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Celebrate The Late Great NYC TV Icon Joe Franklin With These Clips
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 28, 2015
Modified Jan 28, 2015
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 28, 2015
Modified Jan 28, 2015
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Joe Franklin had retired from his legendary low-fi talk show by the time I arrived in NYC in 1995, but I still remember watching reruns of it, somehow, on cable access. (Or maybe my roommate had old VHS copies of it?) It was the kind of thing you'd fall into late at night and be instantly mesmerized by its haphazard, idiosyncratic sensibility. It was difficult to walk away once you spotted old Joe grinning behind his desk, looking rumpled in a loud jacket as he bantered with guests like Joey Ramone or They Might Be Giants.
Franklin's show was quintessentially New York, and he excelled at bringing the city's oddball characters to light. In addition to his radio program, he filmed 21,425 episodes of The Joe Franklin Show before retiring in 1993, and claimed to have interviewed over 300,000 guests, including Barbra Streisand, an 18-year-old Julia Roberts, Tony Curtis, Debbie Reynolds, Salvador Dali, and Woody Allen. Here he is introducing They Might Be Giants, followed by an interview with the Johns, who recall how his set was squeezed into the same studio as Romper Room.
Franklin, who was born Joe Fortgang in the Bronx, passed away this weekend at age 88; the cause of death was prostate cancer, the Times reports. "Mr. Joe Franklin has passed," They Might Be Giants wrote on their Facebook page. "There will be no other. A generous man who supported They Might Be Giants from the very beginning and for so many years, he will be missed. Thank you, Joe."
Here's Franklin giving Gilbert Gottfried a tour of his infamously messy office:
Franklin was notoriously cheap and insisted on doing his own booking; show-biz nobodies knew he was approachable and willing to book unknown talent, and the result was an unusually unpolished TV show. "I was the only guy who never had a preproduction meeting,” Franklin said in an interview in 2002. “You don’t rehearse your dinner conversation. I’m not saying I was right, but I lasted 43 years.” From a 1971 New Yorker profile:
Though Joe has made a lot of money, he doesn’t believe in spending it on a secretary, a production staff, a fancy office, or, for that matter, on much of anything. He answers his own phone, does his own booking for his television show, and conducts all his business in a ratty little office on West Forty-second Street, just off Times Square. Joe’s office is even less like other offices than his television show is like other television shows. It has a quality that goes beyond mere grime and disorder. If it were a person, it would be a bum
Here's Spinal Tap's awkward appearance on the show:
And here's a wonderful documentary about Franklin, called 50,000,000 Joe Franklin Fans Can't Be Wrong:
50,000,000 Joe Franklin Fans Can't Be Wrong from Joe Franklin Fan on Vimeo.
Tagged
joe franklin
the joe franklin show
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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