Seattle Icons

Entry posted by Nathan Strum July 24, 2012

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I'm originally from Seattle, and will always consider it home. So I was saddened to read about the passing of a Seattle icon - J.P. Patches.

J.P. (actually Chris Wedes) was a staple on Seattle-area TV from 1958 to 1981, hosting a locally produced live kids' TV show. What made J.P. a Seattle icon was that his show was actually funny. Sure, he was dressed as a clown, who are almost never funny (see: Bozo, Ronald McDonald, etc.), but this show was different. It was full of goofy characters (J.P. had a transvestite girlfriend named Gertrude - one of many characters portrayed by Chris' sidekick Bob Newman), running gags, skits, and all of the strange, magical wonder that comes with live, unscripted TV produced by people just looking to have fun and entertain. They didn't talk down to kids - the kids were their pals. Patches Pals, to be exact. And even as kids, we all knew that something funny and subversive was going on beyond the jokes we understood, because you almost never got to see adults laughing that hard. The show took place at J.P.'s shack at the "City Dump" after all - how subversive is that? It made the dump seem like someplace I actually wanted to visit. And of course they showed cartoons too, but the best part of the show, unlike most other local kids' TV shows, were the parts between the cartoons.

J.P. (and Gertrude) made countless personal appearances over the years, even thirty years after their show ended, as recently as last year. The number of lives they brought humor into numbers into the countless thousands. And while my memories are a bit fuzzy now, the feelings and the smiles still remain. I have a couple of video compilations I can still watch, but it's only the tiniest scratch into the surface of thousands upon thousands of hours of television J.P. and his crew concocted (some 10,000, according to Wikipedia).

J.P. will be sorely missed.

But even as one icon passes... another re-emerges.

Almost Live! was a comedy sketch show airing from 1984-1999. Uniquely Seattle, the humor skewered various Seattle-area neighborhoods, trends, clichés, sports teams, local celebrities, politics, businesses and pop culture. Airing from 11:30 PM to midnight on the local NBC affiliate (KING 5), we were perhaps the only market that had something funny on at that time. The rest of the country was stuck with Saturday Night Live, while we could get more laughs in just a half hour and still get to bed just after 12:00 AM. After I moved to California, a friend would tape episodes for me and periodically mail me a bunch of episodes so I could still get my Almost Live! fix. Bill Nye The Science Guy got his start on Almost Live!, as did The Soup's Joel McHale. It even was syndicated in a less-Seattle-specific format on Comedy Central for awhile. Reruns still air in Seattle to this day.

Sadly, Almost Live! was eventually deemed unprofitable by a bunch of penny-pinching pencil-pushers (how's that for alliteration?), and cancelled. Part of the cast tried to revive it later on another channel under a different name, but it only lasted a couple of seasons before also getting canceled. So another Seattle icon (and much-needed weekly dose of humor) had passed into history.

Until just recently...

Two of the original cast members have been posting some cryptic teasers regarding a new show, called the[206] (Seattle's area code). When it airs, where it airs, and who may all be in it is still the big question. But hopefully they can recapture some of the magic of the original show. Certainly, Seattle needs a good dose of humor and satire right about now.

Especially since some guy named Ichiro was just traded from the Mariners to the Yankees today.

Some classic Almost Live!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBgIvH0tu6Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7QtRCGQmrc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9QwCVBENHM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUIQX5esnNo

And a documentary on J.P. Patches:

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcsDOjfs4us

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt73yPzaOGc

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Zach 150

Posted July 24, 2012

Almost Live! was shown nationally on Comedy Central for a brief time in the 90's. It was a different kind of humor than you usually find, and it was my favorite sketch comedy show ever.

I remember well Billy Quan, Sluggy, the Lame List, the Ineffectual Middle Management Suck-Ups, and Speed Walker.

And that PR guy for smoking and drinking, red meat, and lard: "Did you know that lard is the most nutritious of the animal fats?"

Glad to hear there may be a comeback.