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 Palmieri
Brothers’ performance in episode 8 is an extraordinary display of musical virtuosity,
yet due to the fact I don’t speak Spanish, and the Palmieri’s extensive musical
catalog, I was unable to identify the song. Nevertheless, I posted it, thinking
that I’ll eventually discover the song title, but much to my embarrassment, I
never was able to do so.
Finally, I reached
out to Hot Hero’s resident Jazz
expert, Michael
Longfield (aka, actor L. Michael
Craig on the show), who hosts a weekly Jazz show on WWOZ 90.7 FM in New
Orleans. This one was a challenge even for him, so Mike reached out to trombonist
friend Charlie Garcia who revealed that rather than a song, the performance is
a jam session, or perhaps more accurately described as a “descarga,” a Cuban form
of the jam session, which, according to The
Oxford English Dictionary, improvises son montuno, “a form featuring an
extended passage of musical call and response over a flowing rhythm produced by
a combination of percussion instruments.”
In the performance
one can hear the chorus, or coro, “es para ti,” meaning “it’s for you.” Despite the complicated rhythms, this is still essentially a jam session, and it all comes
off like clockwork. Hot Hero Sandwich’s
Felix Pappalardi, clad in an open-neck blue shirt, can be seen on stage clapping
and singing along with the brothers, and evidently having a great time.
Special thanks
to Michael Longfield and Charlie Garcia for helping solve this mystery!
While doing some
research on Newspapers.com, I came
across the above blurb by gossip columnist Liz Smith in the Oct. 27, edition of
The Buffalo News, revealing what I
what thought had been just a backstage tale at Hot Hero Sandwich — the day that
rocker Rex Smith was literally too big for his britches.
Rex Smith for episode 10 had to change his too-tight pants before filming the performance of his
hits on Studio 8H (“Sooner or Later,” and “Tonight”).
I first came across this story in my interview with retired Hollywood talent agent
and personal manager Larry Weiss, who represented Hot Hero Sandwich alums such asproducers Bruce and Carol Hart, interviewer Dr.Tom Cottle, and writer SherryCoben. Weiss first related the story in this exchange from his
interview with the Hot Hero Sandwich
Project when I asked him if he recalled any conflicts the Harts may have
had with NBC censors:
Larry Weiss: No, I honestly don't. The
only thing I remember with Standards and Practices was when Rex Smith was on.
They made him change pants because his bulge was showing.
HHSP: [laughter] I am definitely going to
include that in the article!
Larry Weiss:I was there . . . I saw it.
HHSP: That is a classic Rock and Roll story!
Larry Weiss: And believe me . . . only Standards
and Practices would notice anything like that because I was there with other
people and no one thought anything of it. I'm not putting down Rex Smith’s
“manhood,” but it wasn’t anything, you know, major. The guy put on his pants
and this is what he looks like.
[Note: Sherry Coben notes the incident was a
bit more obvious than Weiss reports and that she has to take full credit for
getting Standards and Practices involved in that little adventure. During
rehearsal, Coben was in the control room next to Jane Crowley, the show
representative from Standards and Practices. Coben saw that Rex Smith’s
skin-tight shiny white leggings (which he originally wore) were VERY revealing
and not appropriate for a quality children’s television show. Consequently,
there was no conflict with Crowley on that point when she asked for a costume
change. However, Coben noted that Crowley may not have noticed it had Coben not
mentioned it, however very obvious it was.]
Coben actually
had more colorful language to describe Rex’s, uh, situation, but let’s just say
it was very obvious. Liz Smith’s
report is a bit misleading in that she says it was during the filming of the
pilot episode instead of episode 10; nevertheless, that the series caught Liz
Smith’s attention and confirms the tale of Rex Smith’s too-tight trousers makes
this one of the most interesting, if shortest, news pieces related to the show.
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 1, 1979, though I'm guessing it was likely earlier. 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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