by G. Jack Urso
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.
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 placement,
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.
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