Live on Tape (Show #26)
“THE TIME HAT”
Airdate: February 6th 1988
(21:33)
SYNOPSIS - Arnie has devised a brilliant piece of multi-media technology. He’s able to combine movies and TV shows to make hybrid interactive programs. Meanwhile, Zippy reports from Kewanee where Perry Dink is trying out his latest invention, the Time Hat, but something goes terribly wrong. While Arnie attempts to program in “Invasion of the Brady Snatchers” Mr. Dink’s Time Hat short circuits causing Guy Newswarthy to be sucked into Arnie’s TV hell. Guy runs for his life as he is chased by the mutant Brandy family... oh the humanity.
“Now the emotions are flowing over this reporter like the wet stench of tuna fish salad.”
- Seldmond Greenhoe, anticipating an encounter with the legendary Abominable Showman
“LIVE ON TAPE FIRSTS - This was the first show where I inserted a movie clip just before the opening credits. For this show I used a shot of a tidal wave destroying a small harbor town. Cool, huh?
SKITS AND BITS
•Robert Munsing #4 (The Wacky Schmacky) - The esteemed Mr. Munsing interviews Dr. Joseph Von Schmecky about his latest discovery. Unfortunately Dr. Schmecky is more interested in showing Robert the infamous “Wacky Schmacky”. The silliest never ends, does it?
•Between the Lines - Guy reports on Ford’s reissue of the Pinto hatchback and former speaker of the house, Tip O’neil’s performance as Yenta the matchmaker on Broadway in “Fiddler on the Roof”.
•The Fascinating World of People #3 (The Abominable Showman) - Seldmond Greenhoe interviews a man who claims to have proof of the existence of a comical creature who lives out in the frozen woods.
•The Jason Blues - Jason, of “Friday the 13th” fame regales us with a delightful little blues number. Oh, we can all feel his pain.
(Written by: John Horvath)
NOTES AND “LIVE ON TAPE” FACTS
- The “Wacky Schmacky” will go down in the annals of Live on Tape history as one of the silliest, and maybe stupidest things we ever did on the show. I’m not proud of it, but who cares? You have to admit that John’s performance is riveting. While we were taping this skit, John and I got a case of the giggles and it took multiple takes before we got through it. I used these out takes in the following show #26 in the “Live on Tape, The True Story” piece. It may not be funny, but it was a lot of fun.
- The Fascinating World of People skit for this show runs far too long. Lord help me, but I have no idea why I had everyone do that long frantic intro chasing after the rubber chicken. This was also one of Don Abbott’s first featured parts in a skit.
- (Jason Sings the Blues) This skit came about in a rather unique way. This was something we had recorded a couple of months prior to this show, but I didn’t have room to included until now. What had happened was this... I had received some negative criticism from a few of the staff who worked in the studio. They said our script’s sucked and that the performers, John, Don and Brandon were much funnier that anything I could write. Not something I’d ever debate... however: the suggestion was made that I should just turn on the cameras and “let them be funny”... Naturally my ego was bruised, plus I knew that you could not shoot a weekly show by just turning on the cameras... besides our format was not built for improv. That following Tuesday morning, I arrived at the station to shoot. I had purposely NOT written show. I just stepped back, had the director turn on the cameras and let the studio folks attempt to film enough material for a half hour. With the performers getting the only instruction, “Now, just be funny.” It failed miserably. We taped for over three hours and the only thing that came out of it was the short song that John and Don did. I proved my point. My scripts may have sucked, but at least they provided us with enough material to do a weekly show. The techies never criticized what we were doing after that... well, they did, but not to the same degree.
The fact that we did not come up with anything usable out of this taping session does not in any way reflect negatively on the talents of John, Don and Brandon. They are each extremely creative. They were put on the spot so that I could prove my point and we could continue making the show. I did apologize for doing this to them later. The stuff they did was very funny, but in the context of our show it was unusable.
CREDITS
Costumes Provided by: Circa ‘21 and the Show Business
Producer - Thomas Hart
Directors - Denise Hollmer, Thomas Hart
Writer - Thomas Hart
“Jason Blues” written by: John Horvath
PLAYERS
Don Abbott
Don Bargmann Jr.
Jim Cox
Thomas Hart
John Horvath
Merlin Nelson Jr.
Video-Tape Editor - Thomas Hart
Studio Camera Operators - Don Bargmann Jr., Steve Elliott & Kori Skinner
Audio - Joel Poppen
Prompter - Abdul Raheim
Field Crew - Thomas Hart, Greg Crook
“Don’t put bananas in your pants because the neighbors will go ape.”
©Copyright 1988, 2006 Thomas Hart
OUT TAKE #7 (Seldmond drags Mr. Mitchell towards the rampaging clown)
SELDMOND: Abominable Showman my ate... er, great aunt fanny! Hey buddy, what are you?! Drunk or something?!
(The clown laughs and jumps towards Seldmond, but his multi-colored wig catches in the tree branches above him and hangs there. Everyone breaks up.)