This pioneering, award-winning documentary examines Guru Maharaj Ji, 16-year-old leader of a cult-like new age group, known to his followers as "Lord of the Universe". The 1974 gathering at Houston's Astrodome features Rennie Davis and Abbie Hoffman.
Watch NowThe World's Largest TV Studio, Adland & Gerald Ford's America Parts 1 & 2
Runtime: 4 Hours
Buy Now $9.99Every episode in our collection, including: The World's Largest TV Studio, Adland & Gerald Ford's America Parts 1 & 2, Lord of the Universe, The Good Times Are Killing Me, TVTV Goes to the Oscars, Superbowl 1975
Runtime: 8 Hours
Buy Now $14.99Lord of the Universe, The Good Times Are Killing Me, TVTV Goes to the Oscars, Superbowl 1975
Runtime: 4 Hours
Buy Now $9.99TVTV (Top Value Television) was a band of merry video makers who, from 1972 to 1977, took the then brand-new portable video camera and went out to document the world. In those days, there were only three TV networks, using giant studio cameras, and no one had ever seen a portable camera stuck in their face, let alone one held by what “Newsweek” called at the time “braless, blue-jeaned video freaks.”
Because the technology was so new, there were no rules about how to use it or what to make. TVTV used it to make format-bending satirical shows about whatever interested them – from the 1972 Republican Convention to an award-winning expose of a 15-year-old jet-set guru named Guru Maharaj Ji, called “Lord of the Universe.”
Covering the 1972 Democratic Presidential Convention in Miami, Florida was the first TVTV production and the first small-format video broadcast of any kind. Just by asking, they entered smoke-filled rooms with party operatives and had impromptu chats with news anchors and George Wallace supporters. This “scrapbook,” as it’s described, is graphically presented in hand lettering and is all point-of-view, impressionistic video, with no voice-over editorializing. John O’Connor at the New York Times deemed it “distinctive and valuable” and TVTV, a band of video misfits, was off and running.
A scathing look at the world and the people who churn out tens of thousands of TV commercials annually. Legends of advertising like George Lois and Jerry Della Femina are juxtaposed with behind the scenes look at a Ronald McDonald commercial, a visit to a late night San Francisco car dealer (“Where the price slasher lives!”),and on the set with kid commercial star Mason Reese. As George Lois says, it’s fun to put commercials out there, “like poison gas.” Many of these people are clever, shrewd pitchmen. Others are hacks. They’re all here.
An equal parts hysterical and frightening look at the 16-year-old Guru Maharaj Ji – a major new age pop figure of 70’s – and his American followers as they gather for an historic gathering at the Houston Astrodome. Called Millennium 73, the event was billed as the "most significant event in the history of humanity." With unhindered access, even with the guru’s security force standing by, TVTV gets close to the guru's entourage, his most prominent follower, Chicago Seven ex-radical Rennie Davis, and the glassy-eyed devotees of the new religion, faded flower children whose yearning for order and meaning fit the post-Watergate/post-Vietnam era perfectly. You won’t want to miss the guru’s brother, dubbed by Davis as “The Lord Of Music,” as his big band plays Rolling Stones songs. Given the last word, legendary 60’s icon Abbie Hoffman sums it all up: "If this guy is God, this is the God the United States of America deserves. Awarded the Alfred I. du Pont/Columbia University Award in Broadcast Journalism
In the wake of “Lord of the Universe,” TVTV planned to cover the impeachment of Richard Nixon, but, unfortunately, Nixon resigned. The group made a ninety-degree turn to covering the “first hundred days” of the Gerald Ford administration, a cavalcade of photo ops and campaign appearances. In Part One of the four-part series, entitled WIN (referring to the Ford slogan, “Whip Inflation Now”), TVTV goes on a whirlwind across-country trek with Ford, stopping in Sioux City, Iowa, Salt Lake City, and Portland. The show is more about Ford’s public than Ford. A supporter in Portland paid $2700 (a lot of money in 1975) for a football that Ford hiked between his legs on stage. One critic said that it was a portrait of “Boobus Americanus.” He wasn’t far off.
Arguably, the most successful of the four “Gerald Ford’s America” shows was “Chic To Sheik,” a TVTV tour of the private culture of the official Washington. Lead by Megan Williams, they blithely move around an official White House tea for Betty Ford at the beginning and cavort at the Shah of Iran’s birthday party at the Iranian Embassy at the end. Shot with almost open access because this was before even public people, in private, were innocents before a documentary camera. Washington Post Society Editor, Betty Beale, leads the way. A gem.
Most of TVTV’s work takes place in the city, at the center of some pop culture event. “The Good Times Are Killing Me” takes place in the country – Southwest Louisiana, around the towns of Mamou and Eunice, the heart of Cajun country. This is an indigenous culture of food, music, language, and bawdy French-language jokes – something you don’t see much anymore in America. The event is rural Mardi Gras, where beer-drinking, boudin-eating men and boys on horseback capture and behead chickens for a big gumbo and town dance. In the center is Cajun musical icon, Nathan Abshire, showman by night, junk yard labor by day. Dancing, music, and an infectious love of life. As it says on the side of Nathan’s accordion, “The good times are killing me!”
Starts with young wunderkind Steven Spielberg in his office as he learns that he didn’t get nominated for “Jaws” and ends with Lily Tomlin, as middle American housewife Judy Beasley, falling asleep at home as the Star Spangled Banner plays at the end of the telecast. Ms. Tomlin is also a nominee for best supporting actress and plays the Hollywood glamour queen to the hilt. TVTV is in the limo with Goldie Hawn and Lee Grant on the way to the big night and goes skiing with Michael Douglas as relaxes before winning a slew of Oscars for “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.” Given TVTV’s sly, unobtrusive style of video verite, you see many of these celebs as they really are, with little pretense. It’s a fun night for all, except the losers.
Covers the 1976 Super Bowl in Miami, but the coverage barely touches on the game itself. It’s a media-commercial orgy, beneath which are beaten up players who are like trained animals in the circus. As in most of their shows, TVTV went places no cameras had gone before: hanging out in the locker room with the Dallas Cowboys; giving the Pittsburgh Steeler players their own video camera to shoot in their off-limits dormitory; talking to players’ wives; and having Bill Murray color-commentate a touch football game of Hall of Fame players like Johnny Unitas. Fat cat owners on yachts and insane fans in Gorilla outfits also make an appearance. Why do these guys play football? To quote behemoth lineman Ernie Holmes: “I enjoy kicking ass. I am an ass kicker.”
