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.
Stephen
Lawrence in front of his three Emmys, from his blog.
Stephen
Lawrence, along with Bruce Hart, wrote the music and lyrics, respectively, for
the Hot Hero Sandwich theme song.
That song lived rent-free in my head for decades, quite an accomplishment
considering there were no recordings released of the music or of the series
itself. The catchy ear-worm with a Hard Rock beat immediately set the tempo and
tone of the series, as well as its mission statement — just surviving
adolescence makes you a hero and you’re not the only one going through it.
The Hot Hero Band performs the show’s theme
song.
Stephen Lawrence
collaborated with Bruce Hart on Marlo Thomas’ landmark children’s record album Free To Be
. . . You and Me (1972), later produced as a TV special in 1974,
before moving on to Hot Hero Sandwich.
Beginning in the early 1980s, Lawrence began writing for Sesame Street, contributing over 300 songs and winning three
Emmys for his efforts. Hart himself had prior experience with Sesame Street, co-writing the lyrics to
the show’s classic theme song, “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street.”
Lawrence and Hart also worked together on the Hart’s 1979 TV movie, Sooner or Later, composing on the title song which became a hit for its star Rex
Smith.
Rex
Smith performs “Sooner or Later” backed up by the Hot Hero Band on Hot Hero Sandwich.
Yet, it is the Hot Hero Sandwich theme song that marks
his importance here. Hot Hero Band bassist Robert Brissette in his interview
with the Hot Hero Sandwich Project
discusses how they got the demo tape with Stephen Lawrence pounding out the
show’s theme song.
The HHS theme song was given to us on a
cassette. It was nothing more than a middle-age guy (not Bruce Hart) at a piano
singing the melody and lyrics with a discernible New York accent, at least to
my ears. Very bare bones recording by any standard measure, but we knew what to
do with it. We went to the rehearsal studio to begin fleshing it out. Mike [Ratti]
started the drum figure — ideal for a television theme — then I added the bass
line; Mark [Cunnigham] and Richie [Annunziato] came in with the guitar parts.
We added the vocal harmonies and Felix [Pappalardi] brought it all to life when
we recorded it.
Stephen
Lawrence, 1975
As noted in his New York Times obituary, Jan. 8, 2022,
Lawrence, in an essay on his now-defunct blog, wrote, “One of the most effective devices, and for children one of
the most important, is repetition. Did you write a first line you like? Why not
repeat it?” We can see this this principle utilized to great effect in the Hot Hero Sandwich theme. In many other
articles, I have noted how the song stuck in my head for decades — a remarkable
achievement given that there were no recordings released in any format, including
LP, cassette, 8-Track, VHS, CD, or DVD. This is a common sentiment among the
show’s fans and, frankly, the memory of that theme song helped nurture the
memory of the series for decades even with the absence of any media to support it.
While
better known for music aimed at children, Lawrence and Hart also co-wrote the
theme song for the 1973 film Bang the Drum Slowly starring Robert De Niro.
Other songs they collaborated on include “One Way Ticket” (recorded by Mama
Cass and Helen Reddy) and “Who Are You Now” (recorded by Olivia Newton-John),
in addition to the aforementioned song, “Sooner or Later,” for the TV movie of
the same name.
Stephen
Lawrence died on Dec. 30, 2021 at 82, just 16 days after series writer David Axlerod passed away on Dec. 13, 2021. The Hot Hero Sandwich Project began
just a year later. Their passing leaves a gap in our knowledge of the series
that cannot be replaced.
Eddie Palmieri, along with his brother Charlie,
performed an absolutely HOT Latin jazz set during episode 8 of Hot Hero Sandwich. Growing up, I mostly listened
to Rock, so this set blew me away with the brothers’ energy and their virtuoso
performances. It helped start me on the road to a wider appreciation of music —
especially Jazz.
Interestingly, Hot Hero band drummer Mike
Ratti reports laying down some tracks with the Palmieri brothers, produced by
Felix Pappalardi, just prior to their Hot
Hero performance. Unfortunately, those tracks never made it on air and what
became of them remains unknown. Another example of some of the lost treasures
we’ll never get to experience. Below is their performance, along with Hot Hero Music Director Felix Pappalardi, on Hot Hero Sandwich for you to judge for yourselves!
The Palmieri brothers, Charlie and Eddie, on Hot Hero Sandwich, episode 8.
Chordify is a music
platform that runs software which can automatically identify a song’s chords and synchronize them
with the music, and video if available, so musicians can learn their favorite
songs. Chord progressions with finger positions are available for guitar, mandolin, piano, and ukulele. The Hot Hero Sandwich theme song has received that treatment at the
following link:
Chord progression for the Hot Hero Sandwich theme
song.
Even if you’re
not a musician, you’ll find this an informative and entertaining program and
gain a better appreciation for the writers Bruce Hart and Stephen Lawrence
and, of course, the Hot Hero Band!
David Axlerod (1938-2021), writer for Hot Hero Sandwich,
had a long resume before being hired by Bruce and Carole Hart.It kicks off with Captain Kangaroo in 1968,
moves forward with assignments for such classic comedians as Alan King, Dick
Cavett, Robert Klein, The Dean Martin
Show and Celebrity Roasts, two
Mary Tyler Moore variety show TV projects, George
Burns Comedy Week, and the influential 1973 National Lampoon mockumentary
stage show Lemmings, which helped
launch the careers of several future Saturday
Night Live actors,among many
others.
Axlerod was also a talented lyricist and collaborated with frequent songwriting partner Sam Pottle to write dozens
of songs for Sesame Street, Sesame Street Live, and various other albums
(see his extensivediscography at Discogs). Needless
to say, whether adult or children’s comedy and music, David Axelrod had the chops.
According to
fellow series writer Sherry Coben in an interview with the Hot Hero Sandwich Project, David Axlerod and Bruce Hart first met
in college and also worked on Sesame
Street, so there must have been some excellent synergy between the two on
the projects they worked on. Tragically, Axlerod passed away Dec. 13, 2021 after he
fell ill while on vacation in Aruba where he contracted
flesh-eating bacteria and passed away, according to Coben.
Axlerod's loss also takes with him some of the unwritten lore of Hot Hero Sandwich and more insight into Bruce and Carole Hart's vision as well. Having passed just about a year and a half before the Hot Hero Sandwich Project started, one can only wonder what secrets about the show he knew that we'll never know.
David Axlerod’s
passing was unexpected and tragic, yet the measure of our lives is
in the legacy we leave. From writing for Captain Kangaroo and Sesame Street to Lemmings and Hot Hero Sandwich to a parade of the 20th
century’s most noted comedians, Axlerod’s work virtually defined the laugh track for America and helped a generation of kids, and adults, grow up with a little laughter and song.
As part of a Hot Hero Sandwich-related project I'm working on, I did a test with two photographs using the generative AI tool with the video editing suite Filmora.
I'm still learning to use it, and not sure if I will include it with the video project I'm working on. This particular effect works best with just a couple people as in large group photos we can see people disappear and/or appear into or out of nowhere. Also, it's a little unsettling, particularly with the group photo and people who are no longer with us.
To play, click the play button on the the window to open the file and and then again to play it.
35-mm promotional slide.
Group photo of cast, crew, and production personnel taken during the filming of episode 10.
Hot Hero Sandwich cast, crew, and production
staff, 1979.
When the Hot Hero Sandwich Project began, one of
the first pictures series writer Sherry Coben sent me was the group photo (see Hot Hero Sandwich — A Second Serving!
Part II: Production Notes and Broadcast History). The presence of rocker
Rex Smith indicates is was taken during the filming of Episode10. The photographer was likely Al Levine, NBC Staff Photographer, who is
seen in the finale of the Episode 11. The photo includes cast, production staff, Hot Hero Band members, stage
crew, and writers. There are 63 people in the photo, but except for Bruce and Carole
Hart, and about a half dozen others, most of the individuals in the photo were unknown. Working with former staff members of the show, most of the people in the photo have now been identified in a copy of the photo provided below.
Al Levine, NBC Staff Photographer, screen shot from the finale of Hot Hero Sandwich, Episode 11.
As a historian,
this unknown factor bothered me. My brief time in broadcasting as a technician when
as a young man, as short as it was, gave me insight into the production process.
What we see on air is the result of a collaborative process. Hot Hero Sandwich only had four weeks to produce all the studio
segments for the eleven shows produced. Usually, about six production days
might be devoted to an hour-long show. To fit so much work into such a short
period of time is an effort requiring top professionals who were as experienced
individually as they were working with each other. Indeed, many of the stage
crew had before and after Hot Hero
Sandwich worked together for NBC on various programs. Bruce and Carole Hart
gathering everyone together for a group photo recognizes that effort. Here, we
give names to the faces.
In researching
the crew’s work before and after the Hot
Hero Sandwich, I found that for some of them, their experience goes back to
the early days of TV, such as Audio Engineer Scott Schactler, at number 24, who worked on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show in the late
1950s. Others, went on to prestigious careers of their own, such as Production Assistant
Liz Plonka,
at number 18, became a noted director of comedy programs such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and
projects with Norm McDonald, David Spade, and Bill Nye, among many others. At
number 20 we have Associate Producer Kimber Rickabaugh (credited on the show as Kimber Rickabaugh Criswell), who went on to become a noted producer
of comedy specials and TV shows starring George Carlin, Dave
Chappelle, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Griffin, Dennis Miller, and Robert Townsend (who
auditioned for a spot on the main cast that went to Jarett Smithwrick), among
so many more.
Additionally, Graphic Artist David Kaestle, one of the influential early staffers
for National Lampoon, turns up at number 33.
Kaestle was hired as part of Pelligrini and Kaestle to design fonts, logos, and
related design elements for show. According to conversations with Production
Administrator Ken Aymong and Film Editor Patrick McMahon, Kaestle often stopped by to lend his personal touch to a
last-minute need. At number 37 we have Set Designer Leo (Akira) Yoshimura, the long-time Production Designer for Saturday Night Live (Yoshimura designed the black and neon main
stage set, among many other set pieces).
Yet, there was a surprise in the photo that went unnoticed until Audio Engineer Joel Spector and Hot Hero Band Drummer Mike Ratti pointed it out to me. Joel Spector identified Hot Hero Music Director Felix Papplardi (Creem producer and bassist for Mountain), smiling and minus his trademark Fu Manchu mustache in the photo at number 15. Also, as noted by Ratti, at number 19 is his wife Gail Collins. Pappalardi's and Collin's ill-fated relationship, which resulted in the former's death and the latter's imprisonment, is a tragic chapter in Rock history, and here they are in the Hot Hero Sandwich group photo. It is a remarkable find.
The original
photo is included at the top of the article. A copy of the photo below with number
boxes corresponds to the list below. You will notice several numbers (25, 41, 45, and 51) are underlined. In a crowded area, this indicates that the individuals
they are identifying are directly below the number box. Where available, links
to the associated Internet Movie Database (IMDb) profile or to their associated
interview with the Hot Hero Sandwich
Project have been included.
If anyone knows
the names of the remaining unidentified crew members, please reach out me via
the Media Inquiries information (see link for more information).
Hot Hero Sandwich cast, crew, and production
staff, 1979.
Screenshot of original New York Times Article, Sep.
2, 1979. A more legible version (minus the cast picture) is provided below.
The New York Times article, “For Children, a
Few Nuggets Amid the Cartoons,” Sept. 2, 1979, is deep dive into the then-current
state of Saturday morning cartoons. Clocking in at a feature-length 2,073
words, the New York Times pulls in
experts to analyze the industry and the target audience. Among the shows
discussed for the Fall 1979 season is Hot
Hero Sandwich. The transcription of the article is provided below along
with images of the article.
Hot Hero Sandwich is only discussed in a
couple paragraphs in this long article, but one thing of note is that the New York Times, printed Sep. 2, 1979,
reports the series will debut on Oct. 20, 1979. The official
series press release, however, dated Oct. 22, 1979, reports the start
date was pushed forward to Nov. 10. This suggests that the start date was moved up after Sep. 2.
The Times article also reports the debut of Dr.
Lee Salk’s Feelings (echoing the then-popular, and much-parodied, song of the same name), a 13‐part PBS series where
Dr. Salk talks with children 7-14 about issues affecting
kids, like divorce, drugs, and sexuality. Dr. Salk (brother of Dr. Jonas Salk
who developed the polio vaccine) was a consultant for Bruce and Carole
Hart and conducted the interviews for the animated children’s dreams segments on Hot
Hero Sandwich. Also noted is the debut of 3-2-1 Contact, which also featured Hot Hero’s very own Nan-Lynn Nelson, in The Bloodhound Gang segments (which she discusses in her interview
with the Hot Hero Sandwich Project).
Also of note,
for the mighty New York Times, there
are certainly a number of spelling errors. I note ten spelling errors (identified
by [sic]), plus number of other errors in the spacing of cartoon character names which should have been easily verified by referring to network press releases
or, dare I say, the TV Guide. To be fair, I would be surprised if the computer terminals used in the Times newsroom in 1979 had any spell-checking.
Definitely more of an article for those with an interest in TV history, and Saturday morning cartoons in particular, “For
Children, a Few Nuggets Amid the Cartoons,” gives a comprehensive look at the
Saturday morning television landscape in 1979 and provides more context to Hot Hero Sandwich.
New York Times Article, “For Children, a Few Nuggets Amid the Cartoons,”
Sep. 2, 1979, page 25.
Amid all the
ballyhoo over the new prime‐time schedules, little attention has been paid to
the television fare being offered in one of the more controversial, not to
mention lucrative, time periods for the commercial networks: Saturday morning.
This is the time period that accounts for the highest concentration of
programming aimed at children under 12. Indeed, of the 32 million American
children from 2 to 11 who live with television sets, at some point during any
Saturday morning at least 25 million of them are tuned to the three commercial
networks. And, despite claims about the low advertising revenues derived from
Saturday morning programming (the networks refuse to disclose precise figures),
last year toy, cereal and candy manufacturers — the biggest buyers of
advertising minutes surrounding programs aimed at children — spent $94 million
at the networks for weekend daytime commercials. Yet, the content and style of
the programming offered on Saturday mornings by the commercial networks
continues to be the object of often stinging criticism from parents, educators,
child psychologists and government officials.
“Saturday
morning is the most depressing part of the whole broadcast scheme,” says Peggy
Charren, president of Action for Children's Television. “The 2‐to‐11 age span
is the most diverse period in human development, and that's why diversity is so
important. But what the networks are doing for children on Saturday morning is
an indication that we as a nation just don't care about our kids, that kids are
all alike. ABC does a nice short‐story special — at the end of the schedule
[“ABC Weekend Specials,” at noon]. CBS's ‘30 Minutes' is a nice show, but why
are they burying it at 1:30 in the afternoon? The networks don't do anything
except what worked last year or last week.”
A look at the
forthcoming season's entries from the three networks would seem to justify Mrs.
Charren's observations. Officially, the new Saturday morning schedules will go
into effect next weekend (due to a strike by film animators, some of the new
cartoons will not appear until later in the month) and, with the exception of
NBC's “Hot Hero Sandwich,” little other than animated cartoons will be offered.
The NBC show,
which will make its debut at noon on Saturday, Oct. 20, is a weekly, hour‐long
exploration of adolescence. Created and produced by Carole and Bruce Hart, “Hot
Hero Sandwich” (the title derives from the show's setting, the Hot Hero
Sandwich Cafe, a combination luncheonette and disco) focuses on the pleasures
as well as the frustrations of growing up. Each week, skits will dramatize such
adolescent stumbling blocks as first dates and coping with school; “heroes”
such as television actor Erik Estrada and the Rev. Jesse Jackson will discuss
their own adolescent experiences with clinical psychologist Dr. Thomas J.
Cottle.
For the most
part, however, the Saturday‐morning schedules of the commercial networks for
the forthcoming season evidence scant diversity and reflect little that could
be considered fresh, innovative or experimental. For instance, CBS will be
offering an animated hour of “The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle and
Jeckle” at 8 A.M.; ABC has scheduled a two hour animated‐cartoon package (9 to
11 A.M.) under the umbrella title of “Plasticman Comedy/ Adventure Show,” which
features, in addition to the elasticized superhero of the title, such
characters as Mightyman, Yukk, Fangface and Fangpuss. A half‐hour of this ABC
cartoon package will include something called “Rickety Rocket,” in which four
black teen‐agers run an amateur detective agency and ride a talking rocket
ship. Every Saturday morning through Oct. 13, NBC has scheduled a block of five
hours of animated cartoons, three‐and‐a‐half hours of which have been produced
by a single supplier, Hanna‐Barbera. [sic]
“Cartoons are
what we have found to work in terms of drawing an audience,” says Mary Alice
(Mickey) Dwyer, vice president of children's programs at NBC. “Experience has
shown us quite honestly that it is the exceptional live‐action show that works
on Saturday morning. And for all of the good that we try to do, if we cannot
draw an audience to our programs, then it doesn't matter. And that
Saturday‐morning arena is an exceptionally competitive arena.”
Faith Frenz
Heckman, CBS vice president of children's programs, maintains that a program
such as “30 Minutes” would not get an audience if shown earlier on Saturdays.
“It's not fair to put a show like that in competition with cartoons on other
networks,” she said. “It wouldn't be viewed.”
Squire D. Rushnell,
vice presfdent [sic] of children's programming at ABC, says. that “even if we
took our ‘Afterschool Specials' and put then on at 9 on Saturday morning — if
the kids have a choice between the ‘Afterschool Specials' and ‘Bugs Bunny,’
they're going to choose ‘Bugs Bunny.'”
There is,
nonetheless, concern among some child psychologists as to what really attracts
children to the cartoons they apparently watch so regularly on Saturday
mornings, and there is worry that this particular style of animation may be
detrimental to young minds. Dr. Aletha Huston‐Stein and her husband Dr. John C.
Wright, who work at the Center for Research on the Influence of Television on
Children at the University of Kansas, have found that the production techniques
utilized in these cartoons may have adverse effects on youngsters.
“The
Saturday‐morning programs, particularly cartoons, use a lot of what we call
‘hype,’ ” said Dr. Huston‐Stein in a recent telephone interview. “Just a
tremendous amount of sensory bombardment: rapid changes of scene, visual
special effects and, most important, loud music, beeps, sound effects.
“We showed kids
cartoons that had a lot of those hyped‐up features but no acts of physical
aggressison [sic]. We found that pre‐school children become overactive and
negatively aggressive even after seeing cartoons that are just hyped up and
full of noise.”
New York Times Article, “For Children, a Few Nuggets Amid the Cartoons,”
Sep. 2, 1979, page 32.
Dr. Robert
Abramovitz, associate professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Yale Child
Study Center, believes that the kind of cartoons constantly shown on Saturday
mornings inhibit a child's learning ability. “When I look at these programs,”
says Dr. Abramovitz, “what I see is an audio‐visual element that's designed
strictly to keep grabbing the attention of a child's perceptual apparatus, but
none of that is designed to help a kid process information.
“It is well
known that children up to 7 and 8 have short attention spans, but to then
design programs around that fact is a crucial error. If you present programming
that takes into account how slowly children process information.
NBC is trying
something new with “Hot Hero Sandwich” (right) featuring skits about teenage
problems. More typical children's fare is ABC's “Plasticman” cartoons. You can
get them to concentrate for long periods of time. But what we're talking about
with the Saturday‐morning line‐up is programming that's not age‐specific. The
broadcaster is simply trying to gather the largest possible market in front of
the set.”
Network
executives contend that diversity can be found among the Saturday‐morning
cartoons themselves. “If you l,” insists NBC's Mary Alice Dwyer, “there's not a
similarity in styles. And we have looked for diversity in types of concepts:
comedy, adventure, mytery.” [sic]
When Mr.
Rushnell of ABC was queried about the lack of diversity on Saturday mornings,
he replied that “the shows are different. They may not appear unique, even in
the descriptions of them, but ‘Mightyman and Yukk’ is a unique show.
‘Plasticman’ is unique.”
Of course, the
commercial networks' Saturday‐morning cartoon ghetto does have an alternative:
public television. Beginning in October, WNET / Channel 13 will be offering, as
is its practice, Saturday‐morning repeats of its daily children's fare: “Sesame
Street”(all new episodes will be forthcoming only after Nov. 26), “Mister
Rogers,” “Once Upon a Classic” and “Zoom !”
As far as the
programming schedules during the week go, the picture for young viewers this
fall looks a bit more varied and imaginative: CBS will be introducing three new
dramatic series designed for youngsters, and the Public Broadcasting Service
will be introducing two new series, one featuring discussions of personal
problems and the other focusing on science.
“The CBS
Library,” a new series of one‐hour dramatic productions designed for children
12 and younger, will .make its debut Sunday, Oct. 21, at 5 P.M., with “Once
Upon a Midnight Dreary.” Starring Vincent Price, this suspense tale has been
adapted from segments of children's stories and books: Washington Irving's “The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Richard Peck's “The Ghost Belongs to Me” and John
Bellair's “The House With a Clock in Its Walls.” Subsequent productions will
follow a similar format.
The “CBS
Afternoon Playhouse,” tentatively slated to make its debut in November, will
offer three hour‐long original dramas during the course of the year and one
mini‐series consisting of five half‐hours (no titles were available as of this
writing). The “pilot” for this series was the five‐part “Joey and Redhawk”
telecast last December.
The third new
weekday entry at CBS, a half‐hour series entitled “The Kids on the Block,” will
use life‐sized puppets to dramatize the difficulties encountered by handicapped
children. The first offering of this series is scheduled for late November.
The Public
Broadcasting Service will be offering “Feelings,” a new 13‐part series of
half‐hour programs with Dr. Lee Salk as host; it will have its local premiere
on WNET/ Channel 13 on Oct. 6. Created for children ages eight through 14, the
program will feature the noted child psychologist discussing with youngsters of
all ages their attitudes and concerns toward such topics as sex, parents and
why their offspring get into trouble.
Another new
weekday public‐television presentation for children, this one for youngsters
between eight and 12, will be a half‐hour introduction‐to‐science series
entitled “3‐2‐1‐Contact”; it will make its debut in mid‐January.
Youngsters
watching television on Saturday and Sunday mornings will continue to be exposed
to a liberal sprinkling of brief messages about health, education and news. CBS
is bringing back its “In the News” spots for their ninth year; these
two‐and‐a‐half‐minute “drop‐ins” will be interspersed between the regular
weekend fare. Every Saturday morning, three editions of “Ask NBC News,” one
minute news‐analysis spots wherein children ask questions about current events
and NBC reporters answer, will be interspersed with three segments of
“Time‐Out,” 75‐second messages offering advice about physical fitness.
On ABC, the
award‐winning “Schoolhouse Rock” series of three‐minute, animated,
informational messages set to a comtemporary [sic] musical beat will return three
times on Saturdays and once on Sundays. During the weekends, the same network
will be offering “Dear Alex & Annie,” a five‐minute “advice column of the
air” on personal problems. ABC's “Plasticman” series will be relieved by
30‐second consumer tips of particular interest to youngsters on such topics as
the importance of reading labels and the necessity for critically viewing
advertisements.
As to specials
and returning series, entries this year will include NBC's “Special Treat,”
hour‐long dramatizations of short stories (one Tuesday a month, at 4 P.M.,
starting in October). At 8 A.M. on Monday, Sept. 10, on CBS “Captain Kangaroo”
will start his 25th year on television. Also on CBS, “The Festival of Lively
Arts for Young People” will be returning for its seventh season; details of the
first presentation were unavailable at press time.
ABC's dramatic
series “Afterschool Specials” will begin its eighth season Sept. 26. These
hour‐long plays are broadcast twice‐monthly on Wednesdays at 4:30 P.M. And
beginning this fall, ABC's “Weekend Specials” for the first time will be
telecast throughout the year. The first of a dozen new offerings in this
half‐hour series is scheduled to be shown at noon Saturday, Sept. 15. “Kids Are
People Too,” the 90minute variety/ talk‐show, will be returning to ABC for its
second season next Sunday at 10 A.M.
Inasmuch as the
networks seem content with the status quo of their Saturday‐morning
programming, government pressure may be required to alter the content and style
of what is offered during that time period. Appropriately enough, the
Children's Television Task Force of the Federal Communications Commission for
the past year has been investigating the degree of compliance with the
suggestions made in the F.C.C.'s 1974 “Report and Policy Statement on
Children's Television Programs.” That report had pressed for more programs for
children on weekdays and called for increased diversity in the whole week's
spectrum of children's programming. The Task Force will present its new policy options
to the F.C.C. during the week of Sept. 17. Certainly, on the evidence of this
year's schedule, the diversity called for in that 1974 report has yet to be
seen on Saturday mornings.
Commercials run during Hot Hero Sandwich on WNBC, NY, Nov. 17, 1979.
In conversations
with various individuals who worked on Hot
Hero Sandwich, there has been some complaints about the commercials run
during the show and how aligned they were with the target demographic of tweens
and young teens. Finding a copy of the show taped off-air to see what
commercials were run were just as impossible to find as network copies of the
episodes — or so I thought.
In this video of
commercial clips assembled by Channel37.TV, an archive of video content created
from rescued home video tapes, we finally get a peek at the commercials run
during one of the Hot Hero Sandwich
episodes. This is remarkable because while VCR’s were available in 1979, they
were very expensive. I recall my local Sears was selling them for US$1,000 in
1980 (approx. US$4,123.33 in 2025), so finding a tape of an off-air copy of the
show is a remarkable find.
What we discover
being run at the Noon hour in the NYC market are largely cereal commercials advertising
toy premiums inside the box, plus a couple Public Service Announcements (PSAs).
This collection clocks in at four minutes thirty seconds. Since, at the time, hour-long
shows ran about 50 minutes there should be about ten minutes of commercials
here, so we can’t consider this a complete collection of commercial spots run during
episode 2 in NYC, but it does give us some insight.
Commercials run
during episode 2 of Hot Hero Sandwich on WNBC, New York include:
PSA: Volunteer
Bureau, Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies
Promotional Spot:
Guinness Game
DC Comics Mini
Comic Books (Post Peebles cereal box premium)
Hot Hero Sandwich had high production
values. It may have been a kids’ show, but NBC made available the same talent
behind the camera as it had on other shows filmed at 30 Rockefeller Center,
such as Saturday Night Live, with
which Hot Hero Sandwich is often
compared to, and indeed shared the same space at Studio 8H.Joel Spector, one of two audio
engineers for Hot Hero Sandwich, including
Scott Schachter (who has since passed away), exemplifies the kind of talent and
experience NBC nurtured at 30 Rockefeller Center.
By “nurture” I
don’t mean to infer they were being coddled. Rather, just the opposite. The
days, as Spector attests to, could run up to 22 hours long, multiple days a
week, for weeks on end. This would also entail working with demanding directors,
picky producers, and tight schedules, with millions of dollars on the line, so
only the absolute best in talent and temperament could be relied on in such an
environment and Joel Spector was one of those individuals.
Scott Schachter, left, and Joel Spector, right, circled
in red and inset, at the Hot Hero Sandwich cast and crew group photo during the
videotaping of Episode 10.
Spector’s career
with NBC began in 1965, so he was already a 14-year veteran by the time Hot Hero Sandwich came along, prior to
which he was one of the audio engineers for Saturday
Night Live, both of whom shared at Studio
8H. He served as chief audio engineer for The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for many years, as well as
working the board for David Letterman, the Tony Awards, and We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration
at the Lincoln Memorial. Award shows, soap operas, talk shows, variety
shows, pre-recorded, or live when virtually anything and everything can happen,
Joel Spector’s steady hand in the audio control room ensured the sound was the
best.
Spector was the
audio engineer for the first two episodes, Scott Schachter
takes over for Spector beginning in episode 3, and they both join forces for episodes
10 and 11, whose boisterous on-stage finale, with an audience and full cast appearance, must have been a
challenge for the audio guys. For Hot
Hero Sandwich, a music-heavy program whose enduring memory is linked in
great part to its music performances, his importance to the show cannot be
understated.
Episode 11 credits.
In speaking with
Spector, however, it became clear there was also another crew member involved
with Hot Hero Sandwich I had been
neglecting — Studio 8H itself. Dating back to the 1930s, Studio 8H is like a
magnificent ship-of-the-line, retrofitted numerous times throughout its life to
keep pace with technology, it has been witness to history, and Joel Spector was
there.
And now he’s
here speaking with the Hot Hero Sandwich
Project, so let’s sit down and talk sound!
Hot Hero Sandwich Project (HHSP): OK, to kick things off, one thing I have
heard repeatedly is how long the hours were during production. I imagine particularly
so for the crew who had to set up and tear down equipment.
Joel Spector: Oh, my God, the hours were
. . .
HHSP: “Insane,” I think is the word I heard
repeatedly. Was there a longest day that stands out all these years later?
Joel Spector: That was the last one, the absolute
longest was August 16, 6:00 AM to 4:30 AM. That was typical. I think
they didn't have a lot of time or maybe
they didn’t have a lot of availability for the cast or production.
HHSP: Yes, according to Ken Aymong [HHS
Production administrator], they had only about four weeks in total on Studio 8H.
Joel Spector: That's what it looks
like. July 12th was the first setup and the last day that I worked on it was
August 16th . . . Sister Sledge [episode 1], was recorded on the 17th of July.
We recorded three numbers, two of which were used — “We Are Family” and “He’s the
Greatest Dancer.” We also recorded “Lost the Music,” which we didn't use.
Sister Sledge performing “We Are Family” in
Episode 1 of Hot Hero Sandwich.
HHSP: I have to wonder where all that lost
footage ended up. They were all big hits!
Joel Spector: And somewhere along the line
there's the house band called Hot Hero.
HHSP: Yes! They’ve been very helpful to the project.
Joel Spector: Felix Pappalardi was in
charge of that . . . I see [referencing his notes] that it [the band] was on
camera in show one. I have notes about “record music” when it went on and an
audio recording at Mediasound which I attended in August. So, any other music
that I did was two-track far as I know. I know Scott Schachter did the other
shows, or most of the other shows, and I wasn't even around at that point — I
was on vacation — so, I don't know what he did.
[Note: Mediasound is the famous NYC
recording studio the Hot Hero Band laid down tracks at with Felix Papplardi and
Ed Stasium.]
The Hot Hero Band lays down the series’ theme
song in front of an audience during episode 2, for which Spector ran the sound.
HHSP: Well, we have the Scene-by-Scene rundowns for each episode, with links to each clip
for all those episodes, so we can track what went on for each episode you or
Scott did.
Joel Spector: I
just watch show one a little while ago— Bob Newman [Supervising Production Administrator] had a had a VHS video cassette
of it that he put on a disc for me, and it's not great, but I want to look at the
credits . . . it has his credits on, my credits are on, most of the credits are
on and then “clunk,” the recording stops because it's an air check.
HHSP: The credits cut out just before the
end on most of the copies I have — though I was lucky to even get the series.
It wasn’t until I got production documents from Hot Hero writer Marianne Meyer that I found a complete list of credits.
Commentary
Track
HHSP: Were you involved in recording sound
for segments beyond what was going on in Studio 8H?
Joel Spector: You know, this show has a
framework of interviews that are interspersed throughout . . .
HHSP: Yes. Dr. Tom Cottle was an early interview for the project.
Joel Spector: So, you know the whole story on that, and
that was on film, we [the studio crew] didn't do that. And it's very
interesting . . . I know one or two of the people that he interviewed and I
didn't know that she was being interviewed — Donna Pescow.
HHSP: Yes, Angie! [Pescow’s TV series].
Joel Spector: I think I've met her
once. She was very young. She's the daughter of someone who used to work with
my dad, who was a director.
HHSP: She talks about her dad. It was very revealing and as a child of
divorce, I could totally relate.
Joel Spector: There were a lot of
sketches. I would say the majority of what I did was on two booms.
HHSP: Really?
Joel Spector: There were what we callsketches, dramatic scenes . . . I see
that the music that we recorded was at one end of the studio, and the audience
was put around them. It wasn't anything to do with SNL [Saturday Night Live].It was at the end of the studio that
doesn't normally have a stage, close to the control room, and that would be the
South end. That was designed by Leo (Akira) Yoshimura from Saturday Night Live. The non-musical portions of the shows were on sets all around the studio: the living room, cafe, classroom and some other sets.
HHSP: I know the music performances were
lip synced. I’ve always wondered about the tape source for those performances.
I’m guessing you didn’t use a cassette tape? Maybe 1/4 inch reel-to reel?
Joel Spector: The Sister Sledge segments were handled by first recording the band tracks on an 8-track 1-inch audio recorder. I then remixed those music tracks to mono on one of the spare tracks. We then played back that band mix to the stage monitor speakers and the studio PA speakers and the ladies sang live to those band tracks. Their vocals were recorded on individual tracks on the 8-track tape, along with SMPTE Time Code and "house sync". These same performances were simultaneously recorded on video tape with the same Time Code and sync signals, with each camera being recorded on a separate video tape. This facilitated the final video editing process.
Sister Sledge performing “He’s the Greatest
Dancer” in Episode 1 of Hot Hero Sandwich.
HHSP: How long did it take to record all
that?
Joel Spector: The Sister Sledge performances were remixed by me in 8H during the following week in two long sessions. I can't speak to any of the other episodes.
HHSP: Right.
Joel Spector: In "We Are Family" we did three complete takes of the song, and during the last take the Hot Hero cast and many young audience members come up to the stage to dance and sing with the sisters.[Note: Nan-Lynn
Nelson mentions that in her interview
with project.] That singing and dancing finale was cut probably in half. Then the kids
from the audience come up onto this, and that that's that got cut, probably in
half, very nicely by whoever edited that [Note:
Likely Hot Hero videotape editors
Harvey Berger and/or Bill Breshears], very nicely At the very end, one of the
sisters that I hear on the track, “Wooo!” [laughter]. They went full out. This
was in the morning. The ladies were ready and the band, it was their band and
they were smokin' hot!
HHSP: They were! There are a lot of great bands that played on Hot Hero, but
the energy of Sister Sledge is pretty hot. It was the perfect act to kick off
the series.
Inside
Studio 8H
The original configuration of Studio 8H, early
1930s.
The configuration of Studio 8H in 1979. Credit: SNL Senior Audio Engineer Robert Palladino and SNL Music Engineer Josiah Gluck.
HHSP: I was reviewing the presentation you
participated in this past April for the Audio Engineering Society [AES, with
Robert Palladino, Senior Audio Engineer NABET at NBC Universal, and Josiah
Gluck, audio engineer on SNL], and I was fascinated by the history of Studio
8H going back to the 1930s when it was a radio broadcasting facility and radio
itself only about 40 years old at that point. The level of technology at the
point was already pretty complex. In the presentation you show an old photo of
a guy working on hundreds of cables at 30 Rock, and, as you note in the
presentation, there are no plug-and-play 50-pin connectors at the time, each
one of the wires has to be manually connected.
Einar Johnson, a technician wiring connections in master control at 30 Rock, circa 1930s (AES, April 2025).
Joel Spector: That was in master
control, not the studio [8H]. The
studios had racks of equipment and at the bottom of each rack was a small
number of those “Christmas trees” . . . to get all the wires to and from all
the equipment at the mic outlets and then down to master control and the
associated equipment — they all use these connection blocks, terminal blocks, that's a tiny piece of what is the main distribution
frame, which is telephone company-type equipment . . . and that connects with
hundreds of racks in the equipment room and that enormous desk that you saw the
picture of in radio master control, and every studio has something like that. The
bottom of each rack was small like that. You've got to open the bottom of the rack
and go in there and wire things, so that stuff is tough, boy.
Master Control at 30 Rock, circa 1930s. It remained in service until the early 1960s (AES, April 2025).
HHSP: Another topic covered in the AES
presentation was how the floor plans to Studio 8H have changed over the years
to accommodate first radio, then TV, and then SNL. The floor plans were very helpful in trying to visualize where
the stages and control rooms were located in relation to each other. I guess
maybe in the circa 1976 setup, there's the control room and then there's a
sound room in between the control room and a video room.
Joel Spector: That's the audio room.
HHSP: The audio room rather. So, would that have been where you or were you
stationed?
Joel Spector: Yes.
The South end of Studio 8H where the Control
Room, Audio Room (red arrow, above), and Video Booth were located
circa the time of Hot Hero Sandwich, and close to the music performance stage.
HHSP: Good. That helps put things in a
little bit more context. Here’s a little side story about the single
interaction I actually had with the control room at Studio 8H. I got a lot of
original production documents from one of the writers, Marianne Meyer, who was a great help to me at the start of the project, and in going
through them I found a call sheet and at the bottom is a phone number for
Studio 8H. Well, I figure after 45-50 years, that number had to be changed and
now it probably belongs to a pizza joint mid-town.
Joel Spector: I don’t think so . . .
HHSP: Oh, man, IT DID NOT! On the other end,
someone picks up and says, rather gruffly, “8H!” The number still went to the
control room! It was the middle of the day during a week SNL was on, so I panicked and hung up immediately! So, I am very
careful about what documents I post.
[laughter]
Joel Spector: The four digits [phone
number suffixes] don't tend to change.
HHSP: Well, my jaw dropped as soon as I
heard that!
Joel Spector: The thing from my end of
it [working at Studio 8H], we used the normal numbers . . . and it got to a point
where we finally got a real intercom. A real, big time intercom from McCurdy,
RTS McCurdy, and that ended up being alphanumeric. So, if you wanted to talk to
the 8H audio person you looked for 8H AU . . . certain people have their own four
character names, and so it just got to a point where people didn't remember the
numbers.
Joel Spector behind the SSL 6000 audio console in the 8H Audio Room (AES, April 2025).
HHSP: Another aspect of the crew I’d like
to touch base on is that I understand that many of the crew who worked on SNL also worked on Hot Hero. In your
case, I see that’s true, and Leo [Akira] Yoshimura, the production designer who
worked on Hot Hero and SNL, and still does. Were there many
others?
Joel Spector: Hot Hero was done at the end of season 4 of SNL.
People worked on other projects that may have been in the studio. Looking at
it, I see I have 22 days in the studio. I did other things from time to time,
but some of these days, as I said — 6:00 AM to midnight, 6:00 AM to 3:00 — I
said to the music coordinator one day. “Well, look at this, the glamor of show
business, champagne and pizza at 3:00 AM.”
[laughter]
HHSP: Well, you gotta love the industry to
pull those hours! There were several sets used in each show. Did a lot of scene
changes contribute to the long days?
Joel Spector: As you've seen, watching
the shows, there are a lot of vignettes, a lot of scenes . . . Well, let's say that's about 44 scenes
that have to be taped in 30 days and I don't know how they jumped around. I
don't know if they did all the stuff in the living room . . . I don’t think so.
They probably had some standing sets and you did what you needed. There's a lot
of material to manage and, yet, I see that I worked on some other shows [during
that time], but, no, to answer your question directly.
HHSP: Right.
Joel Spector: When SNL is in
8H it's very difficult to fit almost anything else into the studio. They do 20
live shows a year and the audience bleachers have become a permanent part of
the studio. There are miles of wiring and racks of equipment built into them,
along with the Announce Booth. During the first five seasons that all was
removed once or twice for election night coverage, but eventually it became
“Sorry, that's the studio layout now.” Before SNL came in there, collapsible audience bleachers had been
installed along the North wall. You could have a game show and a soap opera set
up at the same time and go from one to the other, from one day to the next.
Those bleachers were eventually removed from the studio and were never used for
SNL.
HHSP: During the AES presentation, you
showed some images of 8H and when it was used in radio and for music performances
and it's just . . . WOW . . . it’s just enormous. Something it’s hard to
get a sense of by watching SNL, even
as I have all these years.
This image from the early 1930s gives a sense of the enormous space Studio 8H inhabits.
Joel Spector:Well, it's a block wide. It goes from
wall to wall 49th St. to 50th St. Essentially the playing area within that is
78 by 132 feet, and that's about the dimensions of the skating rink [the
famous ice skating rink at 30 Rock].
HHSP: That is huge!
Joel Spector: It is a big space, all column-free. There were many special broadcasts in that studio such as space shots, and on election nights it was filled with people, computers, tote boards, and “The Map” of the USA. That's why the SNL bleachers had to be removed. Election Night coverage now takes place outdoors in the skating rink, called “Democracy Plaza,” with huge graphics projected right onto the 30 Rock building.
On
Track
HHSP: A bit of a side question, but in the
AES presentation, you note at various points when 8H converted to a 24-track studio.
I think you mentioned this earlier on in our interview, if I recall correctly, that
you were using maybe just four or eight tracks in 1980?
Joel Spector: Yeah, and Hot Hero made the most use of that — and
which was only a couple days [laughter]. NBC had a Scully 1-inch 8-track recorder in the
Brooklyn Studios. They had renovated the Brooklyn 2 control room in the 70s for
Kraft Music Hall [an NBC variety
show] because they had a consultant from A&R Recording come in . . . and they determined that they wanted to have 8-track delivered to
post-production . . . and in 8H, we didn't use the multi-track for most things
because we did live shows.
HHSP: Right.
Joel Spector: Live from 8H, which was a Fred Silverman project at the end of the
70s. Three of the shows had live music, two with the New York Philharmonic, and one with the New American Orchestra from Los Angles, a salute to 100 Years of America's Popular Music with George Burns, the host. The fourth show was the New York City Ballet for which all the music was pre-recorded elsewhere.
HHSP: That would have been a complicated
show to manage.
Joel Spector: Scott Schachter [the
other Hot Hero audio engineer]
handled that.
HHSP: Thinking about the Sister Sledge
performances with the live audience, you allude in the AES presentation how
precise the microphones are. There’s still a lot of activity, people making
noise on stage, some of the crowd coming up on stage, and you can hear that
mixed in with the music. I think you mentioned in the AES presentation that you had
an audience boom you could use whenever you needed to, and it was pretty precise.
Was anything like that used?
Joel Spector: The boom was not involved
in the music production.
HHSP: No?
Joel Spector: Not at all. You have the Shure
SM58 for the vocals, those are close-talking microphones, and the ladies know
how to work those mics and we would work with the band and manage the playback
level and work with whoever our house engineer was, I guess he had the music
system on for that, I don’t know, but because it was a separate music system
for SNL. So, over the center of the
studio, big speakers — two big speakers, 4-way speakers, that can pump out a
lot of sound, but I don't remember any problems with that because we at that
point we knew what levels could be dealt with and the band was very cooperative.
Shure SM58 microphone, author’s collection.
HHSP: You still have that audience to deal
with.
Joel Spector: I've noticed listening
very carefully this morning, the crowd clapping and all that, that's live . . .
with other microphones and you just bring that in judiciously, and then any
cheers and applause during the episode, to me, that was posted [post-production]
somewhere else . . .
HHSP: In post [production] . . .
Joel Spector: That’s something that’s
very obviously not our stuff and put in somewhere else.
Scott Schachter (left, in the audio room) and Joel Spector (right) in the finale of episode 11.
HHSP: You’ve seen a lot of changes in
technology during the course of your career.
Joel Spector: Boy, when we started
doing all these shows . . . I mean, I started doing this when I was 10 years
old, but with like, ¼-inch tape, by the time I did my last Tony Awards, which
was 2018 — music playback for 30 years on the Tonys and 33 years on the Macy’s
[Thanksgiving Day] Parade, things used to be all on tape, two guys with big tape
machines and big reels of tape, and all that. It ended up being me with two Lenovo laptops running SpotOn Playback, which is British
software made just to playback music and sound cues. The music department would upload to Dropbox the 100 cues for that show, which were recorded at an outside studio. So, finally, the production manager said
to me, “Write this name down . . . dedicated high-speed line.” Yes. “Write this
down . . . $10,000.”
[laughter]
HHSP: I can only imagine the size of those
data packages that would need that. You would need a dedicated high-speed line.
Joel Spector: Because the scenery was
electronic at that point, so that those guys with graphics and us, we needed it
. . . everything was in the computer, but, boy oh boy, you could turn on a dime
and so could the scenery. You could change the music cues, you could change a graphic cue, you could change all that stuff.
That's the
upside of that. The Tony’s and
Macy’s didn't abuse that flexibility. I know that with SNL, as we said at the AES presentation, from show #0001 to this
day, every time those words come out of an actor's mouth it’s the first time
that arrangement of words is heard. Because every time the scene is run it has been rewritten. That was not the case
with Hot Hero. You just rehearse it and do it, and maybe fuss with it just a
little bit, but that's it and “Next!” There was just too much to do.
HHSP: Yes, so much to do and so little time
to do it in.
Joel Spector: I tell you 18 hour days .
. .They [NBC] wanted to win Peabody
Awards. They hired Bruce and Carole Hart [Note: The Harts had previously won a Peabody
Award for Free to Be . . . You and Me.”]
HHSP: And they won Emmys.
Joel Spector: Yeah, they got Emmys, and I got a
nomination for that first show.
Rex Smith and the Hot Hero Band performing, “Tonight”
in episode 10.
HHSP: Yes, right, and Scott Schachter received
a nomination for episode 4. You and Scott were also on hand for episode 10 with
Rex Smith, who, I understand, according to writer Sherry Coben, showed up wearing a pair of the tightest pants on the planet . . . which showed a bit too much, so they had him change.
[laughter]
Joel, this
has been a great conversation, we’ve covered a lot of territory, and I think I’ve
taken up enough of your time today. You really set the record straight on what
was going on in Studio 8H and why things sounded so great. I’m very
appreciative of your time today. Thank you.
The boisterous finale in episode 11 with Andy Breckman, the Hot Hero Band, the cast, the audience, and the crew waves farewell. The last performance Joel Spector and Scott Schachter worked on for Hot Hero Sandwich.
Joel Spector took us on a deep dive backstage at Studio 8H. Understanding the complexity and history of how things were done, gives us a better understanding of the craft and a greater appreciation of what Hot Hero Sandwich was able to accomplish in the relatively short time it had access to Studio 8H and its talented crew who ranked among the best in world at what they did.
Because of that, I have to admit,
I was a bit nervous speaking with Joel Spector and
felt like I was a 21-year-old broadcasting intern all over again. Though I fancy myself something
of an audiophile, I forgot the names of the expensive audio equipment, mics, and
software I owned. In fact, I forgot I even had a Shure SM58 mic, like those
used by Sister Sledge that Spector noted (and are still being made), and it is every bit as good as he reports.
As one will notice
throughout the interview, Spector kept meticulous records of what he was doing,
when he was doing it, and for how long he did it. In documenting the show’s
history, this information creates important anchor points for determining what
happened and when — something that becomes more challenging to piece together as
time goes by.
An oft-repeated
reprise of mine when it comes to Hot Hero
Sandwich is that despite there being no VHS, CDs, DVDs, or even an album released, the show’s fans still remembered the music, sketches, and animation. An
amazing achievement not just of the creators, but also of those tasked
with bringing their vision to the screen and Joel Spector, along with Scott Schachter, gave that vision a voice.
And it's one we're still listening to 45 years later.
Special thanks to Ken Aymong, production administrator for Hot Hero Sandwich, for introducing me
to Joel. Thanks Ken!
To clarify, there
is a difference between the audio engineering Joel Spector did and the sound engineering
Ed Stasium did for Felix Pappalardi for the series (which Stasium discusses in his interview
with Hot Hero Sandwich Project). Spector’s
work has been with live and pre-recorded televised performances, usually
working with a full stage and technical crew, while Stasium’s career was primarily
in recording studios, working closely with artists and their instruments to best
capture their “sound.” The studios Stasium recorded in would be far smaller
than ones like Studio 8H, where Spector plied his trade, and often included an
audience, which the studios Stasium worked in did not.
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