In 1982, New Wave Theater was a local Los Angeles TV program that featured emerging new wave, post-punk, and punk bands like Bad Religion, Fear, Dead Kennedys, and the Circle Jerks. David Jove produced the show and musician Peter Ivers hosted. The show eventually became part of Night Flight and ran until 1983 when Ivers was found murdered, a crime that was never solved. Now, you can watch the whole series on YouTube. From Wikipedia:
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 The Blasters' "American Music", played. Ivers would appear at the beginning and end of each show wearing dark glasses, spouting a stream of consciousness spiel about life, art and music. Besides the top-billed music acts, short skits were shown, including Sri Maharooni, a chain-smoking Indian fakir speaking about the meaning of life, and Chris Genkel (played by actor Robert Roll), a pitchman hawking bizarre products for "gherkins" from his company, Genkel Wax Works, in Adonai, Illinois. Celebrities, including Debra Winger and Beverly D'Angelo, were known to show up at NWT's tapings; Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, who'd just begun hosting Elvira's Movie Macabre on KHJ-TV, appeared on Episode #2 and delivered one of the Genkel Wax Works commercials that week.
