The producer/host of a local Colorado TV show I worked on for 4 years is posting tons of comedy skits and sketches over on YouTube -- just go to YouTube and type in "homemoviescolorado" and the dozens he's posted so far will all pop up. Some, like "One Ton Amoeba" and "Hairball Cereal", are really funny still. Some have not aged as well. I don't know how many he plans to put up altogether, but I'm at least visible in "Bowling" and "Name That Shoe" -- I helped write the "Name That Shoe" bit -- the hostess in the background is Claudia Lamb, who played Louise Lasser's daughter on the old "Mary Hartman! Mary Hartman!" late-night TV series in the '70's. The Steve Shallow character is one I was doing in the comedy clubs of the day, as part of the "Laughs To Go" comedy troupe.
I suppose I worked on 60 or 70 episodes of the show & who knows how many short skits. I really hope he digs up "Squid Beer", as that was one of the funniest things I ever did. Sheryl Lee from "Twin Peaks" is in at least 2 of them, though I don't know if he's got those up yet or not. You may see all sorts of "B" faces in these, as lots of folk who put their time in on the show went on to bigger things. "Name That Shoe" is 2 years before "ROBO-C.H.I.C" for me (either '87 or '88). Yes, we did do a special "ROBO" edition of the show when it was released.
Check out the "Crusin' Live From Longmont" if you care to experience where it is I now live --
Maybe someone more technically adept than I can drag "Name That Shoe" over to the board/this thread here, so we can all make fun of it together --
peter johnson/denny damn i'm old . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv5-QImF0fQ
It's no SNL or SCTV, but you had to cut your teeth somewhere. Congrats for being in it!
I can also be seen running across the screen during the "earthquake" in the Superbowl episode he's posted, and am in the back of the convertible(!) in the Crusin' Longmont segment -- I had forgotten about this completely.
Also part of the chorus in "Bowlin' Bowlin' Bowlin'", wearing an eye-patch for reasons unknown. The show was a complete madhouse at times.
I also want to mention that this was emphatically NOT "Public Domain" TV, but a real PBS station that still broadcasts in Colorado today: KBDI TV Channel 12. We went out to the whole state & parts of Wyoming. There was a huge following of the show amongst the academic classes -- The Atmospheric & Oceanographic agencies in Boulder & the National Bureau of Standards laboratories, etc. etc., not to mention the Nobel winners at the University of Colorado.
Alas, as our host/producer Big Bill Hammel had no sacred cows, he got on the bad side of the station owners with his black-face imitations of Michael Jackson & ad parodies for "Native America's Greatest Hits!", where every song was identical drumming/chanting. The final blow for the show came when we had the punk band Baldo Rex on live & they mooned the camera & went into unlocked offices at the station and trashed them. We were cancelled that week, never to return.
For over a decade, though, ours was the only show on TV that would show anyone's short films no matter what the topic. We showed 8mm by 8-year-olds of their dogs, stop-motion films of aircraft by certfied lunatics, and even real films by real film-makers. We had a story about us run in an issue of Film Threat Magazine once or twice, and started getting films from all over the country & overseas. We showed slasher films from behind the Iron Curtain, conspiracy diatribes by The Langley Punks -- you name it. The comedy skits were filler to flesh out the full hour, from 10pm to 11pm, every Saturday night.
peter johnson/denny crane
And thankyou very much, Reverent, for putting that up --
peter j/denny c