The Neil Sedaka Touch
The Neil Sedaka Touch
THE NEIL SEDAKA TOUCH, a 1980 music special featuring special guests Andy Gibb, Dara Sedaka, and The Captain and Tennille. This is outtakes from the original 60 minute program.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
Opening titles. Neil Sedaka plays clear Lucite piano and sings "That's When The Music Takes Me" with backup singer performing. Female announcer exclaims "The Neil Sedaka Touch!" and lists the special guests stars as their names appear on screen. Background singers (two Caucasian, two African-American) clad in early-eighties chic: men in earth-toned suits, women in polyester dresses, red dresses and "Members Only" jackets. Sedaka shakes hand with dancers circling his piano.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
The Captain and Tennille lip sync to their recording of Sedaka's "You Never Done It Like That." In front of an audience on an unadorned stage, Toni Tennille wears a silvery floor-length gown and emotes in a sultry manner as The Captain (Darryl Dragon, surprisingly not wearing his usual captain's hat) mimes playing his keyboard, sometimes hitting the keys like a piano, other times twiddling the knobs synthesizer-style.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
The unidentified African-American male sings an excerpt from Sedaka's composition "Lonely Night (Angel Face)."
The Neil Sedaka Touch
Neil Sedaka sings and excerpt from his 1974 hit "Sad Eyes." The stage setting is a sort of "Copacabana" scene, with Sedaka in a honky-tonk pianist costume (complete with black vest and slacks and a red garter on his sleeve) in front of a three-panel room divider and potted ferns. Sedaka is accompanied by a man wearing a Ragtime straw boater and pretending to play clarinet, while a woman in a black dress and red feather boa sits on a chair looking forlornly into the distance, embodying the "sad eyes" of the song.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
The unidentified African-American female singer sings excerpt from Sedaka's composition "Solitaire."
The Neil Sedaka Touch
Neil Sedaka says that when he was planning this show, he asked one of his best friends to be a guest. Saying "Here he is to share a song which I recorded with Elton John," Sedaka introduces Andy Gibb, and together Sedaka and Gibb sing a duet of excerpts from "Bad Blood." Gibb wears red slacks and a floral shirt opened to his waist, revealing a medallion on a chain and prodigious amounts of chest hair, while Sedaka sports a dark suit with brocade gold vest and an extra-wide wide collared white shirt. Shot of the duo in front of the audience, then clip ends in a freeze-frame.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
Neil Sedaka opens the next segment by saying "I did not start out as a sex symbol," then waits a beat for canned audience laughter as he adds "I had to earn that title." Sedaka then introduces the first song he ever wrote (at age 13), saying "It's not great. In fact, it stinks." Sedaka plays piano and sings the unnamed "stinky" song "("The Sire of Love"?) Accompanied by more canned laughter. Afterwards Sedaka holds his hands to his face and says "Stinks. Stinks. I can't imagine why nobody recorded that song."
The Neil Sedaka Touch
In another scene change, Sedaka appears with his daughter Dara, who wears a pretty white dress. Neil looks his daughter up and down and says "Dara, you look absolutely fabulous" and she replies "Well, thank you for the dress." Neil says "Don't mention it," then turns to the audience and, putting his hand to his face Jack Benny style, says "So I'll wait a little longer for my new piano." Cut to shot of older women in audience laughing uproariously. Neil and Dara sit together at the piano sing duet of an excerpt from "Should've Never Let You Go," their top 20 hit. The clip ends abruptly in an odd freeze-frame after the first stanza, just before Dara is about to sing.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
Neil Sedaka plays piano and sings and excerpt from "Oh! Carol" with his backing band silhouetted in the background. On the wall behind them, red stars are projected on a blue field. At the spoken portion of the song, Sedaka delivers the lines in an exaggeratedly "comic" Brooklyn accent; canned laughter response.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
The supporting cast enacts a montage of scenes a trio acts out excerpt from "Little Devil," with one man is dressed as a high school jock in letter jacket, the other a nerd in sweater and bow tie. They are tormented by a blonde female "devil" (complete with tight red dress and horns) who dances with them, alternately poking each with her pitchfork.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
A man in a white cupid outfit stands on a pedestal, bow drawn at the ready. An African-American couple enters beneath him in collegiate garb, he in letter sweater and she in sweater and poodle skirt. As the bickering couple sings an excerpt from Neil Sedaka's "Stupid Cupid," the gum-chewing cupid pokes each with his suction cup tipped arrow, and the couple falls in love. Zoom in on cupid (wearing fake halo) blowing big pink gum bubble.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
Toni Tennille, in pink sweater and poodle skirt, sings excerpt from Neil Sedaka's "The Diary" while the two letter-sweatered boys from the previous scenes gyrate behind her.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
Nerd boy and woman sing excerpt from excerpt from Neil Sedaka's "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" while trying to blow out the candles on a flaming birthday cake. Eventually the boy gives up and leaves, returning with a cupcake on which sits a single burning candle, which the girl blows out.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
Neil Sedaka stands in front of his piano and sashays back and forth, snapping his fingers as he sings an excerpt from "Calendar Girl." As each month is named, a different girl wearing either a prom dress or poodle skirt and sweater enters and joins him. The women appear to sing the name of their respective months, but their voices are clearly dubbed in. By the end of the song, the rest of the background singers have joined them, and the entire cast dances a little step together in unison.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
The Captain and Tennille join Neil Sedaka at the piano as Sedaka says that there is one song of his that hasn't yet been recorded. Sedaka sings a bit of the song from earlier, and The Captain and Tennille make sour faces as Sedaka once again says "stinks." Then the three of them perform a song that Sedaka smarmily refers to as the most special as it sums up how he feels about The Captain and Tennille and the entire show. Together they perform an excerpt from "Love Will Keep Us Together" with Tennille taking lead vocal. Then the curtains open to reveal the entire cast, who applaud.
The Neil Sedaka Touch
Entire cast dance and clap to an excerpt from Neil Sedaka's "That's When The Music Takes Me." The cast shakes hands with random audience members as credits roll.