 RADIO FREE COMEDY |
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I moved to Seattle in 1981 and soon hooked up with Matt Hansen who was running the creative department at an ad agency. He ran a newspaper ad looking for voice talent, so I sent my radio audition tape which was more comedy than air check tape. Matt called and said he didn't have any work for me, but he did want to write and produced a radio comedy show like the National Lampoon Radio Hour. I thought that might be a way to break into the Seattle radio market, so I agreed.
Some of our commercial spoofs included one of the law firm, "Shaftem, Dickem, Hosem, and Marx -- Where justice is as close as your checkbook." Then there was the cigarette ad for "The Super Tarmax 200 -- the most satisfying and dangerous cigarette in the world. After just one pack of Super Tarmax 200's, you'll cough up enough tar to pave a small driveway." Some of our hybrid shows and characters included "The American Gun Nut" with host Rock Mayhem. This was essentially The American Sportsman with a rabid gun nut hosting instead of good old Curt Gowdy. Rock Mayhem would take people like Barney Fife shooting at street signs on the streets of Bakersfield or would take Mr. Rogers to the south of France to hunt the elusive Renault (while drinking lots of wine). Another one of our favorites was "Wrestling for Peace Prizes" where Lech Walesa wrestled Mother Theresa (a la the World Wrestling Federation) for the Nobel Peace Prize. Then there was "The Wombmates" where a pair of developing zygotes debated their fates while listening to their idiot parents discussed their futures. We produced 26 shows of fifteen minute duration and aired them on KJET-AM in Seattle. Steve Larson was the KJET program director who put us on the air, bless his heart. We eventually got the shows on the air at WJOK in Washington, D.C. and a few other stations around the country. When we didn't get picked up by Westwood One or any of the other radio syndication outfits we contacted, Matt and I decided to turn the scripts into a television pilot. So we talked some bankers (!) into GIVING us some money. We then went to Telemation Productions (a video production house in Seattle) and got them to agree to put up services equal in amount to the cash we raised. Then we got a bunch of Seattle's stand-up comedians and comic actors to work for scale in the production of "Stellavision." "Stella" was a character created by comedian Vanda Michaels and she hosted the show, which was "Stella's idea of what ought to be on the TV." The show was 30 minutes long and -- quite frankly, was pretty funny.
Matt and I took it to LA and showed it around. Everyone agreed it was funny stuff but they didn't know what to do with it. They told us to start writing sitcom scripts. So we did. Then we eventually moved to LA and got some fringe TV writing jobs. When those dried up we started writing film spec scripts, the second of which was Pest Control... If and when I get the time, I'll post some of the complete scripts. Maybe I'll even look into selling "Radio Free Comedy's Finest Hour" or copies of "Stellavision" on line. (But I need to look into the rights issues on that first...) THE CRITICS' WORD ON ... "STELLAVISION" "It takes a lot to get me to smile, but Wrestling for Peace Prizes had me on the floor!" "RADIO FREE COMEDY" "Better than anything I've heard on the radio since the days of Lampoon's old show." "The production is slick and the material is quite good." "Inventive [and] up to the standards of the best sketches of Saturday Night Live." "One of Seattle's most promising comic acts." "Genuinely funny and extremely well written and produced." "The writing is multi-layered...to the degree that they become the aural equivalent of the SCTV comedy series." "Brilliantly scripted...wonderful stuff that defies categorization...first class stuff." "The finest thing since The National Lampoon Radio Hour" "I was totally entertained, even after the third time through." ©1999-2003, Reduviidae, Inc. - All rights reserved |
Over the next few years we went to a bunch of contacts Matt had through his ad agency work. We went to Lew's Recording Studio on Westlake and got Lew to agree to let us use the place in exchange for a plug on the show. We talked the engineer (Carey Wakeley) into running the board for us in exchange for beer, more or less. We went to AFTRA and got a waiver to allow us to use union voice talent for free until we earned money from the show. We wrote a batch of scripts and called up voice talent and started producing.
The show was intended to be in the tradition of the National Lampoon Radio Hour and SCTV, and SNL -- lots of spoofs of commercials and TV shows and other pop cultural references. We also created a batch of original characters and hybrid shows.