Shark Bytes

LOL, the Amazon add on this page is for "The New Captain Underpants Colle tion". Exactly

Jumped from day one because it was incredibly cheesy.....however, I caught a couple scenes of this show recently on VH-1's "I Love The 70's", and DAMN.....Toni Tennille was quite a babe....

Toni Tennille & Daryl Dragon were two of the finest musicians paired together in 1970's "lite" you could find. Toni had one of the strongest, powerhouse voices anywhere, while her husband, Daryl, could create keyboard sounds like no one else. Their MUSIC has stood the test of time (with the exception of the love-it or loathe-it "Muskrat Love"). The show on the other hand did have it's share of groaners (the Bionic Watermelon and Masterjoke Theatre were really lame.) However, their network ABC forced the comedy issue against their wishes, thereby resulting in endless hat jokes and the like. Also, when half of the guest stars on the variety show are from the same network's sitcoms, you know that the show is being used as cheap advertising for the "Happy Days," "Welcome Back, Kotter," and "What's Happening!!" junk heaps. (I for one thought the captain's understatement was the perfect foil to Toni's charismatic, full steam ahead stage persona.) Nevertheless, if you tuned into this show, chances are you knew what you were going to get: cheap laughs, but GREAT music!!!

I met the Captain & Tennille in 1975 when they swung through a radio station I was working at on a record promo tour. We used to get wanna-bees in the station every week wanting us to play their stuff..Would have thrown it in the garbage with the rest except it was on a hot label at the time (A&M records) and the tune wasn't bad. "Love will keep us together". Toni was a smokin hottie but the Captain was just plain weird. Creeped me out. Didn't or couldn't talk...never said a thing. Just a stoned looking stare thru those stupid dark glasses. I think if Toni had jettisoned him early on she could have had a career that may have gone places besides the "where are they now" articles in Rolling Stone..

This show was a major contributing factor to the demise of the variety show! "Muskrat Love"-one of the very worst songs ever written,and the quintessential shark-jump!

The Captain and Tennille were squeaky clean and obviously decent people. That alone makes them dated. I enjoyed the show for what it was, sweet, fun, silly entertainment. That was a time when the goal was to make the audience feel good and forget their troubles. However,Muskrat Love has to be one of the worst songs of all time. A love song about rodents? Only in the seventies.

I hated the way the "Captain" grunted along to the music. That was talent?

A hideous, formulaic example of the hideous, formulaic 70s variety show. Concocted purely to cash in on C&T's bland proto-lite-rock music, this thing is among a number of shows that could potentially force me to blind myself with a crab fork if it were shown to me today. Blandness heaped on blandness, unfunny sketches, and music that causes more brain damage than mercury vapor. About the only thing worse than this in the same genre would be "Pink Lady and Jeff".

The Captain & Tennille jumped the shark from day one. Face it folks, the only reason these people got a show was because they were enjoying their 4th top 10 hit in a row (soon to be 5th with "Muskrat Love"). Don't get me wrong; I have their excellent greatest hits CD from Hippo Records (the Ultimate Collection). I just don't think they had a good fit for TV. The schtick about the Captain's silence got old fast. They were a long way from "the square Sonny & Cher" (to quote a People magazine cover on them). I get the bonus points on "Muskrat Love". It was originally recorded by America. Their version bombed in 1973, yet C & T took their version to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1976. Fortunately for them, the TV show didn't last too long; unfortunately for them, their string of hit singles began to peter out at about the same time.

I actually liked "Captain and Tennille" as a recording act. A lot. Toni was, and is, a terrific singer and personality with a great feel for jazz as well as pop-rock (although she didn't have to cover "Shop Around", for one). "Love Will Keep Us Together" was a great, upbeat pop tune, of course, and I also actually liked "Muskrat Love"- I thought it was very cute. (Bonus points if you know who wrote and recorded this song first!) But the act just didn't work on this incredibly cheesy, even by cheesy '70s standards, TV show. In real life, Daryl isn't the dorky guy you saw on the show; he's very warm and a great keyboardist. (Daryl's dad was the long-time Hollywood Bowl/CBS Orchestra maestro.) The couple's problem was, of course, the kind of material they had to record and perform on LP and on the show, plus much-less-talented guests. They may have jumped on the air from Day One, and they may have jumped on record after "Love Will Keep Us Together", but I still find the Captain and Tennille very likable and listenable. Toni also made a couple of very respectable solo LPs with well-done jazz standards. Hey, I'd rather listen to a "Captain and Tennille's Greatest Hits" set than a lot of what's out there today (but not the video- who'd want to see that?) NB- "Muskrat Love" was an America B-side when the duo covered it, but the original was by Texan Willis Allan Ramsey- a one-album wonder who influenced both Jimmy Buffett and Lyle Lovett. Anyone know where he is?

I remember this show because as a three-year-old, I had a weird obsession with Muskrat Love. I must remember to apologize to my mom next time I talk to her, as I must have played the single over and over on my kiddie record player. But to the person who wondered what happened to the Captain & Tenille - they are still together and did a commercial for Kohls (I think it was Kohls) this past holiday featuring Love will keep us together.

The only reason I ever watched this show was that Toni Tenille was a babe. Hey, to an 11 year old kid, that big smile and that long hair was all that was needed to make a show good. The music wasn't bad, and I will admit that they were great keyboard players. But Toni was so cute. I wonder whatever happened to them...

Cheesy. Downright cheesy. And why didn't the Captain EVER crack a smile?

Um. Well, I have a confession to make. I was 11 when this show aired and in those days, I was a HUGE, RABID C&T fan. Nobody could say a discouraging word about them without incurring my rather noisy wrath. Needless to say, I watched every episode of this show faithfully, and even put most of the episodes on cassette tape (this was pre-VCR days). To this day I still have the tapes, otherwise I wouldn't remember the series as well as I do - though I haven't listened to them in many years now and I don't know if they're even still playable. C&T were certainly talented musicians and still are...but ABC tried to push them into becoming comedians too, and that wasn't their fault. So I suppose the series JTS from Day One, but it wasn't because of the music, either C&T's or that of guest stars (Bread! Chaka Khan with "Rufus"! Heart! England Dan & John Ford Coley! And even Donny Most!!!). It was because of the incredibly hideous comedy sketches: Daryl Dragon having to tell "hat jokes" (what so-called genius came up with that??). The aforementioned Bionic Watermelon. Pratfall-filled skits based on verses from the old song "Secret Agent Man." The huge pie fight on the final episode (I think that may have been at least partly unscripted). And the list goes on. I LOVED this in 1976-77. Today I wonder what made me such a fanatic about it. It's cute for the nostalgia value, but I'm not a C&T fan anymore though I'd much rather listen to them than most of the lame excuses for music that you hear today. I wonder if I'll ever listen to those old cassettes again!! : ) (7/21/2003)

I was too young at the time to realize how bad this was, but I remember being disappointed when we first heard the Captain speak with his normal voice. They had a running gag originally that when he spoke, he spoke in a synthesizer or vocoder distorted voice. Finally they stopped and the fun was gone.