Our clip today combines two things that intrigue me, the first being the song "The Rhythm of Life" from the Broadway show, Sweet Charity. As I noted here, the original song was a parody of the bogus religious cults of the sixties, not to be confused with the religious cults of every other decade in the history of mankind. I'm fascinated by how some people have transformed it into a serious choir number about the rhythm of life while others offer it in odd contexts.
The other thing here that I find fascinating is — or rather was — a TV show that aired on ABC for a brief time in 1969 and it was called What's It All About, World? At the time, CBS had some success with The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and NBC had Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. So you had two variety shows that played to younger audiences and they were also political and anti-establishment at times.
Today, the politics of either show seem about as controversial as the new KFC pizza that substitutes a piece of fried chicken for the pizza crust. But in '69, a couple of gents who owned ABC affiliates were outraged at that Commie Trash on CBS and NBC and they demanded that their network whip up a similar show designed to offend no one, especially right-wing folks like them. That was What's It All About, World?, hosted by Dean Jones and featuring some of the oddest musical numbers ever done on television. They all seemed to be about taking something hip and taking all the hip out of it.
Here's a version of "The Rhythm of Life" they did, introduced by Minnie Pearl and performed by Dean Jones and Ricardo Montalban with the Kevin Carlisle Dancers. Just try and figure out what was on the minds of the people who devised this. I dare you.