Shark Bytes

"Is there life after Elvis/ I hope so." Could it be any better?

i was beginning to think i dreamed that show!
wasn't there a Kenny Rogers Neighbourhood sketch?
and didn't Miss Hooks play "Tootsie Plunkette"?
maybe there is one hip person – highly unlikely as it seems - working somewhere in the bowels of CNN, TBS who could get this stuff on CD

"I sold my body to science
And with the fifty dollars they gave
I made a payment on a major appliance".

Where else but with Bill Tush could you find something like that??!!

I will add to the chorus of fans. Tush was on par to the early SCTV - no budget ensemble comedy with great writing and performing! A high point for me was the educational film "A Visit To A Non-Dairy" that showed how non-dairy products were made! Before it was shown the cast ran screaming through the set in a panic shrieking "...we'll all be schooled! WE'LL ALL BE SCHOOLED!!!!!" The film had skips and scratched built in and they got a real voice over actor with the perfect "pedantic" sound. I was happy to see Jan Hooks and the Turners resurface on SNL years later and contribute to a great run of shows that I actually preferred to 1st gen SNL!

Ditto to all the previous posts. We still quote the funeral sketch, Tammy Jean and her "inspirational Calvin Kleins" and "I saw the Glory and it cleaned my rug..." and I have always referred to my sister-in-law and "the ravishing Darla." Who can we get to release this little gem? It was funnier by far than any similar show, including the first SNL.

This was a great show. Jan Hooks was clearly a future star, but others, particularly the Turners, made good contributions too. Hooks was fabulous, Tammy Jean, the Ravishing Dahrla, the cheerleader at Billy Sol Estes High School. Nobody could chew gum like Jan Hooks.

As previously mentioned, Bill Tush was on the early late news on WTCG Atlanta 17 (pre TBS days). As a kid in Junior high, I would stay up into the wee hours of the morning just to watch him after the late movie or after a Braves game on the west coast. Bill had a female co-host of the news whom he would endlessly torture during the show. Later she was replaced by Liz Wichersham who at the time needed some serious on camera speech lessons. One time Bill did an entire news cast with his female sidekick at the anchor desk while Bill stood outside next to the interstate waiting for action on a new building being built. In one news report Bill spent the entire half hour questioning if his female side-kick had body odor and yet another time when she was on vacation, he announced that the reason she was gone was she was undergoing a sex-change operation! In one of his greatest news cast ever, he came up with the story that the news was being taken over by enemy invaders (while Bill ducked thru the studio wearing army fatigues). After the news, the two or three minute segment of Brother Gold was priceless. One memorable sermon was based entirely on the Christmas carol "Deck the Halls". Brother Gold read "Fa la la la la la la la la..." look confused and then turn the page only happily to read "lolly". Perhaps the craziest incredible newscast of all time all taking place while the majority of America was sleeping! thanks to this website i did a search on Bill Tush. Here are some clips from his newscast!!!! http://www.billtush.com/update.html remember.. these clips were actually broadcast during the news!

This show was wonderfully camp, corny, low brow, and outright hilarious. Watching it I just knew that Jan Hooks would emerge a star one day. I still have several episodes on tape, and still watch them now and again and laugh my head off. I'm surprised that it only lasted one season -- I thought it was on longer. I'd love to see each and every episode again, and those who watched it I'm sure feel the same.

I am in agreement with the other commentators that “The Bill Tush Show” never “Jumped the Shark”. It was just too funny and intelligent for the “guys in the ties” who took over CNN. In homage to Tush’s contribution as THE inspiration for the creation of CNN, he was kept on as an “entertainment” reporter until his “retirement”. (The “suits” finally won.) The brilliance and ratings of his original (VERY original) newscast on WTBS was what really inspired Ted Turner to start an all-news national channel. And you didn’t have to be stoned or sleep-deprived to enjoy it. I live in Atlanta and would regularly get up at 6 am just to watch his news. (I now only watch Jon Stewart at 11 pm since that is the only source of honest news on the air at that time.) His newscast with a dog as his co-anchor is THE classic moment of television satire. The stories were read off-camera as the dog tried to deal with the peanut butter in his mouth. You did NOT have to be there to appreciate its brilliance. Thank you for letting me share.

I'm glad that my family weren't the only Tush! watchers out there. The "poet" giving the commencement speech was none other than Edgar Rice Pilaf. The name of Jan Hooks' character on Captain Space was The Ravishing Darla. The whole show was just great. Too bad Comedy Central hasn't picked it up.

Possibly the most consistent sketch comedy program EVER. Favorite sketch by far was a Lost in Space parody with Tush as the commander and Hooks as the Communications Officer (a la "Star Trek's" Uhura). In one memorable episode the ship is over-run by high-school guidance counselors. As their leader (attired appropriately in a baby blue sweater vest) gloated over his plan to send the entire crew to trade schools, Hooks (totally dead-pan as only she can do) looked into the camera and gasped, "We'll all be skilled!" The crew was saved by the chief engineer my some convoluted plot twist, I honestly don't remember - I was laughing too hard. The crisis ended and the crew gathered 'round the engineer with Tush asking how he knew the weakness in the evil plan. "It was just a hunch...and here he is now." ...and Quasimodo (sp?) walks in from the wings. Funny. Damned funny.

I'm so glad other people remember this show. My favorite sketch was a graduation scene in which the commencement speaker quotes "The Bells" poem. So he's reading the speech: "the tinntinabulation of the bells, bells, bells, bells (long pause, turns to next page of speech) uh, bells." Man, that was funny.

We in North Dakota must have been among the earliest areas to get cable. I watched wtcg-atlanta starting in 1975. That's where I was exposed to the lunacy of Bill Tush. He was just a blast to watch after smoking a little and pigging out with some ho-hos!

the show never jumped-and tush's "late night early news"-as it was called on wtcg-17 in the mid and late 70s was even better and just as funny as any thing on snl or mad tv today,in those days before cable or the superstation(in the mid 70s wtcg was the only 24hr tv broadcast in atlanta,every thing else was off the air by 2a.m.) they always showed a rerun of the days braves baseball or hawks basketball game or alternating reruns of cannon or barnaby jones late at night followed by bill tush' newscast which was full of drug and sex references-and oddball humor like brother gold,a reverend who delivered his fire and brimstone sermon with the lyrics from top 40 songs,the weather girl who would read the weather page out of the back of the newspaper while in the toilet smoking, or the sidespliting police blotter that had the most bizarre and funny crimes from actual local police reports.most native atlantans remember tush's newscast from the 70s.

I remember Bill Tush doing the late night news on WTCG-Atlanta back about 1976 prior to Turner buying the station. Funny, funny stuff. One Easter morning broadcast (about 2:00am), Bill did the entire show dressed in a rabbit outfit.