A pal and I were discussing Christopher Walken’s SNL character “The Continental.” My friend remarked that the sketch was so specific in its setup that it felt as if it must've been a parody of something, though as far as we knew, it wasn't.
Turns out, right there on the Wikipedia page for Walken’s hilarious recurring character, was a link to one Renzo Cesana, creator, writer and star of the short-lived television series THE CONTINENTAL.
Cesana was a performer from Italy who, in between infrequent acting gigs, started his own advertising agency in Los Angeles. In 1951, he was tasked with creating a 15-minute radio program for a shampoo company.
This sponsored content was tailor-made to accompany THE LONESOME GAL, a successful quarter-hour radio show in which a sultry sounding female DJ spoke alluringly to a horny male audience.
Cesana reasoned that the female half of the audience would want their own sexy fantasy figure to whisper promises of love and adoration. The Continental was born.
When Cesana successfully pitched a TV version in 1952, it aired at 12:30PM, and every weekday during their lunch break, bored, lonely housewives pressed their thighs together and let Cesana drip his European honey all over them.
Much like his wordless peer Korla Pandit, Cesana adopted the direct address approach, staring into the television camera, and therefore the eyes of his female viewers. But he one-upped Pandit by using a subjective camera, turning viewers into participants.
The Continental invited viewers into his abode, reassuring them with the line, “Don’t be afraid, darling. It’s only a man’s apartment.” And unlike Pandit, Cesana was a silver-tongued Lothario.
He cooed to his audience in a thick accent as he spoke of how they made him feel, promised them jewels and champagne, and told them about the exotic locales to which he would take them. Hot stuff! Women swooned; husbands scowled.
Like a lot of early TV experiments, it was a complete, insane original. No wonder that, even though its initial run lasted only four months, it was spoofed by everyone from Red Skelton to Ernie Kovacs to Pepe LePew.
THE CONTINENTAL reran in 1954. And then he was gone. As of this writing, it appears that no video of the program is publicly available. This means that, holy shit, not only was the SNL sketch based on a real show, it was based on nothing more than a 40 year-old memory. Amazing.
Cesana parlayed his TV fame into a recording contract, and since he couldn’t sing, Capitol Records got a couple albums of spoken song lyrics and monologues. The latter provides us with our only existing recordings of Cesana as his iconic character.
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