Lynda Carter's Rock 'n Roll Fantasy

March 24, 2017 9:34 PM

Lynda Carter's Rock 'n Roll Fantasy (SLYT)
posted by Confess, Fletch (38 comments total)

Those Mexican women and their fantastic rock!
posted by kadmilos at 9:39 PM on March 24, 2017

Wow. I'm not sure what to say. I lasted until the banana bit.
posted by -t at 10:04 PM on March 24, 2017

You know, if I'm going to be look-myself-in-the-eye, middle of the night, in vino veritas honest with myself, I think I probably have to admit that if I was going to try to be rock and roll, this might be as close to rock and roll as I personally would be able to get.

It's kind of like when Dustin Hoffman first got into drag and realized he could never be a beautiful woman.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:08 PM on March 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

It makes me Wonder.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:09 PM on March 24, 2017

Lynda also voiced Magnolia the lounge singer in Fallout 4, and sings five songs that she wrote herself. While one of the songs contains a bushel of references to the Fallout franchise and Fallout 4 specifically, the other 4 are just straight up jazzy numbers that she's added to her set for the concerts she sometimes performs.

It's not the first time she's lent her voice to a Bethesda Studios game, having also appeared in the Elder Scrolls titles from Morrowind through Skyrim and also Elder Scrolls Online. It helps that her husband is the CEO of ZeniMax Media, Bethesda's parent company.
posted by radwolf76 at 10:21 PM on March 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

For context, I love the fact that there is none. By the time we got to Bette and the gorillas, I concluded I was watching the half-time show from an early 80's Super Bowl whose memory I couldn't have possibly suppressed (did you see that Kiss outfit?) so I must have missed to go outside and toss the pigskin with Dad or something. But then the lights went up and Ms. Carter is receiving a standing ovation from a packed Carnegie Hall. It's Lynda Carters Rock 'n Roll Fantasy. I'm just struggling to make sense of it.
posted by bunbury at 10:33 PM on March 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Discogs page
posted by hippybear at 10:34 PM on March 24, 2017

It's hard to believe that KISS used to be exhibit A in Satanic corruption via rock music, when they're wearing all those feathers and passing Linda Carter around like a debutante at her coming out ball.
posted by fatbird at 12:34 AM on March 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

On top of everything else, she gets the lyrics wrong in that Tina Turner song. It's not "working for my man every night and day", it's "working for the man every night and day". Different thing entirely.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:24 AM on March 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

OK, that was SERIOUSLY trippy. I don't recall ever seeing it before, and I know I never want to see it again. No offense to the OP. I'm glad I caught a glimpse of just how awful things can be. Yikes!
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 2:55 AM on March 25, 2017

A duet with Klaus seems like something that also never should have been imagined but it was the first thing I thought of. Sorry.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:32 AM on March 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Haven't watched this (am about to) - but if there is a segment involving a bunch of Army cadets and the song "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover", then I remember seeing this during the time of original broadcast.

And that means that the context was "late 70's".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:20 AM on March 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

(Post watch)

Ah, it's just one number.

I suspect this may have been the opening number to the hour-long musical revue I remember seeing. A lot of entertainers did hourlong one-off specials like that in the 70s, with Vegas-revue formats. I think Linda Carter's was in 77 or 78.

Now I wanna go find that Army Cadet clip I saw....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:27 AM on March 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

the problem is all inside your head, cadet....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:31 AM on March 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

I kept thinking of Maria Bamford having a rock and roll fantasy during this. Wow.
posted by shortyJBot at 4:54 AM on March 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

This. This type of shit from the 70s is why I'm the way I am. Donny and Marie, people. I had the dolls. 1980 - I somehow bamboozled my dad into letting me see Xanadu in the theater multiple times. I'm still fucking pissed off we don't have roller skating muses.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 5:02 AM on March 25, 2017 [17 favorites]

Shatner-esque (and that's a compliment).
posted by MC Wafflestick at 5:11 AM on March 25, 2017

Lynda Carter was the woman who made the young jonmc realize that he liked women.
posted by jonmc at 5:45 AM on March 25, 2017 [8 favorites]

Any video that opens with an AC Cobra is by definition a good video.
posted by tommasz at 6:09 AM on March 25, 2017

Oh Linda, you are part of every drag queen's fantasy.
posted by Catblack at 6:43 AM on March 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Good, but not as good as Lynda Carter's Holiday in Cambodia!
posted by mondo dentro at 7:15 AM on March 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

A duet with Klaus seems like something that also never should have been imagined but it was the first thing I thought of. Sorry.

I saw this, and that there was a link. And I said to myself, "Hey, self, someone doing a duet with Klaus Meine? That could be interesting if probably terrible."

I was dissapoint.

Gotta give Carter credit though -- she threw herself into that 100\%. She committed to that shit.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:19 AM on March 25, 2017

Well, that was...interesting.

There were so many variety shows and specials back then, and invariably some of the most cringe-worthy moments were when someone decided to be "cool and with it" by singing rock. For every teen that watched Donny & Marie there were ten thousand that left living rooms when they attempted to "rock". I suppose the modern day equivalent would be Jimmy Fallon's smug white-boy hip-hop covers.
posted by Ber at 7:21 AM on March 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Lynda Carter was the woman who made the young jonmc realize that he liked women.

Not Erin Grey or Jan Smithers? HERETIC! TRAITOR!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:23 AM on March 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

Lynda also voiced Magnolia the lounge singer in Fallout 4, and sings five songs that she wrote herself.

Yeah, she may not have been born for the rock & roll life, but she's one hell of a torch singer. Seriously, y'all owe it to yourselves to check out those Magnolia songs.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:28 AM on March 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mr. BlahLaLa was on the crew of Wonder Woman and aside from saying that Lynda was extremely kind and wonderful to work with, he has never gotten over the sight of her in her WW outfit. It's been, like, 40 years and she's still his platonic ideal of a woman. (He's nice about it, though. 'Cause I ain't Wonder Woman.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:37 AM on March 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

Okay. This came up on my YouTube feed yesterday and I watched it before this fpp came up. Was this a coincidence or is YouTube doing some weird Wonder Woman promo thing?
posted by queensissy at 9:18 AM on March 25, 2017

SOOOO much cocaine. So much. When I see stuff from the mid 70s-early 80s now, I'm just like, I'm lucky I was a small child and didn't get it.
posted by droplet at 9:37 AM on March 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

I have been hunting IMDB for the past few minutes and discovered some things:

1. Lynda Carter actually had two such specials, neither in the 70s. Her first was in 1980, and she was introduced by Wonder Woman.

2. The one with the "50 ways" segment was from her second one, "Street Life," that aired in 1982.

3. Apparently, the producers didn't know that the cadets were going to be using actual bayonets during the sequence, and when they were twirling them behind her some of the sharp edges shaved sequins off her butt.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:03 AM on March 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

When I see stuff from the mid 70s-early 80s now, I'm just like, I'm lucky I was a small child and didn't get it.

I was just old enough to think it was normal. I'm always struck, like in this video, at the mixture of old school corny vaudeville mixed with high weirdness and sexuality that was pretty much a part of everything.

But also realize that often whenever people talk about how weird things were in the past they just aren't recognizing that those things are still happening in a slightly altered form under a different name.

Exhibit A.
posted by bongo_x at 10:43 AM on March 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

MetaFilter: the mixture of old school corny vaudeville mixed with high weirdness and sexuality that was pretty much a part of everything.
posted by hippybear at 11:49 AM on March 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Actually, Bongo, I think that that kind of thing is where these television specials came from. That kind of Vegas revue has always kind of been a thing, and the 70s and 80s was just them trying to televise it for a while.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:06 PM on March 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

So I was born in 68. So wholesome family television throughout the 70s was a staple of the staunchly Presbyterian household in which I grew up. Let's see how many of these I can name: Captain & Tennille, Donny & Marie, Sonny & Cher, Shields & Yarnell... it's a festival of ampersands! I feel like there are three or four more that are just on the edge of my memory. Did the Oak Ridge Boys have a series for a while? Barbara Mandrell? We haven't even touched on Hee Haw or Lawrence Welk yet. And of course Smothers Brothers or Laugh In...

These, of course, grew out of early live television, things like Ed Sullivan and even he had predecessors. And before them Milton Berle and Jack Benny...

And yeah, there were a lot of sort of one-off or two-off specials, or maybe an annual special for several years. I want to say people like Rita Moreno, Charo, Angie Dickenson (?)... We watched a ton of this kind of television but most of it is fuzzing out on me other than the longer running series.

Oh, and The Muppet Show! Which somehow transcends the genre.
posted by hippybear at 1:15 PM on March 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

Wow. Uh. I'm pretty sure I sprained my coke muscle watching that. Seconding the kudos to her commitment, there's no getting out of there alive so she went for it.

Wow. It's like popular culture just set itself on fire for no reason.
posted by petebest at 1:56 PM on March 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's hard to believe that KISS used to be exhibit A in Satanic corruption via rock music, when they're wearing all those feathers and passing Linda Carter around like a debutante at her coming out ball.

That wasn't really KISS ya know.
posted by Liquidwolf at 3:33 PM on March 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

Oh, my. Lynda Carter. Yes.
posted by lon_star at 3:49 PM on March 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wow- serious props to Carter. The jazz hands were a little bizarre but overall what a great work in a really weird time. It's so hard to see / hear the cool new sounds when you're not actively looking so I can't find fault with such tv insanity.

Fun stuff, thanks.
posted by mrzz at 6:43 PM on March 25, 2017

It's been, like, 40 years and she's still his platonic ideal of a woman.
Me, too. When I was a little girl, she was everything I wanted to grow up to be. I didn't catch Wonder Woman in first run, but I ate up the reruns every chance I could get, and scoured the TV Guide for guest appearances.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:55 PM on March 25, 2017