The Starland Vocal Band Show (found CBS variety show; 1977)

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Starland.jpeg

Series' title card.

Status: Found

Date found: 16 Apr 2019

Found by: StarlandandMore

The Starland Vocal Band Show was a summer replacement variety show broadcast on CBS for six weeks in the summer of 1977 that starred the members of the American pop band Starland Vocal Band, best known for their 1976 hit single "Afternoon Delight". The show remains best known today for featuring a young pre-fame David Letterman among its cast.

Format

The content of the show was similar to that of most variety shows of that time, featuring musical interludes from Starland Vocal Band themselves, intertwined with comedy segments featuring appearances from Mark Russell, Jeff Altman, and Proctor and Bergman among others. Various recurring segments included the Starland members attending a Renaissance fair and exploring the abandoned Glen Echo amusement park, David Letterman dressed as a mailman reading viewer mail, Letterman interviewing various characters played by Jeff Altman and ending up punching them in the stomach, and brief segments from Mark Russell filmed in a Washington hotel.

Reception

The show was generally poorly received due to its unfunny and repetitive humor,[1] with Starland keyboardist Jon Carroll going on to regret doing the show, theorizing in a 2015 interview that it may have been indirectly responsible for killing the bands career, while also stating that “It wasn’t all bad. It was mostly bad."[2]

Availability

The YouTube channel StarlandandMore originally hosted all six of the show's episodes online with a performance of "Afternoon Delight" from episode one edited out for copyright reasons. These videos had since been removed, however (presumably for copyright reasons), with various compilations of clips from the show being all that had resurfaced from them.

On April 16th, 2019, all six episodes of the show were reuploaded to the StarlandandMore YouTube channel, rendering the show found once again.

Episode List

# Air Date Status
1 Jul. 31 1977 Found
2 Aug. 7 1977 Found
3 Aug. 14 1977 Found
4 Aug. 21 1977 Found
5 Aug. 28 1977 Found
6 Sep. 4 1977 Found

External Link

References