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 the right. Start with the Introduction and learn about the series in A Second Serving! and the FAQ tabs on left. The latest updates are noted on the the Project Posts list on the right.
For an introduction to
the main and supporting casts, characters, and celebrity and musical
guests, check out the Hot Hero Sandwich Tribute Music Video!
— G. Jack Urso, Editor, The Hot Hero Sandwich Project
The latest find
for the Hot Hero Sandwich Project archives
is Scholastic Action magazine, Jan.
31, 1980. The Scholastic Corporation’s book clubs and magazines were a staple
of childhood growing up and attending primary and secondary school the 1970s
and early 1980s. and remain so to this day. The stories featured a range of topics
designed to help develop both reading and social reading skills, as in this
article that features the three-part Hot
Hero Sandwich sketch, “Dating Nerves” where a student, played by Matt
McCoy, struggles to get the courage up to ask his crush, Vicky Dawson, out on
a date. Scans of the article are provided below.
The sketch is
presented as a play in three scenes with each scene corresponding to each of
three parts broadcasted in episode 11.
In the thrall of
my own adolescent crushes, the sketch hit home, though I lacked Matt McCoy’s
charm and good looks to succeed as he did in the sketch; nevertheless, it’s a good
example of Hot Hero showing how friendship can help us overcome our fears in
social situations.
The original three-part sketch adapted for Scholastic Action.
Donna Pescow lands
a spot on the cover with short spots inside with her along with Richard Pryor
and Caitlyn (then Bruce) Jenner with quotes from their Hot Hero Sandwich interviews with Dr. Tom Cottle.
As the Hot Heroes’Production Administrator Ken Aymong pointed out, NBC intended only one season for Hot Hero Sandwich as it was a planned
complement to the 1979 UN Child of the Year campaign. Nevertheless, it seems
that then-NBC President Fred Silverman was giving off mixed signals by not
addressing that with the production crew and cast and, in fact, according to Vicky Dawson, informing her representation that the series would be moving to the
West Coast for a second season. Indeed, in a Jan. 18, 1980, New York Times article, Silverman praised
Hot Hero Sandwich as an example of
its commitment to children’s educational programming when the last episode was
schedule to air just a week later on Jan. 26. It had been known since the
production of that last episode that was to be the last episode of the series,
and that was well before Jan. 18.
The publication
term “lead time” refers to deadline by which stories must be submitted in order
to make the publication date. I don’t know what the lead time for Scholastic Action was at the time, but based
on my experience it must have been at least three months, putting the deadline
for this article by November 1st, 1979. This gives us an idea by when the
script was completed. The picture of Matt McCoy and Vicky Dawson in the article
is not from the episode 11 sketch itself, but from earlier in the series.
In the end, the Scholastic Action magazine feature,
while an excellent placement, did little to help the series, which was
cancelled by Jan. 31, 1980, but would run in repeats through April 5.
As Hot Hero Sandwich and Scholastic seemed
a natural fit regarding both demographics and the educational messaging and I wondered
if there had been any promotion of the show in the publication, and indeed
there was, though it came a bit late to pump up the series’ ratings since the last
episode aired just a week prior on Jan. 26.
After a 46-year absence from print entertainment media, Hot Hero Sandwich returns to the popular press in the Jan.-Mar. 2026 issue of RetroFan magazine, #43 with the article “Hot Hero Sandwich — We Deliver!” I wrote as an overview of the series and the Hot Hero Sandwich Project. A featured cover story, the article comprises nearly 4,000 words on eight pages with lots of exclusive pictures.
Begun as a one-off article here on Aeolus 13 Umbra, Hot Hero Sandwich: The Late 70s TV Teen Scene, the Hot Hero Sandwich Project really took off in late December, 2022, when Emmy Award-winning writer and Kate and Allie creator Sherry Coben saw my article and reached out to me, offering both herself and her husband, noted film editor Patrick McMahon, whom she met working on Hot Hero Sandwich to answer some questions. From that, humble start, with help from Coben, and on my own, and with former crew and staff reaching out, the project grew to a total of 26 interviews and to date nearly 120 articles, including rare production documents, a website, and a YouTube channel, with cuts from every scene in the entire series — most of which, since it had been unreleased on VHS or DVD, had not been seen since broadcast.
Print journalism still lends creditability to projects, such as this one, that few digital media outlets can provide, and hopefully may lead to more people discovering the series, and more former cast and crew from the show to interview!
For a two-page preview, or perhaps to order your own copy, please visit TwoMorrows Publishing.
A special thanks goes out to everyone who was interviewed, responded to questions, tolerated my enthusiasm, and who otherwise helped me with the Project.
Ed Stasium,
Hot Hero Sandwich’s sound engineer for
the recording sessions with Music Director Felix Pappalardi and the Hot Hero Band, is still producing great albums with great musicians! The Long Ryders: High Noon Hymns, Double
Vinyl Edition, featuring Sid Griffin, Stephen McCarthy, and Greg Sowders, and
produced by Stasium, is slated for release March 13, 2026 from Cherry Red Records.
The Long Ryders,
taking their name from the classic 1980 Western of the same name,
playing Alternative Country and influenced by the Paisley Underground sound, has
worked with Stasium on three previous albums.
According to Long
Ryder guitarist/mandolinist Sid Griffin on the Cherry Red Records website, High Noon Hymns continues the band’s “distilled
alt country genre we helped found back in the 1980s, one third Paisley
Underground adventurism yet with a dash of our own crazed soulfulness thrown
in.”
With the passing
of The Long Ryders' bassist Tom Stevens, Murry Hammond of The Old 97s and The
Long Ryders’ own Stephen McCarthy filled in. Guests appearing on High Noon Hymns include DJ Bonebrake of
X on vibes and Wyatt Ellis on the mandolin.
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