Tv Party: Color Show

Writer and scenester Glenn O'Brien decided to improve the production values of his public access television show TV Party in its final season in 1982 -- the show, which featured music and conversation focusing on the New York Downtown alternative scene, jumped from black and white to color, and on Glenn O'Brien's TV Party: The Everything For Sale Show, O'Brien periodically stops the show to present entertainingly clumsy commercials for bookstores, nightclubs and indie record labels based in New York City so he can pay for the upgrade. The archival videotape of the live broadcast has been transferred to disc in its original full-frame aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and while the image quality is better than some of the earlier installments from the show, this is still a low-budget public access production and looks like it, with the color balance vivid but a bit unrealistic, the camerawork and video effects primitive by contemporary standards, and the tape showing signs of less-than-optimal storage conditions. The audio has been mastered in Dolby Digital Stereo (retaining the original monophonic sound mix), and the quality is rough at best, with the live sound mix wavering from audible to incomprehensible at a moment's notice and the mikes often creating as much noise as they capture. The interviews and performances are in English, with no multiple language options or subtitles included. As a bonus, this release includes excerpts from other episodes of TV Party, effectively doubling the running time of the disc. Glenn O'Brien's TV Party: The Everything For Sale Show is an accurate, warts-and-all replication of what the show looked like when it crept through New York's cable TV system in 1982, and it's an interesting historical nugget for anyone with an interest in the Big Apple's New Wave scene at the time, though the material is tedious as often as it's entertaining.