Not Even Remotely Close to Live

I had the misfortune to be home after SNL on a recent Saturday night and "Almost Live" was painful. From the kids-in-the-hall-style graffiti-art montage of the skyline at the beginning, to the Dr. Laura jokes, to the plagiarism "Deep Thoughts" by Jack Handey, I was kind of embarrassed. At least when I used to watch SNL in Texas, they would play "JAG" or some kind of Baywatch-derivative afterward.

What I want to know was, where did those middle-aged perm types go after 1994?

If you want to watch something that IS funny, very now and made by Seattle (or former Seattle) folks, watch "What The Funny," on Caution Zero.

Hilarious! Seattle is very, very funny, right now.

Tons of sketch comedy is *timely*, and ages as the topics it references become forgotten or reframed. Ben Stiller Show is a classic example, as most of the sketches skewered the cheap production values of the then-baby networks like Fox. The show stands more as a sort of time capsule today than anything else; particularly if you weren't in the right age range at the original time and don't have any memory of any of that.

On the other hand, Monty Python was terribly timely for its day, skewering mostly British television and other European entertainment of the period, but also society and politics at large. Despite the complete temporal and cultural disconnect, many people still find the Pythons incredibly funny despite the lack of currency or even familiarity. In their case, it's the style of their work rather than the topics they skewered that seems to stand out. Ditto, to some extent, for KITH.

SNL anniversary collections seem to do well. Perhaps some sketch comedy is just in a lull of staleness that will swing back when the periods they were relevant to become part of nostalgia. That means give Ben Stiller Show about 5 years to become retro vogue.

As for Almost Live, it will suffer not only from lack of timeliness, but from Seattle-centrism, of a Seattle that no longer exists.

Although my friends and I still make Mr. Show references (calling each other a mother father chinese dentist), going back and watching whole episodes is torture. Most episodes were plagued by taking a funny joke and beating it into the ground for the next 10 minutes.

Baliiff, that, I will give you. It occupied a place somewhere between Evening Magazine and that naked godess on public access television, which is sadly a place that doesn't exist anymore. That's what the P-I article should have been about, not that there's no character in Seattle anymore and thus no material boo hoo, but that there's no media space that would allow for something like Almost Live. boo hoo.

I will defend the concept of that show, if not always the content: it was local, grown-up TV network programming that wasn't the news. That does not and cannont exist anywhere anymore, sadly. For better or worse, it gave the city a personality and indentity that people could connect with. Say what you will about funny/not funny, it was ours.

Another reason not to watch the reruns of Almost Live (or buy the mythical aforementioned DVDs) - cast and crew sees exactly $0.00 of the residuals from syndication. Say what you will about funny/not funny, that's just lame.

It's true, Almost Live was NEVER funny. I had the unfortunate displeasure of being in the studio audience (twice!) sometime in the late 80s. None of those people came across as funny. The Science Guy: not funny AT ALL (to me he's always seemed like the perfect example of the Seattle passive aggressive type -- I digress). Anyone wanting to watch Almost Live on DVD should seek professional help.

My first exposure to Almost Live were the half-hour shows they did for Comedy Central back in the early '90s. And while I thought they were amusing, from my perspective in a suburban Milwaukee apartment, I was surprised how rabid fans out here were.

"That show was hilarious!" said people who'd grown up with it. And that was the kind of comment that made me wonder what sort of provincial opinions I was holding on to. Or if Comedy Central was chopping out the masterpiece bits.

Also, spot on re: Ben Stiller Show and Mr. Show.

Almost Live was at best goofily likeable. But funny? No. There was just a kind of novelty in seeing Seattle-referencing sketches on TV, like the one with the guy with a huge wrench unloosening the bolts that held the Space Needle down.

Bah, people said the same thing about Shakespeare.

Almost Live was never funny. And last I checked, it's still on, in late-night re-runs Saturday night after SNL. I've seen it within the last year or so, I'm sure.