The Story of ‘Midnight Blue’: Sex, Lies, and Videotape – Podcast 76
The Rialto Report
Ashley West
4.8 • 531 Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2018
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Imagine this. It’s one night in New York in 1974. You’ve partied with friends. You stumble home at midnight, turn on the TV and flop onto the couch. On screen is channel 35. This isn’t the Partridge Family or the Rockford Files. Did you really drink that much?
This was Midnight Blue, a one-hour, regular TV show that aired on Manhattan Cable. And it was like nothing you’d seen before. It was a cross between a late-night chat show, a surreal variety review, and a bad acid trip.
You might see interviews with characters like Debbie Harry, O.J. Simpson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, back-stage location reports from strip clubs or brothels, and conversations with adult film stars like Marilyn Chambers, Seka, or Harry Reems.
And interspersed between the features were bizarre advertisements for swingers clubs, prostitutes, phone sex lines, synthetic cocaine, and sex toys.
So how did a show like this come to exist? And how was it even allowed on the air?
This is the story of the rise and fall Midnight Blue.
We grateful to Alex Bennett and Josh Alan Friedman for sharing their memories with us, and to Blue Underground for the use of the Midnight Blue clips in this podcast.
Blue Undergound has several DVDs featuring the best moments from the show – including a recently released six disc set, Best of Midnight Blue, that comes highly recommended.
This podcast is 79 minutes long.
The musical playlist for this episode can be found on Spotify.
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Midnight Blue
Al Goldstein in the earlier days of the show
A young Sharon Mitchell interviewed on the show
Alex, Al and Georgina Spelvin
Annie Sprinkle reviewing the latest sex toys
An ad for Plato’s Retreat featuring Larry Levenson and his partner Mary
Marilyn Chambers interviewed on Midnight Blue
Midnight Blue parody ad for the Home Humiliation System
Tiny Tim interviewed on Midnight Blue
Al interviews adult film director Gerard Damiano
Al interviews comic Gilbert Gottfried
Al interviews Veronica Vera
Al interviews Veronica Hart
Al interviews Chris Stein and Debbie Harry
Al interviews Annette Haven
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Tired of watching other people having fun on the screen and wondering what it would be like if it was you rather than them? |
| 0:10.0 | Well, now you can, and at the same time give yourselves a super memento of your relationship. |
| 0:16.0 | Now you can be in the picture. |
| 0:19.0 | Paul and Jessica will come to your home and videotape you and your loved one in your most intimate moments. |
| 0:25.6 | Then they'll play it back on your own TV set and finally hand you the tape right there and then. |
| 0:31.6 | What a turn-up. What a memory. |
| 0:34.6 | Productions range from a simple black and white session |
| 0:37.6 | to a full-scale production in color, |
| 0:39.8 | edited to music, and best of all, |
| 0:42.1 | prices start at $50. |
| 0:44.4 | Isn't it time you got into the picture? |
| 0:46.9 | Call Paul and Jessica for more information and an appointment. |
| 0:50.3 | It's so much more fun being in the picture than watching. |
| 0:59.6 | Imagine this. |
| 1:02.7 | It's one night in New York in 1974. |
| 1:04.8 | You've partied with friends. |
| 1:06.8 | You stumble home at midnight. |
| 1:08.1 | Turn on the TV. |
| 1:10.1 | Flop onto the couch. On screen is Channel 35. This isn't the Partridge |
| 1:14.6 | family or the Rockford Files. Did you really drink that much? |
| 1:23.9 | From the horniest city in America. the horniest man in America, Al Goldstein proudly presents Midnight Blue. |
| 1:38.4 | This was Midnight Blue, a one-hour regular TV show that aired on Manhattan Cable, and it was like nothing |
... |
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