The David Bronstein Show
David Bronstein is late, but I don’t mind because women are taking their clothes off in front of me and that’s not something I normally see at one o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. I’m at The Brass Rail, an upscale strip club on Yonge Street, and I’m waiting to interview Bronstein about his new TV show, American Stripper, which he describes as American Idol for topless dancers. Bronstein, a onetime actor and Catskills comedian, made a name for himself hosting phone sex infomercials in the nineties, and for a while was something of a cult figure on the late-night television landscape. His catchphrase, “It’s private, confidential, one-on-one, and discreet!” high-pitched, frenetic, and nasal, invokes memories of sleepless nights in front of the TV, and flickering images of bikini girls with big hair just a phonecall away.
He arrives forty minutes late, apologizing because he couldn’t get away from “the phone and the emails.” Bronstein looks harried, but as soon as my recorder clicks on, his voice rises in pitch, and his energy surges. He is not the King of Late Night for no reason, even if that moniker is self-applied.
David Bronstein is producer and host of American Stripper, along with Jewish porn legend Ron Jeremy, and Finally Legal covergirl Sunny Lane. After watching a couple of episodes on DVD, I’m still a little unclear as to what the show actually is, so Bronstein breaks it down for me. “The girls strip, and then Ron and Sunny comment on their stripping, and then the viewers at home text vote if they like the stripper. The girl who has the most votes wins.” As of the day of our interview, Bronstein still does not know what exactly the best stripper will win, but he doesn’t seem too concerned. “Maybe money or a car,” he says, “maybe she wins me for a night… but that’s the loser! Ha!”
The comparison to American Idol holds up shakily. The performances are brief and dimly lit, and instead of Simon’s tireless bitchiness and Paula’s unintelligible rambling, we have Ron talking about Kegel muscles and Sunny obliging his frequent requests to do her “booty dance.” It’s a strange piece of television, made stranger by Bronstein doing his Jerry Lewis shtick with the strippers between their acts, dropping one-liners that haven’t seen the light of day since 1964. I ask him about this, and his response is typically confident, “The jokes are so old that I do, people have never heard them before, and they think I’m a genius comic! Ha!”
Despite the show’s shortcomings, factor in ‘Too Hot for TV’ DVD sales and online tie-ins, it will probably make money for Bronstein, because that’s what he does: He is a consummate salesman. “Many business deals I get involved in,” Bronstein says, “I don’t understand it, I don’t agree with it, I would never do it myself, but I see it making money, I jump in. I’m Mr. Hype, Mr. Sizzle, Mr. Excitement.” He proves this to me during the hour or so of our interview, as he relentlessly boosts his various products: TV shows, DVD deals, websites, a mouthwash that gets rid of that cigarette smell. It’s kind of overwhelming, and I have to make a real effort to keep the conversation focused on strippers.
While Bronstein excuses himself to take a phonecall, I sip my ginger ale and watch the stage, where one woman, introduced as “Officer Patty,” gyrates to the theme song from COPS. Her police uniform is very tight, and her knee-high vinyl platform boots hardly seem the most appropriate footwear for chasing down purse-snatchers, but I let these little lapses in authenticity slide in the name of performance. Regardless of her dubious policing skills, she’s not a bad dancer. I try to picture her on the show, doing the Catskills bit with Bronstein, who would then ask his audience, ‘Does she have what it takes to be the next American Stripper?’ I decide she probably does, but in the end I don’t think that’s the point, anyway.
