Celebrity, Cancellation, and Bankruptcy
The success of the show made Downey a pop culture celebrity, leading to an appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1988, WrestleMania V in 1989 in which he traded insults with Roddy Piper and Brother Love on Piper's Pit, and later roles in movies such as Predator 2 and Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation. He was also cast in several television roles, often playing tabloid TV hosts or other obnoxious media types.
In 1988, Downey recorded an album of songs based on his show, entitled Morton Downey Jr. Sings (released in 1989). The album's only single, "Zip It!" (a catch-phrase from the TV show, used to quiet an irate guest), became a surprise hit on some college radio stations.
Over the course of the 1988–89 television season, his TV show suffered a decline in viewership, resulting in many markets downgrading its time slot; even flagship station WWOR moved Downey's program from its original 9:00 PM slot to 11:30 PM in January 1989, where it was followed by the then-new Arsenio Hall Show. However, following Hall's strong early ratings, the two series swapped time slots several weeks later, thus relegating Downey to 12:30 AM in the number-one television market.
In late April 1989, he was involved in an incident in a San Francisco International Airport restroom in which he claimed to have been attacked by neo-Nazis who painted a swastika on his face and attempted to shave his head. Some inconsistencies in Downey's account (e.g., the swastika was painted in reverse, suggesting that Downey had drawn it himself in a mirror), and the failure of the police to find supportive evidence, led many to suspect that the incident was a hoax and a plea for attention.
In July 1989 his show was cancelled, with the owners of the show announcing that the last show had been taped on June 30, and that no new shows would air after September 15. At the time of its cancellation, the show was airing on a total of 30 stations across the country (including WPHL in Philadelphia), and its advertisers had been reduced primarily to "direct-response" ads (such as 900 chat line and phone sex numbers).
In February 1990, Downey filed for bankruptcy in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.
Read more about this topic: Morton Downey, Jr.
Famous quotes containing the word bankruptcy:
“You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)