New Wave Theatre

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New Wave Theatre
Cover of The Best of David Jove's New Wave Theatre, Volume 2
Genre	Variety Music
Written by	David Jove Ed Ochs
Directed by	David Jove
Presented by	Peter Ivers
Opening theme	"American Music" by The Blasters
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Running time	28 minutes
Production company	All World Stage
Original release
Network	USA Network
Release	1982 (1982) – 1983 (1983)

New Wave Theatre is a television program that was broadcast locally in the

.

-educated musician, was the host for the entire run of the show. The format was extremely loose, in part because of the desire to maintain the raw energy of the live performances, as well as the limited production budget. The program was presented in a format dubbed live taped. The action was shot live and the video was then spliced with video clips, photos and graphics of everything from an exploding atomic bomb to a woman wringing a chicken's neck.

The show started with a montage of clips from punk and new wave acts while the title appeared and the theme song, an abrupt mixture of Fear's "Camarillo" and

, appeared on Episode #2 and delivered one of the Genkel Wax Works commercials that week.

New Wave Theatre came to an end in March 1983 when Ivers was found bludgeoned to death in his LA apartment."[3]

released two volumes of the best of New Wave Theatre in 1991 (Rhino Video numbers RNVD 2903 and RNVD 2904). Both are out of print but used copies are not hard to find.

Ivers' friend, movie producer/director/writer Harold Ramis, offered Jove help and the result was a pilot show for local TV (KTLA) called The Top directed by Jove, produced by the then prolific music video producer Paul Flattery (he and Jove first collaborated on "Stop In The Name Of Love", a video for The Hollies, which incorporated many of Jove's signature public domain footage montages) and executive produced by Ramis. Ramis basically lent his name (as well as industry clout, contacts and credibility) to the show which was conceived partially to continue the spirit of New Wave Theatre but also to take advantage of the then-emerging music video scene. (Flattery's music video resume was a who's who of the 80s).

Chevy Chase was the initial host but during the taping of his monologue at the head of the show, he went off-script and invited a drunk audience member on stage with him. After hurling the guy off-stage, a fight broke out between Chase and the audience and Chase walked off the show. Filming continued and then a week later, inserts were shot with Andy Kaufman as the host (in his last public appearance). The Top got good ratings but despite enlisting Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Cyndi Lauper and The Romantics to perform during the pilot, the relationship between all of the parties - Jove, Flattery, Ramis and the KTLA executives - was so damaged by Jove's often bizarre and erratic behavior that no more episodes were produced.

• New Wave Theatre at
  IMDb
• Castration Squad's appearance on New Wave Theatre with pictures of Ivers and audio of the performance
• Michael Dare's essay on The Top, including a preface about New Wave Theatre