The Hot Hero Sandwich Project: Hot Hero Sandwich Project Archives: TV Channels Article, Nov. 4

by G. Jack Urso

TV Channels, Lake County News Herald (serving Greater Cleveland, Ohio) TV listings supplement, Nov. 4 – Nov. 10, 1979.

Hot Hero Sandwich’s Music Coordinator, Jimmy Biondolillo has saved several documents for us, including a pristine copy of the You and Your World Article, February 18, 1980, as well as this equally-pristine copy of TV Channels, a TV listings supplement for the Greater Cleveland, Ohio area.

What I have discovered with some of these longer items, including the Record World Article, Nov. 24, 1979, is that rather than repackaging the same network PR material, there is an effort to provide unique perspectives. Music for Record World, a review of all the show elements for You and Your World, and here, in TV Channels, the focus is on Dr. Tom Cottle and the interview segments.

Dr. Cottle is quoted extensively, providing highlights from some of the major interview segments. One revelation here that is significant is that the interview with Robert Blake was still being promoted. According to conversations I have had with series writer Sherry Coben and Dr. Cottle himself, the interview with Robert Blake was particularly problematic. In Cottle’s own words, it “was horrifically painful. It was awful.” In response to the standard interview question about how he was raised as a child, which every celebrity was asked, Blake detailed a litany of abuse and neglect to the point he was in tears. It’s a bit unclear how the decision was made to scrap the interview with Blake, but, at least at the time of this promotional interview with Dr. Cottle (which may have been packaged for the media), the Blake interview was still being planned for inclusion.

The complete transcript and scans of the entire article are provided below. Original bold faced text, punctuation and spelling retained. All images from TV Channels. The information provided in brackets [ ] are my own editorial notes.

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By Winifred Cook, Television Editor

NBC is planning on serving a “Hot Hero Sandwich” they hope your children will like for lunch at noon Saturdays, beginning Nov. 10.

The television program, the brainstorm of husband and wife producers Bruce and Carole Hart, is described as focusing on the pain and pleasure, fun and frustration of growing up. It will have its own comedy repertory company, plus animated sequences and music.

Dr. Thomas J. Cottle, a clinical psychologist and sociologist, spent his summer cooking up interviews with celebrities who will be sharing their adolescent problems with viewers and telling how they handled them.

“Some of the themes of growing up that we want to discuss during a show are divorce, racial tension, girl/boy relations, first dates, school, religion, learning about intimacy,” the Harvard lecturer tells television writers in New Orleans. “We’ll be touching on everything from acne on up.”

Donna Pescow of “Angie” will be featured on the first show, Cottle says, “You’d think this sensitive, bubbly woman never had a problem in her life. Yet she tells this incredible story of her parents’ divorce, not seeing her father for seven years, making contact and a date to meet him when she’s 14 or 15.

“A man comes up from the subway, and she embraces him — it is the wrong man. It’s an amusing story, but what apathetic experience for a human being to misidentify your own father.”

Divorce is evidently a problem many shared, Cottle says. “A lot of the stars talk about divorce with feeling and compassion for their parents, but they can’t not reveal their hurt.”

Cottle relates some of the stories he heard:

“A conversation with Sally Struthers had to do with invasion of privacy, pain, humiliation and feeling embarrassed when she had to undergo a vaginal examination. And she talked about it with such dignity.”

“She struggled with her parents’ divorce, physical illness, some of which she attributed to psychological reasons, wanting attention from her dad, who was a doctor.”

“Bruce [Caitlin] Jenner and Christopher Reeve had such great muscle ligament and bone growth, their bodies couldn’t adapt as fast as the hormones produced growth, to the point where they couldn’t walk — were told they’d never walk. Can you imagine telling Bruce Jenner at age 12 ‘you can’t play sports?’ He tells how he came through it.”

“Robert Blake tells of growing up with little love and leading this extraordinary double life. As he’s in the streets having problems ‘looking for a father’ he is acting with John Garfield and Humphrey Bogart.”

“Olivia Newton-John tells of moving from England to Australia after her parent’s divorce, going from an affluent situation to modest dwellings.”

“There’s Pam Dawber, a typical Midwest American high school girl. A teacher once accused her of being a slut. Isn’t that a nice thing for a teacher to do?”

“Robert Guillaume received unconscionable abuse as a black boy. The family was so poor they had to cancel their grandmother’s funeral because they didn’t have enough money to bury her.”

“Richard Pryor was a boy who tried damn hard to be loved.”

“Marlo Thomas experienced the joys and pleasures of having parents like the senior Thomasas but still remembers the whirl of tires on gravel as again and again her father went on the road.”

“Henry Fonda says that when Peter turned 40, he called him up and said, ‘Dad, I know you love me, but you never told me. I’m 40 years old now, and you gotta tell me.’ So Henry Fonda said, “I love you Peter,” and they both started to cry.

“Leonard Nimoy, son of Russian immigrant Jews in Boston, seeing him for the first time in aplay, didn’t say a damn thing about it.”

Cottle feels perhaps it may be somewhat unfair to some of the individuals involved to bring all this out on television, but also says, “These are human experiences — we’ve all had them. Maybe the kids will see this and think ‘gee, that could’ve been me.’”

There will be four celebrities interviewed per show — a two-hour interview will eb condensed into three or four minutes, which Cottle thinks is a terrible waste and hopes an hour prime time show may develop in the future for two reasons.

“It humanizes celebrities, makes them less shallow and plastic. It’s good for television because it’s real.”

Recommended

“Hot Hero Sandwich,” the comedy-music-interview series for teen-agers in the midst of the fun and frustration of growing up, which premieres at noon Saturday on NBC WKYC-TV3, has been recommended to schools across the nation by the National Educational Association.

The NEA said: “Adolescence — that complicated period in our lives when both social and physical changes usher us from childhood to the world of adults — is brought into sharp focus by “Hot Hero Sandwich.” Through the use of comedy, celebrity interviews and contemporary music, it communicates the universality of the adolescent experience and presents a positive outlook designed to be instructive as well as entertaining. This series is highly recommended.

Bruce and Carole Hart are the creators and executive producers of “Hot Hero Sandwich.” The series is the latest in NBC’s company-wide commitment to the International Year of the Child.

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