Pink Lady and Jeff

The 1980 show from Sid and Marty Krofft defies explanation.

Well, actually, there is a pretty good explanation on Wikipedia.

The series starred Japanese female singing duo Pink Lady, which was comprised of two singers, Mitsuyo Nemoto (“Mie”) and Keiko Masuda (“Kei”), and American comedian Jeff Altman. The format of the show consisted of musical numbers alternating with sketch comedy. The running gag of the series was the girls’ lack of understanding of American culture and the English language (in reality, Pink Lady also did not speak fluent English^[1]). Jeff would then attempt to translate and explain the meaning of things which led to more confusion.^[2]

The series also featured Pink Lady performing various songs along with interaction with celebrity and musical guests. The group would end the show by jumping into a hot tub together. After the poorly rated series premiere, NBC moved Pink Lady to Friday nights and added Jim Varney, who achieved later fame as “Ernest P. Worrell” in the Ernest series of movies and television shows, as a character actor. The series was also retitled Pink Lady and Jeff, however, the move and retooling failed to help ratings and the series was canceled after five episodes.^[2]

After the series end, Pink Lady returned to Japan where they performed their farewell concert in 1981. The duo reunited in 1996 and celebrated the 25th anniversary of their first hit in 2003 with a successful concert tour.^[3]

Jeff Altman went on to host Solid Gold and returned to stand-up comedy.^[3]