Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story

Okay, for those of you who don't know

what this is all about...

good, we'll keep you in suspense.

Hi, I'm Robin Byrd and this is the Robin Byrd Show.

And what I want everyone to do is to get comfortable.

You're probably with a loved one,

so snuggle up real close with them.

And for those of you who don't have a loved one,

well, you always have me, Robin Byrd.

Will you please welcome one of New York's

best-kept secrets, Robin Byrd.

Everybody knows Robin Byrd!

She's probably the record holder

of the most cable shows.

That's what happens when you produce,

direct, write, and whatever.

She's a cultural avatar,

and I think she loved the idea that she was hosting

the ultimate underground party.

Robin was an important part

of sex-positive feminism and pleasure activism.

And the more lubricated she becomes,

the easier it is

to insert the weenie.

People dismissed her as camp,

but the truth is that Robin fought like hell

for the gay community.

Now, go get your rubbers while I'm doing all this, you know.

Meese today declared a federal crackdown

on obscene materials.

Excuse me, but Robin...

Robin, is this it? Fini?

I'm putting up a big fight.

My fans are behind me 100%.

Before you know it, we'll be censoring everything in the United States.

Books and what we learn in school.

The fact is, once you speak out,

they'll come after you.

Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!

Being an activist is one thing,

but when you're intentionally teaching,

it means you're an activator.

That's what Robin was.

Isn't it indecent?

The human body is not indecent.

What is indecent?

Wow, I haven't had anybody in this apartment

in over 20 years.

It's hard to find things in here.

Oh, here's my costume.

It's a crochet bikini that I would wear on the show.

Yep, it's stretched out, alright.

Nope, doesn't smell.

So, that's this.

This should go in a museum.

As you can see,

I have the decks here

and the DV cam.

And transferring--

And my audio board is underneath all of those.

- -Sit with Daddy.

Go sit with Daddy. Baby, you can hear me?

Yeah, I hear you, and I'm not gonna say a word.

That's Shelly.

He never left, no matter how crazy I am.

And these are all our children.

We have more than 600 tapes.

December 27th, 1989.

Different century.

They're numbered. All my shows are numbered.

So, these are the earlier ones.

Here's one with Heather Hunter.

It's always fun when Heather's on.

Julie Bond was my first transsexual.

She was beautiful. She was beautiful.

I always thought it would be a good idea

to get up close and personal with Jeff Stryker.

So we did an interview in bed at my hotel in Vegas,

and then we had sex and Shelly filmed it.

And his dick was large. It had girth.

This is the first-- the Hot Legs show.

Let's put this in the box.

That is a super classic.

This is one of the first shows I did.

In 1976, there was a porn producer,

Bobby Hollander.

And he had this TV show called Hot Legs,

hosted by two porn stars.

Bobby had begged me

'cause nobody was in town to do the show.

It was a half-hour show on Thursday nights.

They called me and said, "Do me a favor."

And I'm like, "What?"

"Well, can you come down and be a host?"

And he was like, "Oh, please, please, please, please."

I'm like, "Okay, Bobby, I'm gonna do this for you."

The format, it was a film. Like a short.

Like a-- like a 8-millimeter short for 15 minutes.

And then, the next 15 minutes,

you opened up the phone lines to the audience.

This was the first time that TV was interactive.

And everybody took all their hostilities out

on this poor half-hour show where they could talk to the TV.

But first, some phone calls.

And I was so reluctant to push the first call

because they weren't screened.

-Hello? - Hot Legs.

Hot Legs, this is.

I oozed "Please love me."

Please don't hate me.

All I want is love for everybody.

I want to know, what makes you so hot?

All these lights here.

And they're like, "You're great,

we love you, you're so beautiful."

You've got a great show. You got a hit.

So, I was like, "Oh, thanks.

I'm beautiful. Oh, great!"

You know, there's nothing like a compliment,

especially on television.

Hello. Your hot legs are absolutely very delightful.

And I said, "Oh, thank you."

And, "You wanna say anything about the film?"

"No, we just want to see more of you."

And I didn't get paid.

My payment was all those compliments.

You know, this was the '70s. We didn't do things for money.

I continued to go back every Thursday to fill in for them.

And the studio that we were doing it at said,

"Oh, there's no show tonight." I'm like, "Why?"

He says, "Well, Bobby Hollander owes me a lot of money.

"And until he pays me,

there's not gonna be any more show."

And I said, "Well, I wanna do a show."

And they said, "Well, you can't call it the Hot Legs show."

And I said, "Well, what am I gonna call it?"

And I said, well, Johnny Carson had the Johnny Carson Show.

Tom Snyder had the Tom Snyder Show.

I'm gonna call it the Robin Byrd Show.

I was the first woman

to bring adult programming to television.

Well, it was mostly a male audience

when it started out as Hot Legs 'cause it was run by a man.

It was more geared towards men.

And here I am, I have a female's point of view,

which is a lot softer.

-Hello? - Hi, how are you?

I just want to know why the show has changed

from the Bobby Hollander Show to now, of course, your name?

Well, because I'm producing it now.

Oh, very good.

In the beginning, they said,

"You'll have to produce it yourself."

And I said, "Okay, I'll produce it,"

not knowing what a producer does.

Of course, 30 years, some-odd-years later,

I know a producer does everything, everything.

-Hello? - Yes, Robin.

-Yes? - Yes, I'd like to know

what do you do when you're not on the show?

Um, I'm constantly thinking about the show.

I was always told that in TV,

you can't use white, black, or red.

And I'm like, well, I'm gonna change that.

I got my red background paper.

I had a black rug on the floor.

I wore a black crochet bikini.

And you know what? All those colors

and psychedelic looks that I added to the show,

well, I taught the studio how to do video feedback.

And that's what you see on the show.

We're gonna do some exercises now,

and that's all part of living these days.

Back in those days,

it wasn't common for women to be bodybuilding.

Now, you breathe...

...in from your diaphragm.

So, I'd show everybody, this is what I do for my body.

I do squats, I do lunges. This is my thing.

You can do the same.

Do leg circles.

This is how I got my ass.

And then, I had a five-minute story

that I would write,

Byrd's Book of Bedtime Stories.

My, uh, bedtime music, perhaps?

This was X-rated fairy tales.

So, I would turn you on and tuck you in.

"He had taken her out to dinner,

and then he had taken her to a disco."

I started having guests on the show

after the Byrd's Book of Bedtime Stories...

because people didn't understand the adult industry.

They thought that everybody walked around with dildos

in their mouth and their ears, and stuck up their butts.

And-- and I just wanted to show people

that these are just human beings

that have a lot of talent.

-Thank you. - Oh, that's great!

- -That's great!