46
Wednesday, May 14th, 1986, 2:15 P.M.
It was now the middle of the week and the crew was getting set up to shoot the musical portion of the show. It was going to be a cover version of “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” by the Ohio Express. Like all of the covers that the Go-Go’s performed on their show, it was carefully picked out to coincide with the plot of that week’s episode, as well as fit the style of the music and the image of the band. In this week’s episode, Belinda has fallen for a cute, surfer boy who also has dreams of entering the Olympics as a rower. Unfortunately, something unforeseen takes place and he has to depart at the end of the show leaving Belinda with a broken heart.
Audience goes “awwww.”
Actually, it was nothing more than a rehashing of many of the plots that occurred on the show. Since the Go-Go’s were so insanely adorable together and they were also a group, it was hard to come up with individual things for them to do that didn’t involve the band as a whole. It’s not as if they all had separate occupations, or were enrolled in college, or some plot-inducing element like that. Everyone looked at them as a family and they wanted to keep them that way. It was tricky.
BUT— You’ll be happy to know that Belinda had her broken heart mended JUST in time for next week’s episode. It was amazing how that seemed to happen all the time.
Huh!! How about that?
And, it wasn’t just Belinda that it happened to. It seemed to happen to all of the girls.
Wow!! What an unbelievably clever way of wiggling out of a flawed premise.
(I’ll have to try that)
And wouldn’t you know, the mere mention of “what’s-his-name?” never seemed to come up ever again!
Sitcoms… Ya’ gotta love em.’
Anyway, back to our story.
The crew was hoping to finish the shoot by early evening and then wrap up sometime the following day. It was a simple song to play instrumentally, as the girls recorded it in just a few hours. It was bubblegum rock from the sixties: light and bouncy, with the standard, catchy hooks, that also reminded many of the viewers of a better time in pop music history. The Go-Go’s were spared much of the agony of having to make music videos directly for MTV since they were on T.V. already and hardly needed the supplemental publicity. MTV did run some of their concert footage and snippets from the show, but that was all worked out contractually with CBS and the band certainly had no problem with that.
On an amusing side-note, one of the cameramen was familiar with some of the lyrics to the song and wondered if they might be a bit too racy for airing. Belinda being a female, he also wondered if a girl should be singing it:
Love ya / such a sweet thing
Good enough to eat thing
After bringing it to the attention of the A.D., the director just laughed it off, citing he had much bigger things to worry about.
The show that guest-starred Susanna Hoffs was already last week’s news, with all that footage now sitting in the editor’s room waiting to be cut up and pieced together into a finished product. Susanna’s appearance was part of the twenty-third and penultimate taping for the year. The Go-Go’s were now shooting their final episode of the season and the anticipation of the upcoming summer break was clearly noticeable amongst everyone.
Needless to say, everybody associated with the production of the show had a multitude of things planned and the girls themselves were no exception.
Belinda was on her way to Australia for the wedding of the century. It was an old, high-school friend of hers and she was the Maid of Honor. Also, to no one’s surprise at all, Belinda was footing the entire bill.
Jane had a vacation in Hawaii planned with her boyfriend immediately after shooting was over. The timing of the trip was supposed to be ideal since it coincided with her birthday the following Tuesday. Unfortunately, a personal issue was getting in the way of things and she was worried that it might spoil her entire trip.
Determined not to let it bother her and to act tough, Jane, nevertheless, decided she had no choice but to look into the matter. She was starting to get headaches that appeared to be centered around a lump which had been forming behind her right ear. It had become pretty sizeable by this moment and probably would have been noticeable if not for her hair covering it up.
Earlier in the day, right after the morning read-through, the crew took a forty-five minute break before shooting was scheduled to begin in Studio 6A.
Jane slipped out the back door and went out to her trailer to make a phone call.
She was calling Doctor Stamkos’ office.