On the Air (1992)

Creators: Mark Frost and David Lynch

Directors: David Lynch, Jack Fisk, Lesli Linka Glatter, Jonathan Sanger and Betty Thomas           

Screenplay: Mark Frost, David Lynch, Robert Engels and Scott Frost

Cast: Ian Buchanan as Lester Guy; Marla Rubinoff as Betty Hudson; Nancye Ferguson as Ruth Trueworthy; Miguel Ferrer as Bud Budwaller;  Gary Grossman as Bert Schein; Mel Johnson Jr. as Mickey; Marvin Kaplan as Dwight McGonigle; David L. Lander as Valdja Gochktch; Kim  as Nicole Thorne; Tracey Walter as 'Blinky' Watts; Irwin Keyes a Shorty the Stagehand; Buddy Douglas as Buddy Morris; Raleigh Friend as Hurry Up Twin; Raymond Friend as Hurry Up Twin; Everett Greenbaum as the Announcer; Sydney Lassick as Mr. Zoblotnick

It is amazing to think that David Lynch, whilst someone is even known in the mainstream, also had a hot period where he was also king of the world. Well, when the first season of Twin Peaks started in 1990, that happened, as was the moment he won the Palme d'Or at that year's Cannes Film Festival. Lightning had been caught in a bottle...only for Season Two of Twin Peaks to falter, although that was when David Lynch was not directly involved for most of the season, whilst Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) was not a highly regarded film in the slightest, only growing in reputation over the decades after.

Just by this time too, we also get a show from Lynch which only lasted seven episodes, a David Lynch comedy about a live variety show in 1957. Born in 1946, and having explicitly referenced the fifties throughout his career, On the Air is drawing on real television of the period of live variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show, starting in 1948 to 1971, among other such examples you can read up on from the era. That show famously had The Beatles, but throughout the decades had anything from vaudevillians and plates spinners to ballet dancers and Broadway show tunes, to which the show in the centre of On the Air, "The Lester Guy Show", is a live variety and sketch show lead by Hollywood actor Lester Guy (Ian Buchanan) in which everything goes horribly wrong every show but gets the ratings.

Of note, David Lynch only directed the first episode and penned the last. What this is in truth is David Lynch directing the pilot, among one of his most gleefully weird works I have seen, and his collaborators from the Twin Peaks era having to figure out how to follow on from his example.  Episode One is legitimately weird, which is surprising as One The Air manages to find a way to top this onwards. Set in the late fifties, The Lester Guy Show is run by eccentrics, complete botches in every worst slapstick related form possible transpiring rather than anything rehearsed, from a missed cue to Guy being flung in the air repeatedly. Who steals the show from under him is Betty (Marla Rubinoff), a legitimate holy fool as she is built on the surface as the problematic stereotype of the dumb blonde, the extreme version, only to be revealed as the heart of the show in spite of this. She represents a trend in David Lynch's work, a person at times that can come off as sweetly naive himself, of optimism and kindness even in the bleakest of circumstances. Usually such optimism is crushed under darkness or stilted bird performances in Blue Velvet (1986), but here Betty's improvisation during a disastrous broadcast wins the viewing public over, much to the concern of Lester Guy.

Whilst David Lynch is known for his dark material, when comedy is found in his career he reveals himself to have a very silly sense of humour. The opening credits perfectly set up the premise - in an era in the fifties where Hollywood had to introduce widescreen and gimmicks to combat the encroaching success of television, his regular composer Angelo Badalamenti created a beautiful jazzy track over scenes of streets and a broadcast antenna standing out on the Planet Earth like a colossus, only for fart-like noises to be heard, audibly someone making a raspberry and possibly like a failed blow on an instrument. Running gags that continue through the series are very broad - like the Hurry Up twins, two male twins in a jumper big enough for both of them to wear whose only purpose is to appear and for the narrator to always introduce them, or the sound effects guy having a sight issue which means, as also introduced by the narrator every episode, he sees everyone in duplication and objects to be superimposed over shots. Episode One is, in the right mood, hilarious and utterly baffling in how it plays out, working by itself even if had been a single pilot.

But it was not the last one, with the additional context that people other than Lynch himself now had to continue the narrative. Alongside Lester Guy and Betty are quite a few characters: Nicole Thorne, played by Kim McGuire who is most well known for Hatchet Face in Cry Baby (1990), as Guy's romantic interest and Head of Comedy, helping to try and sabotage Betty's career for her lover; the great, late Miguel Ferrer as the hardnosed producer Bud Budwaller who tries to keep this all together each broadcast; a European director, clearly based on German directors who fled to the United States from Nazi Germany, who is however incompetent and has to be translated by production assistant  Ruth Trueworthy (Nancye Ferguson), a confidant and friend to Betty; and a variety of other misfits. Episode 2 is the only episode which breaks from the main structure drastically. Betty is invited by the studio boss to dinner, which also breaks from the trend that he is never seen or heard for the most part baring being able to get so angry over the phone to Bud flame goes through the receiver like in a Looney Tunes cartoon.  Following on with Guy, Bud and Nicole trying to sabotage Betty's meeting, the episode thankfully is helped by the cast being great and the comedy still working because of how exaggerated it was.

After this, On the Air manages to find its groove, all entirely set within the set of The Lester Guy Show where a new guest is hired for each show - a legendary actor, a puppet star of a kid's show, even Betty's more famous older sister - and yet everything still goes wrong. The show manages to get stranger, as if everyone needed to make Lynch proud, in how between the reoccurring ducks, which grow in number and are never explained, to the gadgets clearly designed by Acme, On the Air finds ways to top itself.

Arguably, the show was too idiosyncratic to survive. Even if Twin Peaks was a huge hit, I would presume an incredibly weird comedy which has many Dad jokes and weirdness would not appeal as easily as a mystery. It does however leave so many memorable moments entirely based on repeating the same ideas that I have to admire the production. There is even a legitimately heart-warming sequence in the episode about Betty's sister, when after the puppet is insulted Betty and everyone brings his spirits up on live television, so charming even Bud is softened by the event. There is also even more of a high bar of strangeness, where the cuts to the TV audience includes dogs in clothes, where the magician hired for an episode (when his magical powers come back) causes vegetables to float and transformations to take place in a deeply weird finale to that story. This is all in mind they are meant to have followed David Lynch's episode, having to figure out his style but decided wisely to just be as odd in its own way as they could. Helping the show is the strength of its cast. Ian Buchanan caught my attention especially, managing to play Lester Guy as utterly egotistic but still compelling, as a former Hollywood star reduced to television, but the cast in general were perfectly cast in every role too.

On the Air tragically, or for the best depending on your viewpoint, only lasted seven episodes. The final episode, whilst not directed by David Lynch, is written by him and bookmarks the story by delving further into madness. Throughout the show it drew and exaggerated on culture from the period and earlier - all the episodes of the programme start with Lester Guy in a noir dark lit scene doing choreographed movements of mystery; there is a spy drama being rehearsed in episode two; the children's puppet show character draws from entertainment from that era of television. The shows climaxes on beatniks, specifically the Woman with No Name, who does interpretative dance against avant-garde jazz. Between Betty forgetting her mother's name, and that the European director hears "beatnik" and starts giving the Woman with No Name dozens of shoes to dance around, because it possibly means "shoemaker" in his language, this becomes a memorable moment in his career what is not necessarily the deepest moment of Lynch's.

It definitely has one of the most legitimately strangest moments in his career, which is a considerable achievement considering what he has created in his filmography, in the last episode's climax. Building, in its last line of the series, to what is a cheesy pun, On the Air concludes with the entire cast waving shoes in the air on mass as The Woman with No Name dances to droning atonal music and Lester Guy, after a machine to try to rob Betty's voice backfires, with a robotic noise for his own instead. It is appropriately the best way to have ended. It shows Lynch's collaborators were distinct, as they managed to make a show this is still compelling and legitimately hilarious in my weird sense of humour. Honestly, I think the show never getting a full season is not a bad thing, perfect as it is. The issue is that, barring rare releases such as on Japanese VHS, On the Air has never had a major rediscovery. There are a couple of titles in David Lynch's filmography inexplicably difficult to find, some like the original 1999 TV pilot of Mulholland Dr. not available because he finds it embarrassing, but On the Air could legitimately be seen as something to be proud of. It is glorious when experienced.

Abstract Spectrum: Surreal/Wacky/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium