Nostalgiavision! Recalling 2 Different Sketch Comedy Shows

For some reason today I thought of 2 different sketch comedy shows separated by nearly a decade (in my life).

The first was Almost Live! which was produced by KING-TV in Seattle Washington from 1984-1999. I watched it on Comedy Central where it aired from 92 to 93. I think it may have aired in syndication as well, but the Wikipedia article does not mention the show ever being syndicated.

Almost Live! had many memorable recurring characters and sketches including Bill Nye as Speed Walker, a super-hero who speed walks, but does not run, to fight crime.

I also fondly remember the Lame List, which featured Seattle area rockers, including members of Soundgarden, telling us What's Weak This Week.

Mind Your Manners with Billy Quan was a really funny Kung Fu parody. Remember kids, "Be Like Billy!"

But the sketch that summed up Almost Live! most for me was the High Five'n White Guys:


The other sketch comedy show, I recalled today was Turkey Television, which aired almost a decade earlier than the Almost Live! episodes I watched in college. It was on Nickelodeon for one season in 1985-86. I had hoped to find a treasure trove of Turkey TV sketches on Youtube, but I was only able to dig up the opens:



I fondly remember watching Turkey Televison along with the much beloved You Can't Do That On Televison when I would get home from school. This show was on during my 7th grade year, which coincided with the first time in my life I had Cable TV.

Here is the IMDB entry.

Here are a few screen captures.

Feces Roger!: the Sad Death of Washoe the Chimpanzee

When I was in college in the early 90s I worked at my college radio station KFHS (600 AM at the time, now you can listen online), at Fort Hays State University.

We used to run a series of PSA's called 'Tips on Life' that would talk about various uh, tips on life.

One unusual 'Tips on Life' PSA concerned a chimpanzee named Washoe that had learned some American Sign Language. The PSA described how Roger Fouts, a graduate student that worked with Washoe had taught her a sign for his name. When he would deny her requests for food, she would combine his name with the sign for feces and call him 'Feces Roger' as an insult. I found this PSA endlessly amusing at the time and played it as often as I could reasonably get away with. At one point I even drew a fake album cover featuring a band called Washoe and the Opposable Thumbs featuring their latest single Feces Roger, and pasted it up in the control room.

Washoe died on Tuesday of natural causes (she was 42).
More on Washoe at Friends of Washoe.

Major Spoilers: A Spoiler No More!

Cool-ass comic review site Major Spoilers is no more.

I don't read the volume of comics I once did, but this site along with the always entertaining Progressive Ruin were my window on the comics world.

I've known Stephen and Matthew since college, and both are extremely creative individuals and their daily perspective on the 4 color world will be missed.

I understand the pressures of a paying job and a loving family that can make daily blogging difficult. Since my schedule change at the end of September, my posts here have really tapered off. Major Spoilers had A LOT of daily content. Multiple reviews and news items were posted daily. I can't imagine the amount of time and energy required to put that site together day to day. An impressive feat by two impressive guys writing about what they love. I wish I could put together a quarter of the content in a week they managed in a day.

Hope to see something again from you guys soon. You don't have to be so amibitious next time, just give us something to entertain, and inform even if it's just a couple days a week.