For Better or Werts : TV Worth Watching

WEIRD & WILD: 'Roller Boogie'

Xanadu comes out with a special-edition DVD Tuesday, and now Roller Boogie airs commercial free! What more does a disco baby need?

Maybe the disco-era stamina to stay up all night and watch it. An immortally nutty 1979 dud starring then-hot Exorcist girl Linda Blair, Roller Boogie (late Friday/early Saturday at 3:45 a.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies) airs as the second half of this week's TCM Underground double feature (following 2 a.m.'s equally non-terrific yet also perversely watchable 1980 flick The Apple, about a futuristic devil-ruled world marked mostly by glitter, fey boys and bad accents).

Boogie is basically an old-time MGM musical -- bored rich girl meets eccentrically talented poor boy, yada yada yada -- put to a disco beat on wheels. (Oh, Xanadu, where art thou?) At least you get to hear Earth Wind & Fire's "Boogie Wonderland," one of the few aural artifacts of the era that won't send you racing across the room to turn down the volume dial.

Wait, what am I saying? No remotes back then?! The horror . . . the horror . . .

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Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

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