Paul Lynde Halloween Special
While looking up information on KISS, I ran across this amazing lost piece of campamericana: they were once on a Paul Lynde TV special, where the four rockers sang “Beth” to Paul. As Uncle Arthur and as a guest on various bad variety shows, Paul Lynde warped my mind as a kid in the seventies. I used to watch the Donnie and Marie show regularly, not because I enjoyed them, but because Lynde was likely to show up.
But I never saw The Paul Lynde Halloween Special. Phil Hall describes it aptly on Film Threat:
The saving grace to this madness is Paul Lynde. It is difficult to capture his style, since he was very much a performer who needed to be seen and heard in order to be truly appreciated. With his bitchy sing-song voice, a head that shook slightly while talking, eyes that narrowed with undisguised malice and lips that sneered into a snarl, Lynde was truly the queen from hell and his one-liners and putdowns were masterworks of gay venom. When Betty White makes a cameo appearance as the winner of a witch’s beauty contest, Lynde remarks how much that particular witch resembled Betty White. Then he paused, grimaced, and bleated: “But then again, so many witches do!” Ouch!!!
Unfortunately, the extension of copyright since 1976 makes it unlikely anyone will spend the money on song rights necessary to bring this to DVD.
- August 6, 2007: Paul Lynde Halloween Special DVD
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I’d heard rumors that the Paul Lynde Halloween Special was actually going to be released on DVD this fall, but didn’t believe it. It’s up on Amazon now, though, and set to be released on October 2! I hope that this has all of the musical acts intact, no matter how embarrassing.
Paul Lynde remembered has clips from the show in their video section.
- Muppets DVD falls to copyright issues
- The Muppets DVD cuts several scenes, almost all of which are musical scenes.
- Paul Lynde at Wikipedia
- “Q: You’re the world’s most popular fruit. What are you?” “Lynde: Humble.” If you’ve never heard Paul Lynde, try to find a recording of his voice before you read these quotes.
- The Paul Lynde Halloween Special
- “One normally does not associate Halloween with incoherent homosexual anarchy, yet the tricks and treats from ‘The Paul Lynde Halloween Special’ take the autumnal spookfest and give it a new queer meaning. And by ‘queer’ I mean every possible definition of the word.”