Shark Bytes
I wrote and produced no soap,radio and am amazed and delighted that anyone - my kids included - can remember it at all - let alone so specifically. I laughed at myself when the submarine popped out - and remember Yukon Dan fondly. I also liked the DIrty old Bum who played mozart and the basketball head jury. ah - well - it was kinda nice seeing these quick memories fly by.
Never jumped: Sitcom/variety/stream of conscience program! Salvadore Dali or Ernie Kovacs would have felt welcome here. Somebody please make a sequel series.
Long live Yukon Dan!
Long live Yukon Dan!
i still sing that song in my head yukon dan was a fighting man who lived in the northern woods i had this recorded on vhs years ago and my jerk off brother recorded "kingdom of the spider" over it was the only time i thought about smothering him with a pillow in his sleep for doing this i would pay dearley to get that one episode
The Yukon Dan song went (in part) "Yukon Dan was a fighting man, what do you think of that? He never shaved and he seldom bathed, and he wore a stupid hat" I was in 6th grade when this show was on. I and a kid that I sat with on the bus would discuss the episodes. Besides that one guy, I didn't know anybody had ever seen it. I saw it before I ever saw "Flying Circus" and when I did it was clear "Radio" was an attempt at that kind of unplotted stream-of-consciousness show. By the way (Sorry, I spell things out), the term "no soap radio" refers to radio stations of the past that did not carry SOAP OPERAS, not soap commercials.
I guess when all 13 episodes are released on DVD and we can see more than the 4 or 5 ABC aired then wee will know for sure if this series jumped after a few episodes or not. Actualy, this was sort of a shark jumping period for ABC, who ran one brilliant cmedy after another in this same Thursdaynight timeslot only to cancel them after a few episodes. Just before this show premiered, Police Squad was in it's timeslot. But after 6 episodes they cancelled it. No Soap Radio was brought in to replace it and only lasted a few weeks. In both cases each show got good ratings, but ABC canceled them because they felt that their was no way these shows could maintain their level of comedy, or some stupid reason like that. But the big reason was that these shows were unable to beat NBC's Thursday night hit, "Fame". Had they only waited a few months for the ratings on Fame to crash and NBC to cancel it then they would have had two great comedies to build their own must-see-Thursday. instead they left the door open for NBC's "Cosby Show". CBS's show in the same timeslot was Magnum P.I.] I never got to watch "Police Squad" because my sister wanted to watch "Fame", and it was not until a few weeks in that she decided that she didn't really like it. The same week that I got to watch "Police Squad" was the same week I found out it was no longer on, so I had mixed feelings watching the first episode of "No Soap, Radio", angry that it was replacing something I wanted to see, but thinking it was very funny. This was also the period between 1980 and 1983 when "Monty Python.." was not available to PBS, so this was the only program on at the time that had that style of comedy. [ Many of the critics at the time believed that the show was an attempt to cross "Monty Python.." with "Faulty Towers" ] In response to other comments here on the Yukon Dan sketch [ which I am thought was called Yukon Jack, but not having seen the show in years, am not 100% sure ] it began when Steve turns on the television his favorite show, which is about a Grizzly Adams type character. I think the theme of the show was the same as mentioned here [ or very close ]. It opens with Yukon rowing his canoe down a stream while someone sings the theme song. As the song gets more insulting he gets more angry, looking up from time to time in the direction where it is coming from. When they get to the ending of the theme where they sing "And he wore a stupid hat!" Yukon rips his coonskin hat off and throws it down in anger. A Periscope pops up out of the water and the show cuts to the inside of a Japanese WWII sub. They look at a chart that has the profile of different ships and when they don't see him they pull it down a little more and it has the profile of Yukon Jack on it. The Sailors all call out "Yukon Jack? Ewwwww!" and hold their noses. They fire a torpedo at him and blow him up. A week later the sub shows up again when the periscope pops up out of a manhole and spots an old lady on a bench. They pull down the same chart, this time with Yukon Jack's profile crossed out, then pull it down a little more and it has the profile of the old lady sitting on the bench. They try firing a torpedo at her as well but miss. The old lady gets a hold of a nuclear bomb and drops it down the sewer, blowing up the sub. That was another thing brilliant about the show, continuing a sketch a week later.
For some reason i do remember one of the characters in the show, Yukon Dan. He even had his own theme song: Oh, Yukon Dan was a fighting man And he lived in the Northern Wood, His heart was as pure as the fallen snow, But his hygiene wasn't so good. He never shaved, and seldom bathed, now what do you think of that? His breath could make a grizzly cry, And he wore a stupid hat.
I remember a Japanese submarine in a river and when the sub commander raised the periscope they targeted some guy named "Yukon Dan." There was a cool song that was played before he was blown up by the submarine. I think the last part of it was: "his breath could make a grizzly cry and he wore a stupid hat."
The title has nothing to do with no-commercial radio. It's actually the punch-line of an infamous non-joke joke. There are a lot of variations, but it basically goes something like "Two penguins are sitting in a bathtub. One penguin says to the other, 'Please pass the soap.' The other penguin replies, 'No soap. Radio.'" Like I said, it's a non-joke joke. The show itself was brilliant. It was set in the run-down Pelican Hotel, run by Steve Guttenberg. Other stars were Bill Dana, Stuart Pankin, and Edie McClurg. My favorite bits were the basketball-head jury, and the fake show-within-a-show called "Snail Boy".
I only saw one episode and wish I'd seen the rest. Someone wrote to Radio Times saying they wanted to see more episodes of No Soap Radio, and the editor replied "Impossible. Those four episodes were the only ones made.". So you either like the series or you didn't. The title refers to non-commercial radio stations, ie no soap commercials.
The best part was the fire fighter with the Axe inside of a glass cage. Of course it said IN CASE OF FIRE BREAK GLASS.
I remember this show. It did only last about 4 episodes and, at least once or twice, followed the equally brilliant "Police Squad!" on ABC. The show was surreal, man!
Although it was on for a few episodes, I still remember the following. A boy scout troupe rented a room that opened up to the great outdoors; a bunch of monks went into a room where they had a "roast" of a monk with jokes like the monk got thank you notes for taking his vow of celibacy. Please, someone, tell us where we can find these episodes!
How can a program JTS when it's seen by nearly no-one, lasts only a handful of episodes & is impossible to pin down?! All I recall is the setting (hotel), an appearance by Bill Dana, & an unending stream of surreal non-sequitur gags. Also, didn't Rich Hall of SNL/Not Necessarily the News/Sniglets fame have something to do with this?
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