Most (though not all) of this was the
result of the introduction of a new regular character—the newly-appointed
executive producer of the “Vasco” show-within-a-show sitcom, Mr. Marvin
Fantastic. This was partially an addition, and partially a retrofit. MacSnoopeigh
was never a strong enough adversary for Rob; plus, it was inevitable that as incompetent
a producer as MacS. would start to feel pressure from his superiors. Marvin Fantastic
was the embodiment of that pressure, as well as a chance for me to work out
some frustrations about real live broadcasting boardroom types that I’d
recently been dealing with.
Here’s the background on the frustration. It
was about this time that Vasco was
starting to Attract Attention in Other Quarters. That is to say, we had started
to pester people in Other Quarters until they paid attention to it. One of
these pestering efforts led to a long and happy relationship in the back
shadows of CBC Radio Two (as it now is; CBC Stereo, as it then was). Before I
move on, this is the right time to say a public “thank you” to Shelley Solmes
and Gary Hayes for liking Vasco enough
to invite us on a real live show about real live arts and culture and everything,
and later, to put up with many years of me popping in to do occasional pieces
in an even sillier vein.
But anyway—before meeting (name-dropping
alert—but it’s high time I spread the gratitude around to where it’s due) Shelley,
Gary, Lorne Elliott, Bryan Hill, Shelagh Rogers, Eric Friesen, and a few others whose names I’m
sure I’m forgetting, I had a bad run of dealing with CBC people who would soon
be in the No Longer Working Here for Fairly Obvious Reasons department. One of
them was a chap whom we sent a tape of the show, and who sounded enthusiastic
about our little group’s potential on radio, but said that…
…wait
for it…
…seriously—it’s
a lulu…
…he’d “have
to see us live on stage, and were we performing anywhere?”
(or
words to that effect.)
Take a moment; get yourself a hot beverage
and a snack; sit back down, and think about this. We sent a RADIO executive
a fully-produced RADIO comedy show, made with the possibilities and limitations
of the medium of RADIO in mind, with the hope that it would give him (and us)
some idea of how ready we were for real live nationally-broadcast RADIO, and
his sole defining criterion for the specific matter of whether we would make
good-sounding RADIO was what he thought of how we looked on STAGE.
As I said, he wasn’t at the CBC much
longer. He also didn’t sound anything like Marvin Fantastic, but Marvin’s basic
attitudes are drawn from him. And that’s all I feel like saying on the subject,
because, twenty years later, it still makes me want to put my fist through a
piece of drywall. Hopefully, Mr. “If you want to do radio comedy, I have to see
what you look like on stage” is now in some Home for Aged Broadcast Program
Planning Failures, sipping clear broth through a leaky straw, and wondering
Where it All Went Wrong. Marvin Fantastic, on the other hand, lives on forever:
his Don’t-Know-Anything-Don’t-Care-That-I-Don’t-and-It’s-Your-Problem-If-I-Don’t-Not-Mine
kind will always be with us. All you have to do is turn on a radio or a TV, or
go to the movies, to see their handiwork. Or better yet, save yourself the
trouble, click the link below, and listen to…
.png)
P.S. As
you’ll hear from the closing credits, this episode has an alternate title: “Tune…Turn…Drop…”.
It’s an example of karma catching up with my big mouth. The previous episode, I’d
alluded to the show being recorded on something called Stunch Nev-R-Fade
Recording Tape, as a sort of backhanded gibe at the quality of the half-inch masters
we sometimes had to dig out of odd crevices and corners of the studio to make our
final mixes. That was Episode 14. It wasn’t until we listened to the final mix
of Episode 15 that we discovered that the master we were using—the only one
available—had several blank spaces on it, causing the sound to drop out
intermittently. We didn’t have time to fix that, but we did have time to
re-record the credits, with a punning title lifted from Timothy Leary, and
another nod to fabulous Stunch Nev-R-Fade for displaying its usual consistent level
of inconsistency.
No comments:
Post a Comment