DOC: The year is 2010. After starting “Golden Girls Radio”, and launching its spin-off “The Saint Olaf Files”, Dave and I were ready for a new series to add to the roster. As far back as I can remember, I have loved sketch comedy. I remember watching “Carol Burnett”, “SCTV”, “Saturday Night Live” and others. So it seemed like a fun idea to do a variety show. Dave says that “The Dr. J and Dangerous Dave Dog and Pony Show” was my idea…which, okay, I’ll buy that. (Remember what I said in Chapter One about not remembering anything more than five months ago.) But I’m pretty sure Dave came up with the title.
DAVE: This is why there are two of us. In theory two memories are better than one. In the early days of the shows, we weren’t always the best about documenting things. We’ve made a push to better chronicle our history in recent years, and this blog series, aside from being an amusing story for you to read, is further documentation for us so that when we’re senile and have lost the memories, we have it for reference.
Speaking of our lapse in judgment with respect to archiving material, we’ve had a few productions over the years that have gotten lost in the shuffle. Erased harddrives without backups of the files, incomplete episodes with lost scripts, etc. There was an alternate second season of The St. Olaf Files that still exists in a parallel universe.
If Jason had his reservations about having Rose move out of the home in Miami, I had my reservations about doing an opening number for our variety show. We’ve had a few instances where it took a number of takes to get something satisfactory to my standards, and we’ve even scrapped a musical number before because we both decided it was too deplorable to even be considered humorous.
DOC: Ah, the opening musical number. Talk about the good, the bad and the ugly! Dave and I are not professional vocalists, but we valiantly step forward and sing our hearts out. In recent seasons there’s been a kind of gamesmanship in the choosing of the song. When Dave writes the script he chooses eclectic songs from the likes of Taylor Swift, Queen and Tiny Tim. When I write the show I usually pick something old and schmaltzy.
DAVE: And just wait until you see what I have planned for future musical numbers!
DOC: A brief side trip to discuss the use of a laugh track in “Golden Girls Radio” and the host segments in “Dog and Pony.” Since both of these series are based on common genres which in most cases have a studio audience, it seemed only right to maintain that environment in our productions. Laugh tracks, or even live audiences, get a bum rap. But no less a creative visionary than Jim Henson once said:
“I did one special dry – without any laugh track – looked at it, and then tried it adding a laugh track to it, and it’s unfortunate, but it makes the show funnier.”
And in case anyone wonders: The “GGR” laugh track was created using laughs from the “Three’s Company” pilot. This same set of canned laughs was used in the early episodes of “Dog and Pony”, but eventually replaced with a set of laughs from the HBO sitcom “Lucky Louie.” Those laughs were sonically crisper and sounded more like a live audience.
DAVE: While we’re on the subject of production value, let’s mention our shift in production schedule at this point. While we had been doing entire seasons of GGR and St. Olaf Files at one time, we shifted to doing one (or maybe two) episode(s) at a time with the Dog & Pony Show. This shift in scheduling could be attributed to the fact that in 2010 I separated from the Navy after my contract expired. Being a local again allowed us greater flexibility in our scheduling. This was also when the Golden Girls and St. Olaf Files were on their production hiatus, and the Dog & Pony Show was our sole focus.
DOC: In over 40 episodes of “D&P” we have written a massive amount of sketches. The kind of sketch we enjoy writing and performing usually takes two pop culture concepts and mashes them together. There’s “The Dick Van Tyke Show”, depicting Rob, Laura, Buddy, Sally, Alan Brady and Mel as grammar school students. “CSI: Neighborhood Of Make Believe” features a murder mystery involving X The Owl. And we’ve done two different “Book and Record” sketches, presenting very adult movies like “The Godfather” and “The Shining” as read-along records. “Remember kids…when you hear the gunshot, turn the page!”
DAVE: What’s a sketch show without its sketches? We’ve had some wild sketches over the years. Jason has mentioned what we often refer to as our favorite sketches, but we’ve also done a number of spoofs on classic game shows, current events, and the like.
We’ve talked about it in our 10th Anniversary Special already, but I also think it’s worth noting our spoof on the replacement of Charlie Sheen for Two and a Half Men. We improvised that sketch, setting it aside from the rest of our D&P sketches.
DOC: Yes! That was a great one. I will also throw in as favorite sketches “America’s Funniest Mediocre Dogs” and “Faulty Newhart”, a sketch we had so little faith in that it sat in the vault for several years before finally being used in an episode.
Although “Dog and Pony’ was created as a sketch show, along the way we’ve put as much effort into backstage stories, creating characters like CPA Burton Marshall, hillbilly entertainers Clyde Overalls and Junior Pancake, announcer Danny O’Donnell and more.
DAVE: Another character I think worth mentioning is Eli the Light Guy who was instrumental during our “Doc deals with Pop-Tart Addiction” Saga. He would be one of the people involved in the intervention, and he would serve as Dr. J’s replacement on the Dog & Pony Show when he was busy hosting Dr. J’s Big Internet Radio Thing!
DOC: Speaking of Dog and Pony characters, I would include the legendary Mel Freesburg in this category but he was introduced on our 3rd radio series…which will be in the spotlight for chapter three! Until then, for Dangerous Dave this is Dr. J saying thanks for listening and…
BOTH: Goodnight everybody!