The Basement Tapes

After serving 15 years for the somewhat sensational 1986 sex murder in Central Park of Jennifer Levin, Robert Chambers is in the news again. The so-called Preppie Killer was released from prison in 2004 and arrested two days ago with his girlfriend Shawn Kovell for selling mounds of cocaine to undercover agents. He could go back to prison for life. (See previous post) Word of Chambers' new arrest reminded one of our staffers that, down in the bowels of our treasure-filled basement, we had footage of the controversial home movie made in Chambers' apartment back in '86 while he was awaiting trial, which showed him entertaining a giddy group of girls by reenacting the choking of Levin. The footage – which was shown on A Current Affair with Maury Povich – was used in World of Wonder's HBO series Shock Video in '92. What's shocking to us is that the girlfriend he has now is the girlfriend he had back then. She waited 15 years for him.

The Basement Tapes

Bless her, Jane Wyman had been around Hollywood winning awards and respect long enough that she didn't have to put up with mushy-mouthed producers talking under their breath as they adjusted lights and recorded room tone while she sat there with a fixed expression for what must have seemed like days, waiting to talk about costume designer Edith Head for an installment of WOW's AMC series, Hollywood Fashion Machine, back in 1998. "Are you mumbling or are you talking to me?" she snapped to Fenton Bailey, providing another kind of room tone altogether. (This clip is a replacement for this earlier one.)

The Basement Tapes

It was October or maybe November of 1998. Fenton Bailey was taping an interview with the award-winning actress Jane Wyman for the WOW series Hollywood Fashion Machine on AMC. The episode was about lauded costume designer Edith Head, and Wyman didn't see why Bailey wasn't asking her about "Edie." She got a little cranky. We dug this clip out of the basement because Wyman died on Monday.

The Basement Tapes/Recently Dead

Legendary talent agent Ruth Webb died last week in Los Angeles after a long pulmonary illness. She was 88. Webb, known as the "Auntie Mame of agents," began in showbiz as a summer stock and Broadway actress, appearing in the original production of On the Town. She posed on the covers of magazines and was a featured model for Chesterfield cigarettes. Later, she worked for her own agent, and eventually started her own firm, repping stars on both coasts, from Ginger Rogers to Joey Buttafuoco. When World of Wonder caught up with her in 1997 at her Hollywood office for an HBO pilot called TV Man, she was in her Buttafuoco phase. In this clip, Webb (above, on the phone) and her business partner Sherri Spillane pitch their clients. (Watch here)

The Basement Tapes

In 1993, RuPaul hosted a wonderful Christmas special that aired in the UK. Among her guests were Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Kurt Cobain. It was the year Nirvana had performed that memorable set on MTV Unplugged, and they got even further unplugged sitting on the floor in a dressing room holding tiny cutouts of RuPaul and singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" to her and the folks at home without benefit of even acoustic instruments. Note Cobain holding a white lily.

The Basement Tapes

There are almost three hours left to vote in Los Angeles, so if you haven't yet perhaps this stirring music video from the Fabulous Pop Tarts will encourage you to help get someone "Elected." It was back in 1980s New York that our fearless leaders, using the professional names Randy Pop and Fenton Tart, labored at toyed with becoming a musical act. During that period, they wrote many a toe-tapping synth-pop tune, but it's 1988's anthemic "Elected" that has come to be an election-year favorite. (Watch)

The Basement Tapes

In 1999, WOW had a show on HBO called Naked Players Meet the People, in which real people encountered naked professional entertainers in certain sexually volatile situations, i.e. a mattress store, a condom giveaway at the beach, and in this clip a sperm bank. Unwitting participants answered an ad in the paper for sperm donors who would be paid $75. What they got was a tasty sex show to get them in the mood to make a deposit – courtesy of today's Ring My Bell guests, the Nellie Olesens. Sadly, the segment never aired, but this clip with its meant-to-be-only-temporary narration by Fenton Bailey refuses to be ignored. Have a little paper cup handy. (Watch here)

The Basement Tapes

Why is this in our basement? It's not ours. We didn't make it. Or did we? It's kind of spooky. It appears to be some kind of proposal film from 1989, made by people not unlike the Dharma Initiative, that tells of a very large and grand museum "for the 21st century" that would cover everything and not be boring. And would not be Epcot Center. It would be the World of Wonder Museum. Do you have goosebumps? (Watch here)

The Princess

In 1998, the year after Lady Diana died in that car accident in Paris, World of Wonder Productions was called upon to make a clip reel of moments in her life to be shown at the annual Princess Diana Trust gala at a hotel in Beverly Hills. With The Queen now playing in theaters, we thought it fitting to show that moving reel, since Stephen Frears' film covers the long, awkward days between Diana's death and Queen Elizabeth publicly addressing the tragedy. (Behold here)

The Basement Tapes

Continuing with our Free Anna Nicole campaign, we went through our basement tapes to see if Anna Nicole was ever NOT being held hostage and discovered that as far back as 2002, when we were shooting Dark Roots: The Unauthorized Anna Nicole, her cousin Shelly came to visit her, but was kept at bay by barely civil TV ruffians. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

That Matt Trample guest on Ring My Bell yesterday, the guy who likes to have people walk on him, got us to thinking about this fellow named Jeff Valencia who made and starred in a short film called Summer Vacation that aired on Channel 4 in the UK back in 1996 on WOW's TV Pizza show. Yes, a WOW show on Channel 4 in the UK in the '90s. Some might call that magic mix the true Gold-tone Age of Television. So, anyways, here's a disturbing clip from that movie.

The Basement Tapes

Here's a clip we found in the basement a few weeks ago but held onto until all that John Mark Karr business with JonBenet blew over, which it did so fast that we had completely forgotten Karr's name when it came time to write this. Anyway, this clip is of the Peak sisters Diandra and Baby Jane from WOW's TV Pizza that aired on Channel 4 in the UK at the end of the '90s. (Watch)

The Basement Tapes

Here's the Divine David, star of WOW's The Divine David Presents show that aired on Channel 4 in the UK in 1998. (Loyal readers of the WOW Report will be noticing how fab it must have been to be in England in the '90s watching WOW shows on Channel 4, a kind of golden age). The Divine David shows were assemblages of performance, the avant-garde, and the wholly other. This wholly other clip is DD's beauty workshop. The entire series of Divine David shows soon will be available on WOW TV.

The Basement Tapes

There's been some speculation about those VF photos of Suri Cruise that surfaced yesterday and it made us think of a girl – we'll call her Celestia – who appeared on WOW's Manhattan Cable show on Channel 4 in the UK sometime between 1990 and 1992 and wanted to be abducted by aliens so badly that she wrote a song that would perhaps lure eavesdropping ALFs down from the sky and into her life. And we're thinking perhaps this clip of her will lure Tom and Katie into visiting the WOW Report. (Watch it here)

The Basement Tapes

Back in 2003, when WOW was shooting the documentary Dark Roots: The Anna Nicole Smith Story, we had occasion to interview E Pierce Marshall, the son of the ancient Texas oil tycoon Smith married and of whom she subsequently became widowed. Making a film requires shooting a fair amount of B-roll, footage used for segues and cutaways, and Marshall was insistent that his voice not be used in any of it. Now that he's dead, he probably won't mind us showing you some forbidden outtakes – talking to his lawyer on the phone, calling Houston "basically a swamp." (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes: Have You Met the Paté?

Whoa, it's gonna be good eating at Tom's tonight – if he didn't already gobble up Suri's placenta with a glass of Katie's water discharge, that is. We have it on good authority that a nice-size placenta (and a 20-inch, seven-pound newbie is a decent size) can make a modest tray of appetizers for a party of 20. Back in 1998, WOW had a show on HBO called Shock Video that culled outrageous moments from television around the world. Episode 6 of Shock Video included a clip from a show on Channel 4 in the UK called TV Dinners that shot the preparation of placenta paté and the reaction of the guests who were served it on bread squares. We love the vegetarian who thought human was not animal, therefore the paté was acceptable and "quite nice." And the lady who was inspired to ponder "What is meat ? What is vegetables?" (Watch the clip)

Runaway Dunaway

Just because Faye Dunaway agreed to talk to WOW for its AMC Backstory on Bonnie and Clyde in 2001 doesn't mean she was agreeable. Far from it. She demanded the interview take place in the presidential suite of a four-star Hollywood hotel and that she be paid $10,000 – upfront and in cash – for 30 minutes of her time. When the crew turned up to shoot the interview (a taste of which we give you here), she interviewed and dismissed nearly all who didn't please her. So there must be a lot of truth to what she says in the interview about her breakout role as bank-robber Bonnie Parker: "She's the closest to me of any part I've played."

(Previously)

The Basement Tapes

This guy named David Menken had a public access TV show in Sacramento called Chance and Dave, and WOW used this rollicking segment from it for TV Pizza, a rollicking clip show that aired in the UK on Channel 4 in the mid-'90s. David aka Dave sings an a cappella version (harmonizing nicely with himself) of Madonna's "Take a Bow" while (the same) Dave rolls around on the bed and does lewd, adolescent things with Chance and Madonna toys and TV sets with Madonna videos playing on them. It's complicated to explain, simple to watch.

(Madonna inna tent)
(Who else?)

The Basement Tapes

If Abraham Lincoln had lived, would he be a circuit queen today? That's kind of the idea we get from this Electric 6 video for "Gay Bar," the song used in WOW's 2004 VH1 TV show, Totally Gay, which examined pretty much everything that's gay, although somehow there was still some gay left over for last year's sequel, Totally Gayer. (And btw, the Electric 6 guys are performing at The Casbah in San Diego on March 8.)

The Basement Tapes

Mary Lynn Rajskub, who plays one of the new mad characters on 24 that Fenton was raving about in the last podcast, currently stars in Firewall, was oddly riveting as the crippled girl in Mysterious Skin, and was hilarious on Kelsey Grammar's The Sketch Show. In 2003, she appeared on WOW's The Award Show Awards Show and talked about, um, awards shows. "They're a cry for help," she said. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

German chanteuse Klaus Nomi was like a glottal rocket that flared up, illuminated the night sky, and died out way to soon. Literally died. For almost five minutes in the late '70s he was everywhere in New York City, exercising his thrilling, hair-raising operatic soprano voice in downtown rock clubs and frightening hip late-night TV viewers when he performed on SNL with David Bowie. This New York performance of his hit "Total Eclipse (of the Sun)" is included in the film Urgh! A Music War, a music film which includes, um, everybody. We have this clip in our basement because we looked at it while researching our 2001 VH1 production, From the Waist Down: Men, Women & Music. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

For part of its Joy of Cleavage show for A&E in the US and Channel 5 in the UK back in 2001, WOW took its cameras to a Hooters in Santa Monica and talked to the beautiful, buoyant, and bouncy girls who give credence to the restaurant's name. They were extremely forthcoming with information, telling tales of unwelcome gropers and revealing tips on how to make that intoxicating space between the breasts seem deeper and more inviting (makeup, padding, water bras). "But small hooters are beautiful too," says one. Here, we present some uplifting moments from that show, which was narrated by Carmen Electra. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

Leif Garrett – arrested yesterday when it was discovered he was carrying heroin as he tried to jump a subway stile without paying – was once the golden boy of teen idoldom. (He was Tiffany's first show-and-tell in kindergarten.) In 2000, he turned up as number 16 on 20 to 1, WOW's 12-part VH1 series on the most popular artists in rock 'n' roll history with his 1979 disco hit "I Was Made for Dancing." Privately, it turned out he was made for quite a bit more than that. He admits in this clip that he was "living the life of Rod Steward, off doing drugs and partying with the girls and sometimes their mothers." Now 44, he not only is suffering the ignominy of being charged with drug possession, but also of not being able to pay $1.25 to ride the LA subway. (Watch the clip)

(Look)

The Basement Tapes

Sometime in the dark and wacky '90s, Michael Alig threw one of his rowdy outlaw parties in honor of British performance artist and Lucien Freud muse Leigh Bowery. This particular party burst into Manhattan's Twin Donuts fast-food joint, with the lovely and talented Lahoma Van Zandt getting it all on videotape. Keen observers will of course spot Alig and the honoree (rare footage of his exposed face), as well as such other downtown luminaries as Kenny Kenny, the It Twins, Cody Ravioli, Amanda Lepore, and a stunning James St. James. (Join the party)

The Basement Tapes

We're not really sure either, so don't blame us if you get creeped out by this holiday moment. It's a clip purloined from Christmas Feelings, a public access special perpetrated by one Eugene in Somerville, New Jersey. WOW found it in 1996 (though it's obviously way older) and used it in TV Pizza, its Channel 4 series in the UK, which is how it wound up in our basement in the US and now onto your computer. All right, go ahead and blame us. (Hey, watch it!)

The Basement Tapes

In 2003, WOW produced a special for VH1 called Heroes of Bad Taste, in which the various likes of Elton John, Celine Dion, Marilyn Manson, Christina Aguilera, Donald Trump, Cher, and so many others were taken to task for looking and/or acting tacky. And the whole thing was narrated by superstar tastemaker Simon Doonan. Apparently not reverential or fawning enough (or at all) to the stars, the show never aired. But it didn't go away. We keep it in the basement, where it's beginning to take on an iridescent patina and a layer of dust. Here's a sample clip with Lil' Kim.

The Basement Tapes

Carol Thatcher, the feisty 52-year-old journalist daughter of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of England, did her mother proud, if not one better, when she came out the victor on the I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here reality show on Britain's ITV. No easy task: She vomited on herself while parachuting 12, 000 feet into the Australian rain forest, swam in a lake crawling with poison frogs (twice), ate fish eyes and kangaroo testicles, and got caught on night-vision video taking a tinkle next to her cot in lieu of using the loo. Through it all, she kept her stiff upper lip in the smile position. Of course, we knew she had it in her. Back in 1991, she appeared on a WOW TV show in the UK called Ring My Bell, hosted by Laurie Pike (what are the odds?) and featuring a slew of grade, um, C celebrities who were only too happy to answer questions from live phone-ins. (Watch Thatch get patched in)

The Debasement Tapes

The Lady Bunny is for sale. So what else is new, you ask? What's new is that you can buy her this time and not have to worry about picking up an STD. Now it's only her DVD you'll pick up, if you're smart. And it's highly contagious. That's right, her hilarious comedy package (and, oh boy, she has one!) is called Rated X (for Xtra-Retarded!), and is not available in stores, such is its filth factor, but only on her website, LadyBunny.net. But we've edited and clipped some of it for you right here, so you can get a taste of Bunny before you bring her home.

The Basement Tapes in Space

Seeing this story about a new UK reality series called Space Cadets, in which contestants are put through rigorous training in preparation for a bogus trip into outer space, reminded Fenton and Randy that back in 1996 they produced a pilot in England for a series also called Space Cadets, hosted by Rachel Williams (pictured). It bears absolutely no resemblance at all to the new space hoax show, except in name, which was just tenuous enough a reason for us to expose you to this truly bizarre clip, featuring a faux ABBA called Buck's Fizz and a rousing, surreal finale. Much lesser shows have been picked up. (Watch it at your peril)

The Basement Tapes

Meet Ennis Beley. Again. The boy from South Central LA was 12 years old when WOW – making a doc about the LA riots after the Rodney King verdict for its LA Stories series for the BBC in1992 – discovered the kid who had been the youngest journalist covering the trial. Ennis wanted to be a cameraman or a reporter when he grew up, he said, and had hoped to live to be at least 25. Sadly, though, he died in a gang-related shooting weeks before his 16th birthday, the occasion of which prompted a profile of the junior celebrity on ABC's Nightline. This 1996 clip of the Ted Koppel news show features liberal doses of the WOW documentary on Ennis and interviews with Randy Barbato and WOW producer Alison Pollet. (Watch here)

The Basement Tapes

"Reality television is a misnomer," Danny Bonaduce says to the interviewer in WOW's five-part series for Bravo, The Reality of Reality, back in 2002. "There's nothing REAL about Fear Factor. There's nothing REAL about Survivor – you don't even have to survive." After going into some detail on the subject of reality, the former Partridge Family star who's currently lost touch with it on his Breaking Bonaduce bloodbath of a show, explains that while he's being filmed for WOW, his family is spending the day at Disneyland. Why isn't he with them? Because "I want to be on TV more than I want to be at Disneyland with my wife and kids," he admits with typical candor. "That's how addicting this stuff can be." And he should know. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

Really, this Vinyl Justice show that WOW had on VH1 back in 1998 should be revived. It was a good idea hilariously realized. Barry Sobel (where are you now?) and Wayne Brady (your best work) are police keeping the streets of Los Angeles safe from musical violations, and arresting developments ensue. Topical? You bet. Seven years before it came to light that Janet Jackson's alleged secret daughter Renee, now 18, has been raised this whole time by Janet's sister Rebbie, Sobel and Brady paid a visit to Rebbie at her house in Anaheim Hills to check on her expired music license, and her daughter just happened to call on the telephone while they were there! It so easily could have been Renee! Anyway, watch the clip.

The Basement Tapes

Here's an oldie. This clip from part 6 of WOW's 6-part series The History of Pornography for Channel 4 in the UK examines porn's place in the digital age, which when this aired was 1999. And, according to the narration, porn at that time was reaching a saturation point, "threatening to break free of the social stigma and legal restrictions which have, until now, restrained it." We thought we were saturated then? Honey, we weren't even damp. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

Back before there was a Black Eyed Peas, before there was a Fergie, there was Stacy Ferguson and a girl group called Wild Orchid who had a single called "Talk to Me." The song sounds pretty dreadful now, but back in 1997, when the girls appeared on the WOW-produced RuPaul Show, it was kind of a hit (although not even close to as big as Ru makes it out to be in his introduction), because no one knew then that Stacy would become Fergie and be in the Black Eyed Peas and there'd be "Where Is the Love" (although she shows serious pipes back then). Last week, we showed you the Orchids being taken to task by the Vinyl Justice team for crimes against music; today we show you a clip of RuPaul talking to the girls on his show. Two things: 1) Ru effing towers over the singers, even though they're wearing platform heels and 2) while musical guests on other shows all lipsynced, Wild Orchid is singing live on Ru's show. Pity really. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

Remember Vinyl Justice, the VH1 series where Barry Sobel and Wayne Brady played music cops who arrested people with terrible taste in CDs? That was a WOW show. Today, digging around in the basement, we found the unaired series pilot, in which Sobel and then-partner Jon Keane searched the apartment of the Wild Orchid girls and found several music violations. One third of that girl group was Stacy Ferguson, now better known as Fergie, the chick from the Black Eyed Peas. Back in 1997, when this episode was shot, she was blonde and way cute and hadn't started to sweat so profusely around the crotch yet. Watching this show, we a) realized how much we miss the Spice Girls (shut up, we really really do!) and b) wonder what ever happened to Barry Sobel. (Look at it here)

The Basement Tapes

So, you kids today think your clothes are the ass? Seeing Twiggy on America's Next Top Model a few nights ago reminded us of the 1960s when she and fellow model Jean Shrimpton were the shit in swinging London. It was all fab! super! dizzying mod-style gear exploding everywhere, exciting the young and sending old-age pensioners to early graves. London was suddenly usurping Hollywood as the role model for trendy fashion. In 1999, WOW's Hollywood Fashion Machine on AMC explored the rocking shocking shagadelic movement of the '60s, with groovy period footage and comments from Twiggy and Mary Quant, unofficial queen of the mods. Yeah, seeing Twiggy reminded us of all that. (Watch the clip)

The Rooftop Tapes

As Anna Nicole Smith goes to Washington to visit the cute judges of the Supreme Court, we were reminded of the 2002 WOW documentary Dark Roots: The Unauthorized Anna Nicole. Smith's hillbilly family are dear sweet loving people who are too easily ridiculed, as in the case here of Shelly Cloud, Smith's cousin, who in this outtake from the doc was barely recovering from a night of excess when she agreed to meet the crew on the roof of the WOW offices. Watch the clip (19MB), though it might make you spit up a little in your mouth.

The Basement Tapes

The heavenly, irrepressible Tammy Faye Messner will never go away, and we heathens have God to thank for that. And we have Tammy Faye to thank for our thanking God. It's complicated. Whatever. Seems WOW's award-winning doc The Eyes of Tammy Faye will be airing on the Logo channel (let's assume Logo is an acronym for Lots of Gay Offerings, shall we?) this Saturday at 9PM, and then all through the week and into next weekend. We thought it might be charming to show you some footage of Tammy, Randy, Fenton, and RuPaul (who tells how the documentary came to be) in some outtakes random footage shot at the Sundance festival in 2000. Heather Mills will not want to watch the opening scene. (Here it is)

The Basement Tapes

In 1997, WOW made a film about HIV-positive comedian Steve Moore. Drop Dead Gorgeous aired on HBO and won a Cable Ace award for directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. Steve Moore is still alive and kidding, and sent us this email a few days ago:

I'm still performing here and there. The family is fine. Skeets just turned 80 and we had a big surprise party for him. Lois is in New York, Patty is in Boston, Belle is still an agent, Gary Mick is still slinging cocktails @ the Rooster Fish. We're just all getting so old. Can you believe I'm still alive????? I think about it all the time. I'm so blessed and my health is still good. I'm so very grateful.

(Watch a clip from the movie)

The Basement Tapes

And speaking of Boy George, he narrated the 2000 WOW series Video Killed the Radio Star: History of the Music Video for Channel 4 in the UK. In this clip, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and video director Trevor Horn talk about the shocking impact Frankie's "Relax" had on the music world in 1983, causing the video to be banned in Britain. The video hardly seems dated today and with the current moral climate it still holds the potential to be banned. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

In the now archive-rich, seemingly endless treasure trove that was Manhattan Cable, the WOW-made series for Channel 4 in the UK, we again find a segment for the Basement Tapes that is as timely as time itself. Back when Bret Easton Ellis's yuppie serial killer novel, American Psycho, was creeping people out while simultaneously boring them to death, Bill Judkins talked to Ellis at popular Wall Street pub Harry's about the 10 most frequently mentioned brand names in the book. It's timely because Ellis's latest novel, Lunar Park, is about a bestselling writer named Bret Easton Ellis who is done in by a novel called American Psycho. Oh, and that's WOW's faithful Laurie Pike introducing the clip, which you can watch here.

The Basement Tapes

In 2002, when World of Wonder was auditioning actors for Party Monster, plenty of hopefuls read for the camera and plenty of hopefuls had their hopes dashed. A couple of weeks ago we showed you Matthew Lawrence trying for the part of Keoki that eventually went to Wilmer Valderrama. Today, we dug around and found another Party Monster audition, in which Canadian actress Sandra Oh tries out for the part of Peter Gatien's Asian girlfriend, Alexandra. That part, which became non-Asian, eventually went to fellow Canadian Mia Kirshner. Of course, Oh went on to receive acclaim and awards for her role in Alexander Payne's Sideways, and is currently gaining fans for her glum pessimist first-year intern on ABC's Grey's Anatomy. Kirshner, by the way, will play murder victim Elizabeth Short in Brian DePalma's movie of James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia, due out next year. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes Extra

Adam Buxton, who co-created the British cult classic, The Adam & Joe Show, with comedy partner Joe Cornish, is taking Pavel, his most most intense and least talented persona, Eastern European avant-garde artist, Pavel, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in a one-manner called I, Pavel. Adam and Joe were discovered by Randy and Fenton and The Adam & Joe Show became a big Friday-night hit produced on Channel 4 by World of Wonder from 1996 to 2001. It paved the way for the somewhat similar antics of Ali G. Adam and Joe were stars, so it might seem a bit Memento of Buxton to be taking his solo show to Edinburgh, where new acts traditionally test the water. "I'm doing my career in reverse," Buxton told the Times in London. "Next year, I'm hoping to get a job in a bar. Year after that, maybe wash some tables."

I, Pavel is at the Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh starting August 3, which happens to be today, actually. Meanwhile, here's a clip of Adam doing his Ken Korda, producer of teen pop groups, from the Adam & Joe Show.

The Basement Tapes

Oh, around 1997, when Party Monster, the documentary, was being put together, some of the characters got together for dinner at Bowery Bar, the in-spot restaurant on Manhattan's Lower East Side. This outtake, featuring Michael Alig, James St. James, Richie Rich, and the now-deceased Gitsie, is so nicely lit and decorated that it's a shame it's almost unwatchable. The quartet met to discuss, um, something about nightlife, though it's never clear what and no one finishes a thought. Or listens. Or eats much. Perhaps they were high. (Pull up a chair)

The Basement Tapes

On March 22, 2002, Matthew Lawrence, Joey's little brother, came into the World of Wonder office and auditioned for the part of Keoki in Party Monster. The producers eventually decided to go in another direction, as they say, and gave the part to Wilmer Valderama. But here's Matthew's screentest in its entirety. Enjoy.

The Basement Tapes

In 2001, there was a rash of celebrity divorces, including that of Tom and Nicole. World of Wonder, ever its thumb pressed lightly on the pulse of pop culture, made a one-hour special on the topic for Channel 4 in the UK, called Divorce: Hollywood Style, narrated by Jane Wells. Now that Tom has engaged Katie to be his future ex wife, we thought it fitting to dust off that special and extract a clip for you. (Watch it here)

The Basement Tapes

Years ago, we don't recall when, early '90s maybe, but WOW was located in New York at the time, Randy and Fenton set up a mini studio in their office and anyone who dropped by could perform or otherwise mug for the camera. The resulting footage was called Stars of the Future, and it includes such personalities as Loretta Hogg, Tish and Snooky, Clark Render, Hapi Phace, Larry Tee, Rocco Primavera & the New Jersey Nightingales, LaHoma Van Zandt, Lady Bunny, RuPaul, and, um, Liza? Can you predict in retrospect who the stars will be? (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

WOW produced a show back in, um, 2000 or 2001 called For the Love of. . . , which aired on Channel 4 in the UK. It was hosted by Jon Ronson, who sat with a panel of experts and specialists knowledgeable on the episode's topic, whether it was extraterrestrials or circus clowns. This episode's topic was Scientology and there was nothing snarky or tongue-in-cheek about it. It was just shiny, happy people talking about their religion. The subject of dead Thetans never came up. (Watch the clip)

The Basement Tapes

In 1991, Bill Judkins interviewed charming New York socialite Nan Kempner for WOW's Manhattan Cable show that aired on Channel 4 in the UK. Watch the clip. Kempner died on Sunday in her Park Avenue apartment. She was 74.