- The morning we taped this episode, I brought in a few (4) beers to use as props for Arnie and Guy. We started taping at 9:30 am and by 10:15 John had finished them off (unknown to me). John then sent someone out for a 12-pack and started on those-- I thought he was just nursing the same beer, boy was I wrong. By the end of the three-hour session John was fairly... um, “at ease”. If you watch closely you can tell Arnie’s extra loopy in this show- but it works well. As I recall we had a lot of fun shooting that morning. However... after the taping session, I got in big trouble when our Production Manager went to the General Manager and complained about the drinking that went on during the shoot-- making it sound much worse than it was. Things weren’t fun then. Eh, but it all blew over in a few days.
- The whole idea of using the news desk as a landing strip for airplanes came about through the fact that the desk Joel Poppen (one of the station’s engineers) had built was too damn long! He did a great job, but a little too great. So we did a couple of shows making fun of the giant desk and then Joel I think felt motivated to shorten it.
- The Noise, was a skit developed just for my friend Larry Brennan. He used to always make this annoyingly loud sound, for no other reason than to draw attention to himself, so I wrote him into the show.
- The “Science Bits” skits were derived from extra footage from “Great Conspiracies in Science”. Brandon Lovested wrote the “Great Conspiracies in Science” which were very clever pieces, but they had a tendency to be a little esoteric for our audience. These shorter bits worked well and were great short pieces to drop in the show.
CREDITS
Costumes Provided By: Circa 21 & The Showbusiness
Producer - Thomas Hart
Directors - Greg Baldwin,Thomas Hart
Writer - Thomas Hart
PLAYERS
Don Bargmann Jr.
Larry Brennan
Pat Flaherty
Patti Flaherty
Jennifer Hanson
Thomas Hart
John Horvath
Rob Humphrey
Brandon Lovested
Merlin Nelson Jr.
Jim Peterson
Studio Camera Operators - Don Bargmann Jr., Steve Elliott
Sound - Denise Hollmer
Prompter - Sue Passe
Smoke Provided By: Rob “Let’s go to a bar!” Humphrey
Go to bed, it’s late.
©Copyright 1987, 2006 Thomas Hart