural Information Services (CIStems, Inc.),
which lists itself as “a nonprofit resourcing agency and publisher of a
biweekly review of the arts/media designed for community leaders.” Further,
CIStems granted permission for “newspapers, libraries, educational, and
religious institutions and community groups” to reprint the publication in
whole or part.
The guide
provides a profile of all the show elements we’re familiar with, music,
sketches, recurring characters, and interviews. It is suggested that readers magnify the images of download them (right click then "Save Image As") for better viewing.
