Forgotten TV shows I still like. For this series, I’m trying to skip over things with cult followings in favor of true obscurities. With that in mind, here’s Alive From Off Center.
I think we can agree that PBS programming is usually pretty boring. But… used to be that if you turned it on in the middle of the night, you could find all kinds of oddities. These included British TV like Dr. Who and Fawlty Towers, old silent horror films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the Lon Cheney Phantom of Opera. And that’s where Alive From Off Center would often show up out of nowhere.
What is this show? The premise seems to be, “Let’s give an artist access to TV equipment and let them do whatever they want.” These artists aren’t just filmmakers, but also dancers, actors, animators, and even the likes of mimes and circus types. I guess you could call it performance art for the then-new digital age.
Information on the origins and history of this show is hard to come by. This ran from 1985 (or ’86 according to some sources) and ran until 1992, when it was renamed Alive TV, finally ending in 1996. That’s a heck of a long run for something that no one ever talks about anymore. The first season was hosted by radio journalist Susan Stamberg, who offered context on the various scenes/skits. Avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson took over as host for the second season, and her intros were more just as arty and out-there as the rest of the show. The rest of the series had no regular host, throwing viewers straight into the mix.
Alive From Off Center defies description. Segments include musical performances, dance performances, one-act plays, comedy skits, low-budget animation, short films from overseas – basically anything the artists of the week wanted to come up with. A big part of enjoying the show is never knowing what on Earth you would see next.
Other observations:
- Famous to semi-famous performers on the show include Spaulding Grey, Bill Irwin, and William Wegman (a.k.a. that guy who uses his dogs in all his art).
- Were there recurring segments? Kind of. Anderson’s bizarre host segments spun out of her short film What Do You Mean We?
- A dance segment called Dancers in Exile was directed by famous filmmaker Jonathan Demme.
Alive From Off Center is difficult to find online, with only a scattering of episodes posted by various people, so we can’t track how the show developed over time. But, in a way, this simulates what it was like to happen upon it while channel surfing after midnight and being “What the heck is this?” Off center, indeed.
Next: Who likes bikes?
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macmcentire 
Ohmigod, I loved this show. Growing up in the country, it helped me to understand the possibilities of art beyond Bob-Ross-type landscapes and portraits of Jesus. I wonder if you remember another bizarre PBS thing called Fool’s Fire that aired in 1992? I thought it was under the Alive From Off Center banner, but I guess it was American Playhouse. It was this grotesque and frightening adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Hop-Frog” done with hideous puppets and directed by Julie Taymor. You can find it on YouTube . . . definitely middle-of-the-night PBS fare.
I’ll definitely check that out. Thanks for reading!