Documentary from HBO
You may not know who she is if you didn’t spend a lot of time in NYC in the last quarter of the last century, but Robin Byrd was an absolute fixture on New York cable television (Channel J) for two decades, in a raunchy show co-produced by Robin and the infamous Screw Magazine. “Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box” was her theme song. Each episode featured Byrd in a skimpy bikini, in front of a red wall with a hanging sign reading “The Robin Byrd Show.” Many of her shows were aired live, and would occasionally take viewer calls. Her guests were porn stars and strippers, who sometimes got naked.
She became better known outside NY when SNL, another New York institution, ran several parodies of the Robin Byrd Show in the late 90s, featuring Cheri Oteri as Robin.
Here is an excellent summary of her career from The Guardian
Video
The video above is not really worth your time, but the documentary is pretty interesting. There is some additional nudity from guests on her show, male and female. I didn’t capture it, since the old tapes of her show are in very poor shape, and the guests are either anonymous strippers or porn stars that you can see naked in much better quality with a Google search. There is also some nudity from Robin today, although she is 70ish and morbidly obese.
Before her Manhattan Cable days, Robin appeared in some adult films. She had a small part in a very famous one, Debbie Does Dallas (1978)
Aside from the archival videos, 70 year old Robyn was also naked in the last scene.
Old Robin is also topless in an earlier scene, but I can’t imagine anyone wants to see that.
Bambi Woods, Robin Byrd – Debbie does Dallas (1978)
That’s not Bambi Woods, it’s Christie Ford.
Bambi Woods played Debbie, Christie Ford played Roberta, one of Debbie’s friends.
I never caught her show, buy Baby Let Me Bang Your Box is one of the classic raunchy pre-rock era songs, right up there with Rotten Cocksucker Blues.
Actually, that second song is called Rotten Cocksuckers BALL. Apologies to testicles everywhere; I plead caffeine underdose.
(Cocksucker Blues is the Stones ’69 tour film. Because of certain legal complications, it can only be shown if the director is there in person. Thanks to my rabid-Stones-fan friend I was able to see it. Definitely worth the ticket if this censorship ever unclenches.)