MovieChat Forums > SCTV Network 90 (1981) Discussion > did johnny larue hate street beef or not...

did johnny larue hate street beef or not?


Guy cabbilarro forced Johnny laRue into hosting street beef. every time that Johnny does that show, he tried to avoid hosting it. However, in the episode "days of the week/ street beef", at the end when Johnny gets his bodyguard to help him negotiate deals, he said that he wanted street beef on television 7 nights a week. This is odd for somebody who kept whining about doing the show.

Also, in addition to wanting the show on every night, he wanted to do another show in which he traveled to different parts of the country, and he left soon after he made his deal, probably packing right away. I wonder how he would have expected to do both street beef (a live show) and a show that involved travling at the same time. he never said anything about getting another host.

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(shrugs) Well, one of the running jokes (as I recall) was that LaRue was too much of an idiot to do much else on television (his track record not being that..outstanding), so "Street Beef" was pretty much all he could get. Another joke was that LaRue was helplessly narcissistic. So, I'd say he just wanted to get himself on TV as much as he could, and, if the only way he could manage this was to settle for "Street Beef", I imagine he was willing to sacrifice his comfort at the altar of fame.

On the other hand, he may have been hoping that, faced with two alternatives, SCTV would opt for the cross-country show and axe "Street Beef". This way, LaRue would stay on TV but wouldn't have to put up with that awful show anymore.

That's just what I think, anyway. :)

-Brett

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I think he held onto it because it was all he had and he was a tremendous failure with anything else that had meant anything to him.

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Johnny originally didn't have a problem with the idea of Street Beef...until Guy said that it would have no budget.

A bigger error occurs in The People's Global Golden Choice Awards show (#99). The glowing cabbage special effect from Zontar (#90) is the effect that ends up winning. The error is that the invasion wasn't a show, but part of "reality" that the studio characters experience.

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I don't think that was a continuity error as much as a "continuity eh, whatever".

Also, I agree with you on LaRue just hating to be part of something with such low-production values, as he saw himself as the Orson Welles of Melonville.

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I agree. If you think too hard about it, you'll say, "Wait, didn't that happen at the studio when they were filming that special with Lorne Greene...?" And they say, "Oh, no, that was a movie all the time!" I just enjoy the idea of fixing an awards show so blatantly that even Zontar would win.

Flat, drab passion meanders across the screen!

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An awards show fixed? Surely you jest!

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