Other difficulties included scriptwriting disagreements, guest star booking mishaps, taping and touring conflicts, and the inability of Mie and Kei, the members of Pink Lady, to understand or speak English.

The show's developers, Sid and Marty Krofft, pursued the project under the erroneous assumption that the stars spoke both English and Japanese.

The resulting clumsy diction compounded the show's other problems, and despite the infusion of expensive co-stars, the series did poorly and was cancelled after five episodes.

[1] The series starred Japanese female singing duo Pink Lady, composed of "Mie" (Mitsuyo Nemoto) and "Kei" (Keiko Masuda), and American comedian Jeff Altman.

After the poorly rated series premiere, NBC moved Pink Lady to Friday nights and added Jim Varney as a character actor.

After seeing a Walter Cronkite story about Pink Lady on the CBS Evening News,[5] Silverman thought their Japanese success could be translated to the American market, so he brought in Sid and Marty Krofft to produce a variety show for them.

"[6] Comedian Jeff Altman had a contract with NBC,[7] and on that basis, was offered work hosting the show to compensate for the leads having no knowledge of English.

[8] This was particularly problematic when a guest star would be booked at the last minute, such as Lorne Greene, who agreed to appear on the show only four hours before the episode was taped.

[8] Because Mie and Kei commuted between the U.S. and Japan to appear in sold-out concerts,[8] their time on the set was spent memorizing lines and routines, forcing the brunt of the comedy on Altman and ensemble players Jim Varney, Cheri Steinkellner and Anna Mathias.

[8] Variety shows were fading by 1980, which was exacerbated by the fact the series' headliners were not a household name in the U.S. Larry Hagman and other A-list stars were coerced into appearing by offering sizable monetary incentives.

This gag originated with Sid Krofft,[8] who had used a similar device on The Brady Bunch Hour; in each episode, Greg would push Peter into the swimming pool.