T.A.M.I. Show / The Big T.N.T. Show Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

T.A.M.I. Show / The Big T.N.T. Show Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 26, 2016

Horace William Sargent, Jr. may not be a name familiar to many of you, but how can you not love a guy whose obituary in Variety contained the following memorable tidbit:

His ambitious but often-unrealized schemes included. . .a proposed closed-circuit fight between a man and a great white shark, stopped by the United Nations.

In another online tribute to Sargent, a former collaborator of his stated, "He's Mike Todd and P.T. Barnum rolled into one. I have never met a more flamboyant or brilliant promoter," though Sargent never seemed to be able to actually hold on to that vaunted brass ring after he fleetingly grasped it at various times. Sargent (who went by the nickname Bill) was at the forefront of early quasi pay per view events, those these weren’t transmitted to televisions but rather via closed circuit to theaters. Sargent got the bright idea of videotaping live events and then transferring them to film in what for all intents and purposes amounted to that era’s version of a “high definition” kinescope (with over 800 interlaced lines of raw video data, over twice that of “standard” television broadcasts), something that allowed the product to be projected on large screens without much degradation of image quality. Sargent dubbed this technology Electronovision, and debuted his idea with a perhaps intentionally highbrow effort, Richard Burton’s celebrated turn as Hamlet, then a recent Broadway smash hit. Sargent followed up Hamlet with something decidedly more “populist” in nature, a concert video entitled The T.A.M.I. Show, though it’s perhaps indicative of some cracks in Sargent’s ostensible promotional acumen that no one seemed to be able to decide what the acronym T.A.M.I. stood for. The trailer for the film clearly states Teen Age Music International (whatever that means), while other materials proffer Teenage Awards Music International, a definition which perhaps more accurately implies that Sargent’s original conception was an annual concert highlighting the best in youth oriented music. Both the appealing commentary on The T.A.M.I. Show as well as the in depth essay included in the insert booklet with this two disc set (a relative rarity for a Shout! release) detail how Sargent’s failure to manage funds (not entirely his fault) led to the quick demise of Electronovision, at least in its iteration as Electronovision. (For those interested, there is an absolutely fascinating book called Dueling Harlows by Tom Lisanti which documents Sargent’s post-T.A.M.I. attempts to bring his Electronovision version of a biographical film about Jean Harlow out while Joseph E. Levine was prepping another version of Harlow’s tale—with neither “film” doing very well nor it should be added providing anything close to an accurate accounting of Harlow’s life.) The T.A.M.I. Show is often cited as one of the most remarkable concert videos of its era, with a really fascinating blend of acts that includes everyone from Lesley Gore to Gerry and the Pacemakers to James Brown to The Rolling Stones. The concert has had a pretty spotty history on home video, with many bootlegs appearing over the years, often shorn of the performance by The Beach Boys. Shout! released a restored version on DVD, and is now offering the first high definition version of the concert, along with what was for all intents and purposes another Electronovision-ish (for lack of a better word) follow-up, The Big T.N.T. Show, another concert which featured the same videotape to film technology, but without Sargent’s involvement.

For reviews for each of the films in this two disc set, please click on the following links:

The T.A.M.I. Show Blu-ray review

The Big T.N.T. Show Blu-ray review

T.A.M.I. Show / The Big T.N.T. Show Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality for each release is assessed in the above linked reviews.

T.A.M.I. Show / The Big T.N.T. Show Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality of each release is assessed in the above linked reviews.

T.A.M.I. Show / The Big T.N.T. Show Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Supplementary material on each disc is detailed in the above linked reviews. However, this is the rare Shout! Factory release that also includes a nice insert booklet with some excellent essays and archival stills.

T.A.M.I. Show / The Big T.N.T. Show Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I don't know about you, but I think it's high time someone decided to honor Bill Sargent's legacy and get a Kickstarter underway to fund that man vs. shark thing. In the meantime, though, there are these two historically important concert videos (even if Sargent is only a participant in the second one tangentially). Video and audio quality need to be understood in appropriate context, but for those with that understanding, T.A.M.I. Show / The Big T.N.T. Show comes Highly recommended.