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‘Almost Live!’: the cover story

Published in the Seattle Times online on Aug. 23, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Aug. 25, 2024

ALMOST 40!

For 15 years, the humor of ‘Almost Live!’ embraced
and defined our region as it gave Seattle the Needle

By Clay Eals

WOULD YOU have believed it?

It was Saturday, April 1, 1989. Viewers tuning to KING-TV at 7 p.m. anticipated Robin Leach introducing another ostentatious episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Instead, they heard a bass-and-drum lick thumping over a blur of film clips blazing through our city — the Viaduct, the Seafair Pirates landing at Alki, a guitarist, Georgetown’s Hat & Boots, construction signs.

Then, 11 seconds in … wham!

Against a blue SPECIAL REPORT backdrop, an announcer intoned, “We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for the following special report.” In what looked like a TV newsroom, a man in white shirt and tie delivered a somber shocker:

“Good evening.
Approximately seven minutes ago
at 6:53 p.m.,
the Space Needle collapsed.”

The story unfurled with scant details. But stark images of a crumpled monument riveted viewers, as did a young woman’s eyewitness wail: “I heard this sound, it was like thunder, and I, I looked up, and it was swaying, and it just, it went over. It just, it was like somebody just kicked the bottom out from under it!”

During 30 seconds of the nearly two-minute report, the words “SPACE NEEDLE — APRIL 1, 1989, APRIL FOOLS DAY” were superimposed in the upper left corner. But given the message’s riveting gravity, few noticed the disclaimer.

Afterward, the opening blur of clips began anew, culminating with a 100-member studio audience welcoming John Keister, recently anointed host of the nearly 5-year-old Seattle comedy show “Almost Live!” As cheers receded, Keister nodded, puffed his cheeks, furrowed his brow, shook his head and, poker-faced with a slight smirk, uttered an understated punchline:

“Ooh, bummer about the Needle. Mmm.”

* * * * *

THE DEPICTED collapse of Seattle’s cherished 1962 symbol was a hoax, the local equivalent of Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. “Almost Live!” was moved once only from its usual Sunday slot, and producer Bill Stainton tailored its prank for the playful date.

The report’s authoritative announcer was the show’s Pat Cashman. The purported TV anchor was Seattle actor Michael Schauermann.

There was nothing true about any of it.

That night, phone lines at the station and the Needle lit up. Local 911 calls soared.

Though director Steve Wilson insisted on inserting the April Fool’s disclaimer, the story’s authentic aura wreaked havoc. Soon it landed the show in derisive headlines across the nation and its cast and crew on the KING carpet. The following Sunday, Keister apologized on-air.

“The Space Needle was furious. The police were furious. KING was furious. They were bracing for a lot of lawsuits,” Keister recalls. “People were genuinely, really mad.

“But everybody loves it now, and KING treats it like this really cool thing.” He shrugs. “If you don’t have things like that in life, it gets pretty boring.”

* * * * *

BORING “Almost Live!” wasn’t — and isn’t. With a lively six-month exhibit that opens Saturday, Aug. 31, 1994, the Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) at South Lake Union is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the launch of the loony legend.

Of course, it was only a TV show. But as with lightning in a bottle, starting in 1984 the 15-year phenomenon captured something sublime about Seattle. Wielding humor steeped in the area’s neighborhoods and sensibilities, it proved that a major city could laugh at itself with universal appeal.

Unique in the nation, the show capitalized on Seattle’s ascent to the top of national livability polls, its spawning of Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks and its newfound renown in music (especially grunge) and lifestyle — an era preceding today’s ubiquitous construction cranes and high-rises.

“Almost Live!” was decidedly edgy, but its delivery was sweet, not mean. It won more than 100 local and national awards. It catapulted several performers — explosive “Science Guy” educator Bill Nye, screenwriter Bob Nelson (Oscar-nominated for “Nebraska”) and actors Joel McHale, Lauren Weedman and Kim Evey — to coast-to-coast acclaim.

All of this came before the online takeover of everyone’s everyday routines. It was still a time when, to watch a TV show, you had to plop down at a television at a scheduled time. For countless Seattleites, “Almost Live!” became a reliably collective encounter.

“We weren’t always funny. We missed the mark many, many, many times,” says Nancy Guppy, one of the show’s popular hyphenated writer-performers, “but in the overall meta, it was a feel-good thing. People felt like it was theirs. Like, ‘Oh, I know Kent. I know Ballard. I know Mercer Island. I know Fremont.’

“It was this communal thing. There was no internet, no smartphone, no social media, so it was very much in real time, unless you recorded it on VHS. You’d talk about it, as they say, at the water cooler. That communal thing was huge. It really had a broad reach. We were all part of it, and people like to be part of it.”

Gary Locke, two-term Washington governor who guested three times on the show (chiding the bald Keister about hair jokes, singing “Volcano” with The Presidents of the United States of America and getting flattened by a dropped bag of Styrofoam masquerading as a falling spotlight), underscores the effect.

“It was part of our character, how informal and relaxed we are, but also how we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” Locke says. “It was provocative and poked fun at so many parts of our way of life. It was refreshing, bold humor. In some ways, we all came of age with ‘Almost Live!’ ”

* * * * *

IT DIDN’T happen overnight.

Bob Jones, then-new program director at innovative KING-TV, resolved to institute a local show devoted to comedy, what he calls “the jazz of that period.” Nye attributes this penchant to the post-Vietnam War and post-Watergate “wild and crazy” comic Steve Martin, whose phenomenal rise spurred new comedy clubs and improv nights seemingly everywhere. “Bob,” says Nye, “wanted to be part of that wave.”

Several pilots, one called “Take Five,” emerged, but they didn’t jell until the recruitment of Seattle standup comedy competition winner Ross Shafer, who became the polished host and interviewer, along with home-grown Keister, a rock-music writer who quickly gravitated to filming field sketches.

With a new, lean-in title, coined by associate producer Jim Sharp, reflecting the show’s Thursday night tapings, the half-hour “Almost Live!” debuted in a Sunday evening slot on Sept. 23, 1984.

Though it mirrored a David Letterman format with studio interviews, a band and audience, “Almost Live!” faced a ratings graveyard opposite KOMO-TV’s popular “Town Meeting,” helmed by outspoken Ken Schram. But it worked hard to snare attention, luring touring luminaries as guests, including comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen DeGeneres and talk-show hosts Larry King and Phil Donahue.

Goofy filmed bits abounded. “Ballard Vice” skewered NBC-TV’s uber-stylish “Miami Vice.” Another segment depicted Shafer and three others in gorilla costumes clambering untethered across the Space Needle’s dome, demanding that a giant, inflated King Kong perched on top be removed by order of a fictional gorillas’ union.

The zenith of Shafer’s tenure came in 1985 when he led a captivating campaign to enshrine the largely unintelligible, locally spawned classic “Louie Louie” as the state’s official rock song. He drew 3,000 to a real-life “Louie Louie” rally at the state Capitol, sweatshirts and buttons proliferated, Esquire magazine gave the effort a Dubious Achievement Award, and Shafer guested on Dick Clark’s “TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes.”

Thus, “Almost Live!” soon grew to an hour. But change blew in from the south.

* * * * *

AS IS ITS WONT, Hollywood came calling. An extended scramble to replace the fired Joan Rivers as host of Fox-TV’s “The Late Show” sent Shafer to fill the slot in 1988. Keister nearly tagged along, but his and his wife’s pending birth of twins kept him tied to Seattle. He pressed on with “Almost Live!” but never felt comfortable behind the hosting desk nor skilled as an interviewer.

A tenacious cast and crew sputtered but persevered, and in fall 1989, after the Space Needle caper, “Almost Live!” entered what became its heyday. It returned to a half hour, ditched the band-desk-interview model and focused on studio and field sketches.

Astonishingly, “Almost Live!” also switched to the post-news 11:30 p.m. slot on Saturdays, being taped just hours beforehand. This pushed NBC’s groundbreaking “Saturday Night Live” comedy showcase to midnight on KING — a shift driven by Eric Bremner, KING’s president and president of the NBC affiliates, “the one person in the entire country,” Keister says, “who outranked the head of the network.”

The pairing produced “a good one-two punch,” sending ratings skyward, says producer Stainton. “That sixth season was when we really hit our stride.”

* * * * *

WITH AN EVOLVING writer-performer cast ensemble — including the one-man tour de force Cashman, the deadpan Nelson, the gritty and gutsy Guppy, actor and former KING secretary Tracey Conway (whose first bit was as the frenzied Space Needle reactor) and photographer-editor-turned-performer Darrell Suto (“Billy Quan”) — the show’s familiar on-air personalities and shtick became the endearing institution that most fans revere today.

Viewers nationwide even got a two-year taste of “Almost Live!” starting in 1992 via cable’s Comedy Central.

Occasionally, risky farce glanced off grim reality. On Jan. 21, 1995, at the close of taping, Conway collapsed onstage of cardiac arrest — “clinically dead,” she says, echoing her Medic One paperwork. A firefighter in the audience started CPR, and an aid car rushed her to Harborview Medical Center.

To this day, Evey, among that evening’s performers, flinches at the memory. “It was one of the most surreal moments of my life,” she says. “I was sitting in a hospital waiting room with the entire cast, and on the television our show came on. We had done a sketch called ‘ERR,’ where we were making fun of ‘ER.’ So we were all in a hospital watching ourselves be doctors while we didn’t know what was going on with Tracey. It was very strange.”

Conway has no memory of the ordeal. “It’s been explained to me that the reason I probably survived with good brain activity is I got really strong CPR before I got shocked. That young firefighter was probably on me in less than a minute.”

Fully recovered 10 days later,  she dropped jaws by returning to the show.

* * * * *

MUCH OF THE “Almost Live!” identity derived from its host. KING execs had told Keister, “You’re not a pretty boy.”

But the gleam in his eye and “we don’t really mean it” vibe on camera established a knowing tone, especially in episodes etching themselves into local lore:

• In “Ballard Driving Academy,” Keister decreed that seat belts hung outside car doors, left-turn blinkers remained permanently “on,” and parallel parking required crunching nearby vehicles.
• Emulating TV’s “COPS” in various locales, Keister’s police officer cracked down on place-based “crime.” On Mercer Island, for example, he arrested a man for drinking tap water instead of Evian. In Leavenworth, he threatened to arrest visitors who hadn’t bought souvenirs.
• In an affectionate, oft-recycled sendup of martial-arts films, “Mind Your Manners with Billy Quan,” Keister became the target of flying (dummy) legs when Suto, the otherwise calm hero Quan, turned irate at Keister’s social indelicacies.

With low or no budget, after ideas survived weekly pitch meetings, the “Almost Live!” crew filmed all over town, rarely asking permission, and sometimes brandishing fake weapons (this was pre-9/11) and incorporating onlookers in gags. Often, bits used recognizable spots (such as the Interstate 5 express lanes for “Jet Guy” superhero mayhem) and innovative editing to startling effect.

They also employed an array of celebs, from actor Ally Sheedy, basketball’s Michael Jordan and ”professor” Russell Johnson of “Gilligan’s Island” to TV clown J.P. Patches, Mariners voices Dave Niehaus and Rick Rizzs and grunge-rockers Dave Grohl (Nirvana), Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) and Kim Thayil (Soundgarden).

But the end result was not always palatable.

* * * * *

THEN, AS NOW, “Almost Live!” confronted criticism for being too white. “That’s on me,” says producer Stainton. “I should have made more of an effort.” In the show’s later years, he did just that, recruiting sporadic Black performers Victor Morris, Rhonda Watson and David Scully.

Watson, a Texas expatriate, memorably concluded a 1998 Black History Month monologue with “It’s pretty weird being a person of color in Seattle. By the way,” she said, turning to Keister, “I checked the cast of ‘Almost Live!’ and — just me! But you guys are cool.” Extending a hand, she offered, “Shake?”

The knock of insensitivity stretched to sketches themselves, including some of the most popular. The recurring “High Five’n White Guys” sought to ridicule clueless white males and their admirers. “That’s not punching down, it’s punching up,” says writer-performer Joe Guppy (husband of Nancy), but some saw it otherwise. During one such bit, an unnamed Black onlooker offered, “Man, what’s the big deal?” Which itself was a joke.

Likewise, a continuous, grunge-based routine, channeling Letterman’s Top 10, was “The Lame List,” whose key word, repeated several times by long-haired rockers in each sketch, is today considered ableist and disfavored by some.

Then there was “East Side Story,” a takeoff on New York’s Sharks/Jets gangs from “West Side Story.” Before a fight, Stainton as one of the Factoria Trash slammed the haircut of Wilson, a Bellevue Square, by using the f-word for gay. A fellow Square, Ed Wyatt, retorted, “That’s ’cause he’s gay. What are you, homophobic?” Stainton, acting confused, shook his head, “No.” Eventually, Keister, one of the Trash, pleaded for a comic truce: “We can live together in peace — and shop at the same stores!” Class humor, yes, but also cringeworthy.

Even the show’s frequent neighborhood snapshots might not survive modern scrutiny, particularly given that, as Keister opines, “the neighborhoods have all merged into one thing, which is a bunch of wealthy young people who work in the tech industry.”

Suto, a Japanese-American playing a Chinese in the “Billy Quan” series, notes that in 1992 a two-page feature in the Seattle Chinese Post lent legitimacy to his long-running sketch. But he also observes, “You can find a problem with anything ‘Almost Live!’ did.”

And while Evey, a Korean native, faults the stereotyping of “Billy Quan,” she adds, “I think a lot of the sketches feel evergreen because they’re just about life.”

* * * * *

THE SHOW ENDED abruptly in 1999 after the season’s end.

KING — by then out-of-town owned — cited budget woes. Some cast heard the station needed to hire internet staff instead. In later years, spinoffs were mounted but fizzled. Reruns and occasional specials surfaced on KING but petered out.

Could a new iteration of “Almost Live!” survive today, needling Seattle 25 years after its demise? It’s a question made complex by the infinity of online media sources, far from the days of just a few TV channels.

In its past forms, the show still exists, its sketches and episodes surfacing in streaming apps and more than 2,200 YouTube videos uploaded by posters who include KING-TV itself, which occasionally bleeps words to satisfy today’s tastes.

But Cashman, the bedrock of many “Almost Live!” sketches, thoughtfully chooses to look forward. He echoes his grateful peers in seeing lifeblood in local jest.

“Times and topics and people change, but there are commonalities. All the issues are all still kind of the same. It’s in the way you handle it,” he says.

“If you had a local show like ‘Almost Live!’ that was a sounding board for what people are talking about around town and could present otherwise uncomfortable issues with humor, I think it could moderate some of the explosiveness of the times.

“Humor diffuses a lot of bombs, so I think that kind of a show would be even more needed at a time like this.”

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