A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

Bad TV Ponderings: Kenny Loggins on Ice

Some people seek out bad television, some have it thrust upon them. I didn't go searching for this little gem, which aired yesterday opposite the Colts-Broncos game, but when I saw the listing on my program guide, there was no way I could pass it up. Who among us could resist the siren call of 1982's answer to Bryan Adams? On ice? With Brian Boitano? Not I, pilgrim. Not I.

Immediately upon our discovery, The Wife was dispatched to obtain beer and jalapeno chips (actually, she volunteered, but it sounds more macho when presented the other way). The Thing That Walks Like a Man found himself in attendance as well, though not intentionally. I liken it more to the kid who hitched a ride in the Great Red Shark with Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, unknowingly swept up in an atavistic display of horror and excess.

[Only instead of five sheets of blotter acid and a tank of ether, we had Miller Lite. Other than that, it was exactly the same. Really.]

Unfortunately, we must have missed the "Danger Zone" performance. We started watching a little late, after Loggins had already gone into full-on "rock" mode by removing his blazer. The first vignette we did catch may have been "Leap of Faith" or "For the First Time"...it's hard to keep track when innundated with such genius. This particular one featured the toothsome Yuka Sato ice dancing suggestively in front of one, then two, and finally four dudes in jeans and tight-fitting t-shirts. I was a little hazy on what they were going for thematically until they hoisted her into the air, them it all fell into place: lone woman in miniskirt and tube top, four working class shmoes, bad music playing in the background...it's The Accused on Ice! I was waiting for the zamboni to come out pushing a pinball machine.

That took a lot out of me. Luckily, there were plenty of commercials. And let me point out that this picture - shown during the breaks in the program and also gracing his home page - simply cannot be Kenny Loggins:

On the show, Loggins was still sporting that "fluffer" 'do so often favored by victims of male pattern baldness. Maybe it was the hot lights on the stage in the Broome County Arena, or perhaps the incandescent performances from Todd Eldredge and Brian Effing Boitano melted his pomade. Whatever the reason, Loggins looked like he had a hedgehog on his head for the bulk of the show. No, some well-intentioned member of the Kenny Loggins Fan Club obviously decided to use a picture of one of Loggins' entertainment contemporaries in the desperate hope that a more appealing visage might draw more viewers. Therefore, I can only conclude that the picture above is none other than that of T.J. Hooker heartthrob Adrian Zmed.

Next up, a dazzling interpretation of Loggins' song, "The House on Pooh Corner." In the intro, he described this as a song to "make and raise babies" to. The alacrity of that statement (and who hasn't imagined laying some pipe to a song about Winnie the Pooh?) was satisfactorily reinforced by the ice performance, which depicted a typically dimunitive female skater cavorting playfully in a guy's lap. I think it's brave and, dare I say, heroic of Loggins to ignore societal conventions about sex and children by featuring such a daring ode to illegal love in a major network television special.

We were a little disappointed that no skating gophers were in evidence for "I'm Alright," or that John Lithgow didn't make a guest appearance for the thrilling finale, "Footloose." No doubt he had a prior engagement. Plenty of Brian "Kong" Boitano though, resplendent in enough sequins to make Donny Osmond weep for days over his Joseph Smith Edition Memorial Gila Monster.

So I decided, about one song/three beers in, that I would've gotten thrown out within ten minutes of the start of this thing. Hell, I might not have made it past the lights dimming. I imagine people who live in Binghamton, NY get a lot of drinking done in the winter, so I'd already be well into it before I even got into the arena. Once there, the full enormity of what was about to happen would hit me (and that I'd just spent $40 - minimum - on a ticket), and I'd be pounding $7.50 cups of Bud Light in the men's room in hopes of bringing about an amnesiac stupor. Failing that, I'd resort to loud catcalls. For the record, I couldn't decide which would be more likely to get me tossed: "Where's MESSINA?!" or "Play the GOPHER SONG!"

Or maybe the classic, "Your mama don't dance 'cause your daddy's GOT POLIO!"