Meat Loaf


Written and Produced by Jason Goodman


Meat Loaf’s Behind The Music was the fourth episode I produced, and the first one I did after VH1 realized it had a hit on its hands. I just remember the intensity level went up a notch on this show – when I did the interview with Meatloaf, there were any number of executives hanging out and generally getting in the way. I guess that’s the price of success – and shooting in Los Angeles.

But Meat Loaf’s story – from unlikely success to alcoholism to madness to redemption – was ideal fodder for Behind The Music. The story arc seemed so perfect that as I was writing the show, I worried that the Behind The Music formula was becoming a cliché just a few months into the show’s run. I was right about that, but I didn’t need to worry about it with Meatloaf. He created his melodrama the old fashioned way – he lived it.

Click here to watch my favorite act.











Behind The Music: Meat Loaf • my favorite act •  Written and Produced by Jason Goodman


Every once in a while when you’re telling someone’s life story, you run up against a deep dark secret. In Meat Loaf’s case, it revolved around the real date that Meat met his wife, Leslie. When I was doing the interview, I pointed out a discrepancy that didn’t make sense. Meat shrugged it off, but when we took a break a few minutes later he asked me to join him in the next room and told me they had told a different version of their meeting to their eldest daughter, Pearl, and asked me to stick to their not-completely-factual version.

It’s not the only time I’ve been asked to do this, and I always ask myself how it affects the larger story. In this case it didn’t really affect it at all, so I stuck to Meat’s dates. If you’re worried that I just blew his secret here, let it go – I met Pearl at a party years later and she told me that her dad had finally told her the truth.


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