Tag Archives: Basement Tapes


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The Basement Tapes

October 25, 2007 at 10:13 pm

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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.




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The Basement Tapes

September 14, 2007 at 4:38 am

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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.)




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The Basement Tapes

September 13, 2007 at 4:28 am

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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.




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The Basement Tapes/Recently Dead

December 12, 2006 at 4:25 am

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recently dead Basement Tapes

recently dead Basement Tapes

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)



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The Basement Tapes

November 29, 2006 at 5:42 pm

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Basement Tapes

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.



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The Basement Tapes

November 6, 2006 at 9:17 pm

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Music Basement Tapes

Music 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)



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The Basement Tapes

October 26, 2006 at 7:10 pm

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Enclosure Basement Tapes

Enclosure 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)



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The Basement Tapes

October 15, 2006 at 8:55 pm

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Pop Culture Enclosure Basement Tapes

Pop Culture Enclosure 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)



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