Bruce Vilanch is proud of all the awful TV he made

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Jesse Thorn

Society & Culture

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bruce Vilanch wrote for countless TV variety shows dating back over 50 years. Sometimes, those shows turn out great! Think of Billy Crystal at the Oscars! The stuff that's not so great, you can read about in his new book: It Seemed Like A Bad Idea At The Time: The Worst TV Shows in History and Other Things I Wrote. Vilanch tells Bullseye stories from behind the scenes of the Oscars, The Brady Bunch, and the Star Wars Holiday Special.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mone, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.
0:11.5	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of maximum fun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:29.3	Hey! Hey! by NPR. It's Bullseye.
0:31.3	My next guest is Bruce Valanche.
0:34.9	You might know him from the Y2K reboot of Hollywood Squares, where he cracked
0:39.5	wives alongside Whoopi Goldberg, Coolio, Martin Mull, Bobcat, Goldthwaite, Gilbert Godfried, among many
0:47.2	others. If you don't know him by name, you probably know him by his look. His famously distinctive, colorful eyeglasses, his blonde Prince Valiant haircut, and his ever-present
1:02.1	novelty t-shirt.
1:04.3	Bruce Valanche, that's our guy.
1:06.6	He maybe is the friendliest human in the world, he is sharp as attack, and as fun as he is on
1:11.6	screen, he really shines in a writer's room. For 14 years, he was head writer of the Academy
1:17.5	Awards. He spent two and a half decades writing on that program. He has also worked on
1:23.2	countless TV shows, dating back over 50 years.
1:29.0	He is a master of writing for entertainment programming, Big E, a variety, things with big
1:36.6	brassy musical numbers, where stars turn to the camera and wink and make a little joke.
1:43.6	Sometimes that stuff is great.
1:45.9	I mean, Billy Crystal at the Oscars,
1:48.8	Bet Midler in between songs,
1:51.7	Lily Tomlin in a TV special,
1:54.1	all that kind of thing.
1:55.7	And then, sometimes, it isn't.
1:58.2	And that's what Bruce Valanche's new book is about.
	...

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