KISS IN THE DARK RETROSPECTIVE
by Lady-X
Growing up in the late 1970's, I read every teen magazine in sight. My personal favorites were The Keane Brothers, but I read articles about the other teen dreams of the day, as well. So, when I learned that Leif Garrett was going to have a TV special, I thought I'd tune in to see if he was all that he was cracked up to be.
As was typical at the time, the network threw in an "old fogey" guest star or two, ostensibly to entertain parents while their young'uns were drooling over Leif. But for me, a pleasant surprise was a guest act called Pink Lady, which hailed from Japan. Seeing them lip-syncing to "Kiss in the Dark" gave me a sense of deja vu, as I remembered discovering ABBA on "Saturday Night Live" in 1975. It was that same sensation of looking at two gorgeous ladies, and admiring them even as you got the sinking feeling that you'd never be lucky enough to look like that when you grew up. Auburn-haired Frida became my favorite in ABBA, and Mie-chan became my favorite Pink Lady. Living in a Nebraska town, I wasn't able to get "Kiss in the Dark" or the "Pink Lady" LP, but the image of these lovely Japanese ladies was forever tattooed in my impressionable young mind!
In a music magazine -- which I had bought because it spotlighted international acts, and ABBA was among them -- I found a clipping of Pink Lady. It had a gorgeous promo photo, that now appears on Jeff's site. Then there were other teen magazine reports of a possible series with Mie and Kei. Yes, I was psyched! The sheer awfulness of Pink Lady & Jeff is now the stuff of TV legend, so I won't go into detail about that. Sure, someone should have thought to hire a language coach to help Mie and Kei brush up on their English...but, given the poor quality of PL&J, would it really have justified the girls' efforts? Yet despite Jeff Altman's horrible "comedy", the lame scripts, the cellulite-laden Peacock Dancers, and the Z-list guest stars, Mie and Kei's charm managed to shine through when they were allowed to do what they do best: singing and dancing.
And that, in a nutshell, is why a site like pinkladyamerica.com exists here and now, and still attracts eager visitors. "Kiss in the Dark" may not have stormed to #1 here, but it did make history; only Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki" shares the distinction of being one of two songs by Japanese artists, that have ever cracked the American Top 40. And for many of us, KITD was our first exposure to the wonderful world of j-pop (albeit an Americanized, sanitized, discofied version of it). So, on this anniversary, we raise a virtual toast to Mie and Kei, saying "arigatou" for helping to bring Japanese pop culture to our shores!
