If you’re anything like me, every now and again you stumble onto something that immediately makes you think, “Where the hell has this been all my life?” Such is the case with the long-running New York City cable access show Stairway to Stardom. From 1979 to the early-’90s, host Frank Masi and his wife Tillie produced the wildest talent show on Earth, right from their Staten Island basement. For years, the worst — and by “worst” I mean the absolute best — singers, dancers, comedians, magicians, and all other manner of entertainers were invited to showcase their budding genius on the smallest of stages, all in the hopes of getting noticed by a manager, booker, or agent. You can probably guess how that worked out for them.
Now, the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) has compiled some of the show’s weirdest moments into a digestible montage of mediocrity that I simply cannot get enough of. My only complaint about The Stairway to Stardom Mixtape is that it isn’t nearly long enough to satisfy my morbid curiosity about this sometimes unsettling, sometimes depressing, but endlessly entertaining piece of Americana. From the fashion choices to the songs about hairdressers, from the Christian rock to the the comedy bits about persistent child abuse, The Stairway to Stardom Mixtape has just enough schadenfreude to take the edge off my short term fixation, but not enough to feed my long term habit. Please, AGFA, give us more.
Originally published by ASHEVILLE MOVIES.
James is a writer, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.