Ed Wood Wednesdays: The 'Young Marrieds' Odyssey, Part One by Greg Dziawer

Ben exits the Nude A Go Go in Ed Wood's The Young Marrieds.

Loser of the Week

Sportscaster Stu Nahan

I remember Stu Nahan (1926-2007) as one of the color commentators in the Rocky films. Not yet in my teens, I don't think it occurred to me that Stu Nahan was essentially playing himself. For the better part of 30 years, from the 1970s through the '90s, Stu was a sports anchor in the Los Angeles television market. Early on, he appears to have had a bad week in the local press, the very same week that Ed Wood and crew were shooting the exterior location of the strip club in The Young Marrieds.

In this week's Ed Wood Wednesdays, we're taking a trip down La Cienega Blvd in West Hollywood, circa spring 1971.

I'm sure many of you noticed the two moments in The Young Marrieds when Ben exits the strip club, and quickly rushing by behind him as the camera follows him, we see a sign on the building. The club, as identified by Joe Blevins previously here at Ed Wood Wednesdays, is the Nude A Go Go. We can make out part of the sign to the right of the entrance in the first shot of Ben exiting, and the sign to the left of the door reads:

LOSER OF THE WEEK

STU NAHAN

AND HIS COMPUTER

Not sure what this meant exactly, I inferred it might have something to do with Stu having made a sports prediction (or predictions) with a computer, obviously novel at the time. The prediction(s) must have been wrong, and were likely regarding an LA team, as the proprietors of the Nude A Go Go saw fit to dub Stu their Loser of the Week. Incidentally, the sign also listed Fidel Castro and Richard Nixon among its losers of the week. But what was this all about?