The ORSON WELLES SHOW, featuring Orson Welles with his guests, Burt Reynolds, Angie Dickinson, The Muppets and their creators, Jim Henson and Frank Oz was shot by Welles in the fall of 1978. After it was edited and completely finished by Welles, it was shown to the heads of the three major networks, where it was apparently deemed too intellectual and turned down by ABC, CBS and NBC. Whether PBS was also offered the show is unknown, but it has never been seen on television, even after the advent of cable, with it’s 57 plus channels (and nothing on). It’s a rather sad comment that an artist like Orson Welles, attempting to adapt his work downward to accommodate the medium of television, would find that it would be misunderstood and totally rejected.
Ironically, in his introduction to the show, Welles probably is giving his own true thoughts about the medium to a questioner from the studio audience, who asks him “I’ve read that you think television is a lot of stale junk food.”
Naturally, expecting that his TV pilot would be picked up for an eventual network showing, Welles praises the medium, saying, “Television… isn’t it everything good and bad everybody ever said about it? …I’m all for it, of course, because here I am with a show of my own!”
Little did Welles know at the time that nobody would ever see his TV show! And what a terrible shame, because it’s such a great crowd pleaser. So check it out on YouTube, with many thanks to Deconstuctionist909 for providing it for the world to finally see… 30 years after it was made!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmWWo1LCBi4
Further information on THE ORSON WELLES SHOW at Wellesnet can be found here: