There are many opinions about Bob Costas. Here is one:
”He`s a stud puppet,” says Judy Tenuta.
The Oak Park-based comic still feels this way, even though her taped appearance on Costas` new TV talk show, ”Later,” has been ashcanned by NBC.
”The show was just too bizarre,” said Dick Ebersol, executive producer of ”Later.” ”There was no opportunity to breathe, and even at that hour of the morning you have to breathe. Instead of being like a fine wine, it was like a carbonated drink that never stopped fizzing.”
Of the more than 20 ”Later” shows already taped, this is the first and only not to make the air. It adds a bit of controversy to one of television`s newest, most intriguing babes.
Though ”Later” (12:30 a.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, WMAQ-Ch. 5) initially gathered poor reviews, and its initial guests-Linda Ellerbee and Gary Coleman- hardly promised fireworks, I stuck with the show. And over the last few weeks I have been increasingly impressed with Costas` skill as an interviewer (he`s well prepared, articulate and, when need be, probing), with the varied nature of his guests (Larry King, Brooke Shields, Sonny Bono, Morton Downey Jr., Jimmy ”The Greek” Snyder, Charles Kuralt) and with the overall style and ambience of ”Later.”
So, I`ve been eagerly awaiting Judy. When I first heard a few weeks ago that she was to be among Costas` ”Later” guests I thought, ”Ah . . . now here`s a show with potential.”
And it certainly sounds like it was.
”He`s so cute,” Tenuta said. ”When I was asked to do the show, I didn`t know who he was. What is sports to the goddess? To the goddess, every sport is baseball, or trying to be baseball. Golf is just baseball for geriatrics.”
In other words, she didn`t have a clue about Costas, who is NBC`s primary sports announcer: ”NFL Live!” host, late-night host during the coverage of the Olympic games and main chair on the World Series coverage. But as a self- described ”media pig,” Tenuta agreed to appear on ”Later.”
”It was a hip thing, very intimate,” Tenuta said. ”There was no live audience. And like I said, he`s so cute.”
When Tenuta, as is her wont, started playing the accordian, Costas mentioned that he also played. Tenuta produced a junior squeeze box and Bob started playing.
He then asked her what would be involved if he wanted to join Judyism, Tenuta`s self-styled ”religion” in which she is Goddess.
”I told him he would have to be my personal love slave,” Tenuta said.
So, she dressed him accordingly: In a shower cap, huge diapers and a camouflage vest. And then she had him break dance.
Tenuta called her ”Later” experience ”wonderful.” She insists that`s still how she feels, even though NBC deemed the show ”too wild” for broadcast.
”I don`t know what NBC thought was too wild,” she said. ”What do they mean by wild? Bob didn`t resist doing what he did at all. It was fun. So, they`re not airing it. Bob is still one cute slab of meat.”
– The most pleasant feature of the new WKQX-FM (101) commercial for that straitjacketed jock Robert ”Murphy in the Morning” Murphy is a group of Cub Scouts that Murphy presumably has bribed to say they like him. In reality, the boys did get money for the commercial: $2,500 for future activities of the Hinsdale Cub Scouts.
