MISCmedia for 10/18/99
Almost Dead

AS IT APPARENTLY MUST to all local non-news TV shows in the U.S. these days, death came this summer to Almost Live, for 15 years an only-in-Seattle institution. (OK it was syndicated in two nonconsecutive years, and the national kiddie show Bill Nye the Science Guy was essentially an AL spinoff, but you get the idea.) The last AL reruns may have left the familiar Saturday time slot by the time you read this, with only occasional specials to be commissioned by KING-TV (the first is this Saturday). The cast members made an appearance earlier this month on their longtime spoof-target, KOMO's Northwest Afternoon, during which they congratulated NWA for not having been cancelled yet.)

Theoretically, the cast (or however many members of it would be willing) could go to work for another station. But since none of those other stations seem any more interested in local entertainment fare than KING was (although Fox affilliate KCPQ's reportedly pondering a morning show), that seems unlikely.

Call me overly optimistic, but I used to believe the increasing bevy of broadcast and cable channels would mean more opportunities for different kinds of shows--even shows that seamlessly mixed droll, low-key humor, broad sketch comedy, and cheap-shot jokes about local politicians.

Sure, a week's episode might contain its share of groaners and easy gags. (The series almost never used writers beyond the eight cast members, two of whom also doubled as producer and director.)

But even in its weaker moments, AL had a pulse and a look all its own. And it exemplified a particularly Nor'Wester flavor of off-center humor. You could find traces of this in the writings of Lynda Barry (an old pal of AL host John Keister); the biting TV and print works of Matt Groening (an old pal of Barry); the cartoons of Jim Woodring, Gary Larson, Ellen Forney, et al.; the sardonic song lyrics of Scott McCaughey and Chris Ballew; and such former area-TV staples as Stan Boreson, J.P. Patches, and Spud Goodman.

Could anything like it appear again? Well, maybe.

Late last month, I got into a well-publicized preview screening for Doomed Planet, a shot-on-video movie directed by Alex Mayer and written by George Clark (who previously had created two issues of a Stranger parody tabloid, only to find most of their readers thought the Stranger staff had parodied itself).

Within a loose plotline involving two warring religious cults (a cult of sex-happy hippies vs. a cult of Armageddon-predicting Goths), the videomakers weaved in quite a bit of AL-esque bits, from genre-movie minispoofs to local popcult references (a fictionalized version of Mary Kay LeTourneau makes a brief appearance) to an atmosphere of knowing, late-century-cynical neo-burlesque.

While Doomed Planet, at least in the cut shown at the screening, is a much more rough-hewn work than Almost Live ever was (some of Mayer's large, unpaid cast didn't really know about comic timing, and much of the sound was muddied), it's nice to know the no-budget, no-hype, no-pretensions NW comic spirit lives on.

IN OTHER NEWS: Another sign of hope for regionalism within the global-media landscape is Turner South, a new entertainment-and-sports cable channel to be offered only to cable systems in the southeastern states. I'd love an attempt at something like that up here; even though a NW entertainment channel would have fewer pre-existing movies and rerun series to prop up its schedule than a Southern channel would.

TOMORROW: That new alternative-art patron, Procter & Gamble.

ELSEWHERE:

• A writing instructor insists, "It's our duty to be explicit, to allow our characters good wholesome sex...."
• Aside from the irony of a "health food" company eventually ending up making Pop-Tarts, this scholarly essay provides a necessary reminder of the link between supposedly "healthy" diets and sexual fears. Both ultimately express a desire for a tidier, more rational life than our biological forms really need....
• "Ninety-nine plastic bottles of beer on the wall...." (found by Julienne)

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Remembering the good old days of foreign film.
• Rumored changes to a once-great college radio station.
• There are many successful female public artists; does it mean something? Must it?
• Brief looks at a few more real-estate relics.
• Susan Faludi's Stiffed fails, so far, to attract the reverse-reverse-reverse-sexist backlash; while Douglas Davis seeks a future where het men can be just as sex-positive as women and gays.
• Faster, James Gleick! Write, write!
• Fun visual-art links from all over.
• Stick a fork in the thrift-store lifestyle; it's done.
• Diner food's back; but was it ever really gone?
• Celebrating one year exclusively online.
• Online "word of mouth" may have helped The Blair Witch Project, but could it rescue The Iron Giant?
• Parts one, two, and three of our exploration into new generation gaps.
• Newspapers try to stem circulation declines by becoming even duller.
• Who's afraid of digital movie theaters?
• The truth behind Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner."

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