Inspired by the Bill Nye thread over in MPSIMS, I thought I’d post a thread for all us Seattle-area folks to reminisce about the glory that was Almost Live.
I was so irritated when I moved all the way out here to Seattle, only to have Almost Live cancelled a few short years later. Not that I moved out here specifically because of it, or anything, but still. The Seattle metal community says: “LAME! LAME! LAME!”
I think my favorite skit was Simile School:
Bob: “Wow, this is a really fast car. This car is as fast as… a really, really fast car.”
Announcer: “Does someone you know need to go to Simile School?”
(As an aside: does anyone happen to know why Almost Live was cancelled? It took me a few episodes into the season afterward to realize that they were just showing re-runs from the late '80s instead of new shows. I couldn’t figure out why everyone in the studio audience had such big hair and retro clothing on. :smack: )
I had the hots for one of the chicks on that show. Don’t remember her name. It was kinda strange, because she was no real beauty, but something about her was very sexy in an “older woman in full bloom, best-friend’s mom” kind of way.
The bald guy was pretty funny, too. I didn’t like the anouncer dude, however and was glad they kept him out of most skits.
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
I think John Keister (the bald guy) was a local weatherman with lots of thick black hair before he landed this gig. The Comedy Central version expurgated all the seattle-only references, which was the best part of the show: Who can forget gems like “Great Chefs of Renton”?
During it’s heyday it was one of the funniest shows on television. Even though I don’t/didn’t live in Seattle, I enjoyed the local references… The Kent Driving School (Hey! Where’s the fire… you’re driving well over 10 miles per hour), was funny no matter where you lived. They did great work with a shoestring budget.
I think the show “jumped the shark” when the guy who played the stoned characters left.
Isn’t that weird? They were both kinda hot, but I just can’t put my finger on what it was (I suppose if I asked nice they might think about it!) about them. If you passed them on the street, you wouldn’t even look a third time, but there was definatly something about them!
I liked the (goo-e-duck) spoofs and the slug skits.
Even though I hadn’t seen it for a long time, I knew the show had to have been canceled the day I saw an advertisement for ‘COPS’ in Kent – and it was the actual FOX show.
I could be wrong, but I think the Comedy Central version was not “Almost Live” but “Haywire” (or maybe a mix of the two). “Haywire” shared some cast members, like John Keister, but didn’t have any Seattle-specific sketches. It added segments with “Billy Kwan”, a parody of old Kung Fu movies which was usually fairly funny. It was almost “Almost Live”.
The pack of reporters sketch was one of the funniest things ever. Did anyone see last weeks Malcom in the Middle rerun? It was all about Hal’s new obsession with speedwalking. Funny stuff.
The Lynnwood Beauty School - where you learned to apply “not found in nature, only in Lynnwood” blue eyeshadow.
“I’m John, Here’s my report.”
The High-Fivin’ White Guys
The Lame List where the topic was something along the lines of “guys you used to hang out with whose bands have made it big who still bum drink money” and Kim Thayil (from Soundgarden who had always been one of the lame list guys) replied “Actually, that’s kind of cool.”
The Billy Kwan segments were great! I loved Keister’s Lame List segments with the Seattle grunge/rock community. For a long while it was better than any of the other comedy sketch shows out there. Pat Cashman is the man. Very funny, very diverse. He often rivaled Phil Hartman. So many drunken Almost Live memories…
One of the actors who joined the show late in it’s running is in every commecrial I have seen on TV for the last year or more.
I think I must be the only one from Seattle who HATED that show.
Every week it was the same damn show. Same jokes. Same skits.
Yeah, I get it. White guys give each other high fives all day long, then pause, then give each other high fives again… I GET IT! I got it last week, I’ll get it next week and I’ll get it when you do the same skit for the next three years.
That said, if I had to choose, I’d say Nancy Guppy.
I loved Cops in Kent. I also loved the Cops on Mercer Island sketches. Especially the one where the cops arrest people for drinking tap water instead of bottled water and stopping for a latte before going down to the police station was part of due process. High Fivin’ White Guys is also another one of my favorites.
I could swear it’s the Ballard Driving School. My favorite from that:
“Woah woah woah, what are you doing? You pay taxes on BOTH sides of the road! Use them!” (shot of car meandering all over the road). Priceless.
My school was one of many that sold frozen pizzas as a fundraiser. Yours Truly sold no less than 20 pizzas to Ross Schaffer, because his house was in my neighborhood. Why he bought any of those sucky things, I don’t understand-- my sales pitch was basically a series of awkward mumbles and blushes.
I I recall correctly, Heywire was on a major network (ABC, CBS, or possibly even FOX), but Comedy Central showed Almost Live. They both had Billy Quan skits, though, which were my personal favorites. I loved how in each fight, the flying jump kick just became more and more ludicrous. I can’t decide if the Joke Shop or Pool Hall kick was the best.
I still make references to Speed Walker and the High Fiven White Guys, but no one else I’ve met in the past ten years seems to know what the hell I’m talking about. Still, it was great fun.
