Description
THE FRED ASTAIRE SHOW – 1968 – SERGIO MENDES – BARRIE CHASE
NBC-TV 2/7/1968 – Hosted by Fred Astaire, with guests Simon & Garfunkle, Barrie Chase, The Young-Holt Trio, Sergio Mendes & Brasil Í66, The Gordian Knot, The Herb Ross Dancers. ñFred Astaire hosts this surreal 1968 song-and-dance special which is heavily influenced by the psychedelic style of the era. Highlights include the following: an opening dance number by Astaire and Barrie Chase on a set which contains oversized flower petals; the Young-Holt Trio perform “Mellow Yellow” accompanied by Astaire’s dancing; Chase and the Herb Ross Dancers perform in front of abstract wooden sculptures to a haunting and distorted version of “Eleanor Rigby”; Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 perform “A Few of My Favorite Things” while a woman in a genie outfit kneels beside Mendes’ piano bench; Astaire, smoking a cigar, wearing a fake beard and moustache, joins Chase to perform a comic dance to “The Look of Love,” while surrounded by a bevy of female Herb Ross dancers wearing sparkling outfits; Simon & Garfunkel perform “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” and “America”; Simon & Garfunkel then sing “Punky’s Dilemma” — Simon’s elliptical ode to a floating cornflake — as Astaire and Chase perform a dance while garbed like futuristic flower children; Astaire, Chase, and the Herb Ross Dancers then perform a number to “Limehouse Blues,” on a set that approximates a Western town which glitters inexplicably; Astaire sings the songs “Shootin’ Box in Scotland” (Cole Porter), “I Love to Quarrel with You” (Irving Berlin), “Look to the Rainbow,” and “When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich.” The host then sings a traditional version of “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails,” before dancing to an updated version of the song with the help of “the groovy sound of The Gordian Knot.” The Gordian Knot — five musicians wearing white turtlenecks and beads — perform on a scaffold in front of a wall covered by large flowers while Astaire dances below in formal attireî. (50 minutes, with commercials edited out)
