Pink Lady (1980– )

I caught a showing of this variety show over on Trio, and cannot say I'm overwhelmed by this relic of the Carter Years. The idea was certainly original enough: Take a popular (and actually pretty talented) idol-singer duo from Japan, team them up with a second-banana American singer and craft a variety show around it. Nice idea, lousy execution. Where to begin...

1. The writing is rivaled only by those apocryphal monkeys trying to write Shakespeare, an sad fact as Mark Evanier is easily capable of much better than this dreck (look at his consistently funny co-writing work on "Groo the Wanderer")

2. Mei and Kei are talented enough singers, and probably were talented actresses in Japan, but they didn't have enough of a command of the English language to grasp the right comic timing for the language.

3. Jeff Altman DOES have enough of a command of the English language, and he couldn't make a man being tickled to death laugh.