The 2004 California Adventure
...or It's All Ken Venturi's Fault

Wednesday, 11 August 2004

6:30 AM flight. That's right, 6:30 AM flight. Due to over capacitied airports everywhere, flights are now going in dayparts that shouldn't have flights. Which means getting up at 4:15 AM. I didn't know this time existed. Flight was pretty uneventful until LAX, where the wait for luggage was pretty long. Ended up going straight to the Museum of TV and Television Television and Radio, where unfortunately they still don't have the salute to wacky neighbors, although a school group was leaving when we came in. Three highlights here, the pilot to the 1969-short lived You're Putting Me On, the 1969-even more short lived Turn-On and a compilation of pre-standardized Muppets clips.

First, a word about Turn On, since there's precious little about it. If you don't know the story, it was the second network show to be cancelled after one episode. The first one, Jackie Gleason's You're in the Picture (1961) aired only one episode but Jackie kept the time slot, using the second show to apologize for the first and the subsequent shows used as an interview format. Turn On, however, was different. And bad. Spectacularly bad. If you beam yourself back to the 5th of February in 1969, you had the Fox of its day, ABC, trying to push the envelope with another edgy, youth oriented show. By today's standards, ABC was then a successful network because it skewed younger than the other two, but that's wasn't how it was done at the time, so they would try anything. Also, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In was one of the top shows at the time, so the imitations were bound to come. So, who better to get to rip-off Laugh In then its own executive producer, George Schlatter.

The premise was the show was "done by computer", but even a four-year-old would notice that the "computer" on the show did nothing other than beep and flash lights. The idea is that it would be faster than Laugh In, and it was, but since you had more jokes to do, the chances of jokes falling flat were greater. Laugh In at least had skits that ran several minutes in length, but not here, they were all one-liners. Very unfunny one liners (a prisoner uses his one phone call to order take-out, stop laughing at anytime). Tim Conway was considered the guest star for the episode, while the cast of mostly no-name actors did feature a few that would become famous later -- Teresa Graves and Chuck McCann ("that guy" on about 1,000 sitcoms).

They tried some things that were at least different. The entire show had this Moog-synthesized drum track that was neat for 30 seconds, but became more annoying as the half-hour wore on. The credits came during the show as brief segues between skits. Plus, there were animated jokes that came on the bottom of the screen, mostly gay jokes that were unfunny then and downright homophobic now. Urban legend even has it that some stations cancelled the show during its airing.

The game show pilot was weird because they were trying two formats, one with 3 celebrities and 3 contestants, and the other with 6 celebrities. So notoriuously-cheap Bob Stewart filmed just one pilot, the first half of the show featured contestants and the second half featured just celebrities. It also had an Amazon Women on the Moon feel with the scores changing for no apparent reason. The Muppets thing was weird since he hadn't totally defined the rules for the Muppets yet, so you would see things like Kermit with a female voice or some other character that sounded exactly like Fozzie. Its humor was also 20 years ahead of its time.

The evening was capped off with a viewing of some obscure game show stuff at the house of someone "in the biz." During a showing of The $50,000 Pyramid, I brought the house with down with my clue of "who in the hell are you" for the clue "Things Said in the Morning".

Thursday, 12 August 2004

Since I was up for 23 hours the day before, sleeping was in the order. And sleep I did. Then I went on a futile search for high speed Internet in Burbank. All of the cybercafes listed in the phone book were out of business. The libraries were restricted to Burbank residents only. I, gasp, went into a Starbucks, tried there, but my wireless card wasn't working despite the presence of signal. Hmmm.

After that, Matt and I went to UCLA to watch some stuff I reserved at the film archive. Fascinating stuff yet again, including a pilot for a comedy game show. The game wasn't that good, but the pre-taped location interviews of the contestant could have fit into The Daily Show or Let's Bowl seamlessly. Also we saw a tape of a 50's kids show called "Hail the Champ". I can't find anything on it, but it was positively awful and was capped off with the hostess holding the sponsor's product upside down.

The evening was spent partially with Joe, who had to pull an all-nighter at his law firm, and picking up Tim at LAX without knowing what airline or time we would be picking him up. We finally figured that up and got Tim.

Friday, 13 August 2004

For our Pittsburghers, you'll be happy to know there is an Eat and Park in Burbank. However, it's not part of the chain, it's just a greasy spoon with the same name, advertising "The Best Omelets in Burbank". I will now repeat the only thing I remember from Business Law -- "advertising is not a contract".

The morning/early afternoon was spent at a taping of Wheel of Fortune. Now normally you aren't supposed to reveal what happens at a taping, but lets hope that Vanna's stay in intensive care will be a short one. It was "Southern Hospitality" week, and I'm sure the African-American contestant was thrilled playing with a background of a large Southern plantation behind him. After the show, I was given a Wheel tote bag.

The meal of the day (and I only needed one) was at Claim Jumper. I had the "lunch size" ribs, which were the size of a VHS tape. I guess the full size would have been the VCR itself. Since the plans of going to the Angels game was quashed by the game selling out, we watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, the only time of the quadrennial in which performance art is politely tolerated. C'mon folks, it was awful, there were a billion people watching some guy in a diaper imitating Q*Bert. However, the NBC coverage included the best Olympic one-liner ever: "Oedipus, as you know, is the tragic Greek king who killed his father and married his mother, a sequence of events that seldom turns out well." And, with some research, I finally got an answer to a question that has been bothering me, why some countries starting with B came in with the beta crowd while others came in with mu-pi. If the country has been around for a long time, when the name first entered Greek, it started with beta. However, the sound for beta morphed into a v-sound and the hard B pretty much disappeared from Greek. So, any newer nations (like Burundi or Belize) start with mu-pi, which is what is now used for any loan words needing a hard B.

Saturday, 14 August 2004

The morning was spent at a taping of Balderdash. If you're not checking out this show occasionally, shame on you. It's nice to have a panel show on TV, and this one is pretty good for the limited resources it has. It airs at 8:30 PM EDT on your PAX station. I was given a chance to go "back stage" (it was in front of the stage and was on the same level) and saw their computer systems as compared to mine, the difference mainly being their $15,000 broadcast-quality video cards. Again, I remind you that I can't reveal what happens at a taping, but if French Stewart is somehow reading this, there isn't a court in the land that will convict you. I was also given a brief tour of the Tribune lot, so I got to see where Steve Harvey, Family Feud and three court shows tape. I also found the set for Rome is Burning, but I controlled my anger and did not destroy the set. And, most importantly, I saw Peter Funt's parking spot.

It was coming back to the hotel that I learned a harsh reality. Oh, my hotel had MSNBC and CNBC, so I thought I was going to see some Olympics. But, instead I was seeing reruns of Asia Market Wrapup and a Time and Again retrospective of Jimmy Carter. How odd, I thought. Until I figured it out. MSNBC, CNBC and the History Channel were the international feeds, not the terrestrial feeds. Why? At least I got some help from Telemundo.

Sunday, 15 August 2004

The day. The day of the actual congress. First up was the Jeopardy! tryout. The thing I actually had to bring a suit for. With only fifteen people participating, they let everybody play the mock game and gave the test at the end I assume to confirm people they were considering. As usual, I got the "good energy" line and never went back to the same category to show some depth, although I will admit I went for science categories when I saw them. I also gave an incredibly glorious wrong answer that I can't publicly divulge, but it made the entire Jeopardy! staff laugh. And if you knew the details, you would see why I answered what I did.

After the tryout, I had a request to write a small program for a later event. Right now. So, I spent the time between the Jeopardy tryout and lunch programming. Not that I terribly minded, if someone notices it later, I've done my job.

The lunch was great. I got to sit at the cool kids table, made some contacts and got to hear some good speeches. Jack Narz led it off, and his entire 81 years and a penchant for being a little tipsy showed off with an intriguing speech that sort of became the barometer -- go as long as you can. He was followed by Tom Kennedy, Bob Barker, Ralph Andrews' son, Jayne Meadows (who gave the best speech), Betty White ("Bill [Cullen] hosted a show called The Price is Right." Looking at Bob Barker: "Don't worry, I'll explain the rules to you."), Tom Kennedy (again), Dick Clark and Bob Stewart. Unfortunately, since the lunch went very long, the panel we had put together for them was scotched, and a whole bunch of material I had prepared for them went to semi-waste. Plus, the celebrities pretty much evacuated after the lunch. Now, I realize most of them are pushing the wrong side of 80, but remember the wisdom of Homer Simpson about celebrities: "you people must realize that the public owns you for life!". An extra hour was all we asked.

After the afternoon talks and the sermon by Pastor Steve, we got to my little shindig. I got two rounds in, and would have gone longer if the hotel staff hadn't kicked us out. The first setting was reserved for contest winners during the day, while the second sitting was reserved for Bob Boden and "the next seven people that can run up to the stage." Strangely, I spent all that time getting the newest game (Name That Tune) ready, and it never came up.

Monday, 16 August 2004

I used most of Monday as a decompression day, sleeping a long time. Of course, I could have used this time to watch Olympic action on "the networks of NBC", but instead it was just more Time and Again, this time featuring McCarthyism. In the evening, I got to hang out with the cool kids again and saw some egrigious pilots. Let's combine a fashion show and Name That Tune. Let's play Wheel of Fortune, with phones!

Also tried WiFi at Starbucks, and I finally figured out why it wasn't working. You need to pay. $6 an hour. Although that's still a better deal than the coffee, it was still a little pricey for me.

Tuesday, 17 August 2004

Kevin and I got up at the crack of 8 to drive over to see a taping of Street Smarts, hosted by Frank Nicotero. Like Balderdash, it's a cute little show that gets practically no notice, despite the fact it's in its fifth season and now has GSN reruns. It also suffers from bizarro time slots, in New York City it's on at 4 in the morning, 1 AM in Los Angeles while in Chicago it's 2:30 in the afternoon and Detroit 1 in the afternoon.

Unlike other shows which have sophisticated queueing procedures for the audience, Street Smarts had some bleachers on a loading dock. The audience consisted of a class from a year-round high school, relatives of contestants, Kevin and myself. We got through all four shows in just under four hours, and only twice found an stop-tape situation before the staff did. The warm-up guy's act was pretty blue, which was really great when the crowd is 90% high school. Of course, things are different out there, so it may just be normal. And, I remind you, I can't reveal the details of a taping, but I could have sworn she was 18. Sorry, Frank!

The evening event was a Padres game. Sitting in my hotel room in Burbank, I figured 3 1/2 hours would be enough time to drive down to San Diego and get there in time for the opening pitch. Driving on the 5 had its usual issues, but it finally cleared up about Anaheim and was pretty much smooth sailing until San Diego. There was a carbeque on the North 5 but it necessitated setting up the fire trucks on the South 5. This cost me about 20 minutes.

I finally get to downtown San Diego, which is deep in the south part of town. From what I understand, Petco was built downtown because the area needed revitalizing. No it didn't. There was plenty enough pedestrian, work-related and other commerce traffic in downtown that had nothing to do with the ballgame. Which made getting to the ballgame that much more difficult. The stadium doesn't have that much parking, and that has to be reserved ahead of time, meaning I spend a good 20 minutes navigating a baffling one-way system to find a parking garage that was a 10 minute walk from the stadium.

Once at the stadium, it was another 20 minutes to get the tickets at the six open windows they had at the northwest entrance. Now, apparently there were 18 open ticket windows at the south entrance, but from what I can tell, most people going into the stadium would be coming from the north, so why weren't the majority of the ticket windows at the north end? Because of this, I missed a good part of the first inning, which included a 5 run barrage. At least I got to see the pitcher walked to load the bases. And be "serenaded" by the drunk fan behind me singing Take Me Out the Ballgame six times during the 9th inning.

The park itself was a little disappointing. Since this was being built at the tail-end of the retro craze, it seems like it was built by committee. Old downtown building shoehorned into the park? Check. Wacky corners that make no sense? Check. One bullpen in the outfield, while another was in foul territory? Check. Out of town scoreboard with too much information? Check. Complaining ballplayers saying the dimensions are unfair? Check. The latter proved to be moot in my small sample size since there were 4 homers.

What saved the trip to San Diego was the top of the 8th. That was the inning Jack in the Box, my all-time favorite advertiser, got all of the rotating advertising. Signs behind home plate said "Hi! Mom" and "How come I don't get a mask?". Leftfield was "I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it!" Rightfield was "hit a homer so I can be on TV."

Wednesday, 18 August 2004

With my flight not until 2:20, I decide to go to UCLA (it's on the way anyway) to catch some of the tapes I reserved but haven't seen yet. Already cutting it for time, I get to the last tape I'll watch, a pilot for a game called Shopping Spree. A great little game, wouldn't have looked so bad with current technology. The gist of the main game was to make as many small words you could out of a bigger word, the problem was conveying that information with 1962 technology. They essentially had two people in a booth writing on a projection screen backwards so it came forward on the screen. The bonus game was unusually cruel for the '60s, but still in good fun.

My rule on UCLA tapes is always look past what was listed, there may be another show they forgot to catalog. And sure enough, there was another show. I couldn't leave well enough alone. I can't remember the title offhand, but involved Monty Hall in sort of a cross between The $64,000 Question and That's Incredible. You have some sort of neat stunt, you came on one week, did it and won $1,500. Then you could come back the next week and go double-or-nothing on a variation of your stunt. For example, one of the stunts was assembling a rifle in a short amount of time. The stunt the following week was to do it blindfolded. Also on this episode was big-time pro golfer Ken Venturi, who was doing closest to the pin.

I tried to watch this as fast as I could. I got it done in 8 minutes. But those 8 minutes did me in. I ended up missing my flight, not accounting for the fact that at the LAX ticket counter everybody is a foreign national who needs ID checked, everybody has seven kids and everybody has four bags per person. The next flight I could get was one 10 hours later. So I had 10 hours to kill at LAX.

They offered to check my bags early due to my inconvienence, so I did that, and it set off all sort of alarms at TSA. Which is odd, because they didn't set anything off when I left. The only thing I added would have been the trinkets picked up during the trip. I'm putting my money on the Chuck Woolery bobblehead doll. Alas, this only killed half an hour, I still had 9.5 to kill.

I headed over to the Tom Bradley International Terminal, which is the newest of LAX's 8 terminals. I actually found free WiFi in a food court (although this was an accident). Camped next to me was this set of people going to Korea for some Tae Kwon Do thing. From what I could gather, all these groups from around the country were getting together at LAX, and then had a charter to Korea. To pass their time as loud as they could, they played this card/dice hybrid game that I believe was called Slacker, but I can't find anything about it. If it truly was called Slacker, it sure had a lot of rules.

Six hours over there was getting boring, so I hi-tailed it over to Terminal 7 for flight. Not only did it not have WiFi, I struggled to even find a cord to plug the computer in. Where do they plug in the vacuums or scrubbers? Look down. It's obvious they don't need the plugs. After a delay, the flight finally takes off at 12:15 AM. The inflight movie - Garfield: The Movie. For the 5 minutes I watched without audio while consuming my ginger ale, Odie sure stole the show and if I didn't know ahead of time it was Breckin Meyer, you could swear it was Noah Wyle.