Robert Guillaume Sings Love On The Rocks on Mandrell Show 2/14/81

Описание: This must be the greatest moment in the history of television. Imagine being an 11 year old boy in February of 1981, settling in for the night to watch the Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters show. You are expecting a country western variety show with hoedowns, pickin' and grinnin', a little comedy, some stuff for kids (TV was marketing to kids back then with most 8pm shows featuring mostly toy commercials), and three perky attractive sisters to keep the young men interested. You watch about 40 minutes of the show with a few songs, some crazy muppets, and a weak storyline that was par for the course each week. Robert Guillaume makes an early appearance on the show to sing with Barbara, but you missed that part. They come back from a commercial, the scene, an empty bar. In walks Robert Guillaume. You think, hey there's the guy from Benson, a comedic actor who plays a governor's butler, you have no idea the guy would ever even try to sing, and you wonder what is this scene doing in a country/western variety show on a Friday night. Guillaume calmly walks in sits down and starts singing to the bartender, a one year old hit from Neil Diamond's The Jazz Singer "Love on the Rocks". I was shocked, what an anomaly, what an epic performance, and the guy could sing a little bit, and he takes it serious as a heart attack, doesn't flinch, delivers the performance a la Shatner or Parks, but with a much better voice, and he is in total command of the scene all the way down to his wave to the bartender as he walks out to thunderous applause from the studio audience. I thought I had mistakenly turned the channel, or maybe got bored during the commercials and flipped to something else, but we didn't have remote controls back then. So I was mesmerized for several minutes and saw this to its conclusion and the bizarre, riveting moment never left me. It predates Guillaume singing O Holy Night on Benson a year and a half later, with an even better voice. It predates much of his famed Broadway work that I learned about later. It was as if Tom Selleck had walked into a club and started singing AC/DC's Back in Black during a variety show, except the singing was alright. Even the producers worked the camera zooms and close ups like it mattered. Someone knew, it was important, and would endure. John Jones has uploaded the entire Mandrell Sisters episode if you would like to recreate the entire evening of February 14, 1981, but here for your enjoyment is the greatest moment in the history of television.