SF Classiques - SFPPN

There's a lot to cover here, so take a seat.

We had the inevitable 25th anniversary extravaganza (being the 25th tape), which of course was a clip show.  It also includes the only audio evidence of one short-term member of the team.  Steve Hall was a British exchange student, and with dreams of Monty Python dancing in my head, I cajoled him into suiting up.  It didn't work out--I suppose he considered us to be too strange--and he returned to his homeland (hopefully not due solely to us).

Hall also had a small part on SF's only live performance in front of an audience--at a school talent show.  We wrote up a parody of morning news shows ("Good Day USA"), which included some bad impressions (I did a poor Dan Ackroyd as Tom Snyder) and an exploding wastebasket.  Bill and I spent more time on the latter than the script as a whole, and the response was tepid.  Perhaps if I ever get some comments or traffic on this blog, I'll track down the script and post it.

Good Day USA did introduce two more members--Steve Hunt and Sharon Billey (Mirchandani).  Steve moved into town in 10th grade, and I believe I met him through Semanon, the permanent tech crew for the High School auditorium (that's a topic for another day).  Steve became a major player in the group, especially during the "we're actually going to do this for a living" era.  Sharon was the accompanist for the school choir as well as the show choir where I got to know her.  Sharon was always willing to jump into a role in our productions without hesitation.

Now to the main point of this post.  As you've surely noticed, SF had a few references to Nazism.  I want to make it crystal clear we're were not supporting them--keep in mind SF was founded around the time the Neo-nazis got going in Skokie, Illinois.  I think it's safe to say that Eric and I were appalled that this was actually gaining traction, so we made fun of it in the form of Eppi.

Our high school put on the Sound of Music my senior year, and due to the small part I was given, I had plenty of time during rehearsals to ruminate on the storyline.  I'm not sure if Eric or I came up with the idea of re-telling the story from a pro-Nazi point of view, making it a very dark comedy.  In any case, we began to write alternate lyrics to the songs, and by the end of that year, it all came together.  Most of the team was there (Mike declined to participate, stating the he might want to run for public office some day, and that evidence of this could ruin that chance).  This was the first (but hardly the last) production we did in Lynda's basement--necessary so Sharon would have a piano to play.  Lynda played Maria as a Nazi spy, Saylor played a laid back Georg, Bill made strange noises, Steve joined the chorus, and Eric made sure we didn't wuss out at the end.

And with that (whew), here's our take on a musical classic... 

As a palate cleanser post-BOTR, we went back to the old Fall TV preview bit for the next tape--the less said about this the better. Moving on...

If you've been listening intently so far (which I highly discourage), you may have noticed that any female voices have been coming from guys doing falsetto. We were about to tackle the second Superman movie, and we needed a Lois Lane. So I went in search for a female that would be willing to go into a bedroom with some guys--think clean thoughts, my bedroom was the SF "studio".

We were able to get Lynda Bowman (now Lynda Meyer) to agree to this ridiculous request. Lynda was in both the school show choir--okay, so was I--and marching band. She was the drum major, if I remember the term correctly. So, she definitely knew how to perform--but would be able to keep up with my crack band (cough) of comics? As you will hear, she had no problems fitting in, throwing in quips as if she had been there from the start.

We held onto the Superman II plot line for dear life, which kept the coherency up. Mike joins in, we consider Saylor's divinity, and Eppi makes another cameo. There's also a veiled reference to the Sound of Music, which was the school musical that year--it's also the subject of our next entry, and the reason none of us can ever go into politics. (How's that for a teaser?)

Meanwhile, let's listen to how a distaff member affects the team...

Well, we got into episode 5 of Bored of the Rings, and it was clear we were getting burned out--we had been slogging away at this for 9 months. So, we wanted to wrap things up with a double episode, but would have ended up with a very short episode 6. What to do in order to stretch things out?

I am an unashamed Anglophile (my mother is English), and I remember getting up early in the morning to see the wedding of Charles and Diana--we had an early VCR, but I didn't trust it. So, since there's a big wedding at the end of BotR, why not break in with special NBS coverage of the Royal Wedding?

This ended up being far more interesting that BotR, since the last few chapters are really just wrapping things up. We got the chance to do bad Monty Python impressions, made IRA references, plus we introduced the concept of cloning world figures--a topic that would come up again in the future. Eric got to be a protestor, Saylor explained the tax benefits of marriage, and Mike slept through it.

Next--females enter the picture.

Background music was always helpful when we made the SF tapes--it helped us get into whatever silliness was required, and it covered up dead spots when we couldn't think of something to say.

I didn't have a lot of music of my own, so sometimes I would raid my brother's record collection. Early Kraftwerk seemed to work well as "trip music" for Bored of the Rings, so it got a lot of play during the middle episodes. It's also good to indicate a flashback, otherwise difficult to do in audio form. I never planned the music in any detail--just dropped the needle on the LP (yes, Virginia, there was a time before digital music) and started the tape.

Usually, this would just provide some atmosphere, but on one occasion, happenstance made the music fit perfectly. I'm speaking of Gandalf's return, and the main subject of this clip. Listen for Gandalf (Eric) showing his magical abilities--I swear we didn't plan this.

Of course, things quickly devolve into a battle, which means that Mike, Bill, Mark, Eric and I get to make bad war sound effects.

Don't worry, we will finish up BotR next time.

Let's talk about Bored of the Rings.

Anyone who's read Tolkien's work or sat through the films knows this is a huge concept to take on. However, Eric and I foolishly felt it could be done, and he turned the books into a set of talking points he used as the narrator. It took eight months and six tapes at 45 minutes apiece--that's 4.5 hours of silliness. We could have cut it down it we hadn't taken a detour at the British Royal Wedding--more later--and if we didn't repeat a lot of what the narrator said.

There's a lot of drug references in BotR (what do you think pipeweed is?), which is ironic because you would be hard pressed to find a more teetotaling group than SF--at least one member is an ordained minister, for gosh sake. So, our references are broad and poorly done. This also made it impossible to skip the whole Tom Bombadil scene that Peter Jackson skipped.

We tied "The Ring" to class rings, since we were ordering them at school at the time. Also, the Orcs seem to have a lot of machine guns.

Mark Saylor took the role of Merry, and mistakenly assumed a high female voice throughout. Mike covered the Ring Wraiths by sniffing close to the microphone. Did I mention that the others had not read Tolkien at that time?

Anyways, take a listen to highlights(?) from the first two episodes of Bored of the Rings...

I've always been fascinated by the hoopla surrounding Presidential election coverage at the news networks. All the unnecessary gadgetry--it's like the IT dept got a blank check. So, when SF covered the 1980 election, we introduced the "NBS Election Computer", aka various handheld electronic games of the era blooping and bleeping.

We also introduced Mark Saylor to the team. I met the other Mark in high school--he had gone to Catholic school until then--and it was quickly clear to me that he would fit into SF very well. Mark would grab onto a character and start ad-libbing furiously--it's sometimes hard to rein him back in and get back to the storyline, but the ride is always fun. Bill returned as well, starting a long string of appearances.

Due to questionable election rulings, John Anderson was elected 40th President of the United States (hey, I was Anderson campaign chairman in my town--at age 16--so sue me).

Next, we made the dubious decision to tackle a major literary work--J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which we called Bored of the Rings. Eric and I both enjoyed the books immensely, and I figured it would keep us busy for awhile. We'll have plenty of time to talk about BotR in the next few entries, so I will just mention that Mike Harrison joined the team on BotR #1.

Mike is my oldest friend--we met when we were 6 years old; his mother babysat me when my mom went back to work. We ended up at different schools when I moved across town, and I didn't see him again until 7th grade. Mike became indispensible to SF, both creatively and from an equipment perspective. He really brought up our game, created most of our music, and ended up hosting many SF events and tapings in his basement. He also had his own production company (there was a whole tangled web of deluded kids in my hometown--more about that later).

Up next--more on Bored of the Rings.

Meanwhile, here's the NBS election team in (in)action.

Moving from 1979 into 1980--Eric and I both enjoyed Star Trek, and so the first movie was a big event. Our parody (Star Trip) included special effects--like holding down extra buttons on the recorder so we sounded like we were on helium.

I've always been a fan of the Olympics--the only sports stuff I'm really into. So, we took a shot at the 1980 Winter Olympics (good thing we did, since the US boycotted the summer games). We spent most of the time doing the "close up and personal" segments, and the Atari got another workout. The event ended with all the athletes being killed--a group unhappy about not getting medals pulls out their machine guns--leaving rows of coffins for the closing ceremony. Kinda dark, huh?

1980 was also the first time I was following Presidential politics (I was the official John Anderson campaign coordinator for my town, which gives you an idea of how desperate they were), and I always enjoy watching silly media events, so we "visited" the Independent National Convention. In order to get "into character" of being on the convention floor, I fashioned a clunky headset from a broken pair of headphones, a CB radio mike, and various cables. Both Eppi and Martha Hick made appearances. We then pulled the old chestnut of the "clip show" for our 13th tape.

I had been disappointed that we got together too late to make fun of the first Star Wars movie when it first came out (yeah, I know, it was really Chapter 4--A New Hope). We got another chance when Empire Strikes Back hit the theaters, so we gave that a shot (Star Laughs II) with Luke as a druggie (how he gets the Force--hey, that sounds like midachlorians! Let's add Mr. Lucas to the royalty demand list). We followed that up with our second NBS Fall Schedule preview.

Up next--the cast grows just in time to tackle Tolkien.

Meanwhile, here's a special report showing how the world reacts when SF disappears.

We're now in 1979, as the history of SF Productions rolls on. I was a voracious TV watcher--listen to the "Vast Wasteland" podcast for evidence of this. So, the announcement of the Fall TV schedule was a big event to me--I was always on the lookout for the TV Guide Fall Preview issue at the checkout. (I still have a collection of TV Guide Fall Previews going back to this time). So, I took the schedule and wrote up the names on big sheets of paper ala the network grids, and Eric and I came up with show concepts based on the names alone. I also decided we needed a fake network, and so I took the N fron NBC, the B from ABC, and the S from CBS, making the NBS Network. (A quick Google check shows an NBS TV network in Japan, and the name was used on the "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" series a few years ago--still waiting for my royalty check, Mr. Sorkin).

We also had an episode of "The Eppi Show"--a politically incorrect "rally" with us making crowd noises. Eppi would continue to make appearances, and even made some future SF members hesitate when I wanted to schedule a taping. More on this later.

We then launched "The Eric Fenton Talk Show", where Eric just talked. Some of it was music, some of it was diatribe, and some of it suggested I remove all sharp objects from the room. We followed that up with a rather lame recording at a Halloween party I hosted. However, this tape is significant in that it's the first time we hear from other people--a future "Bored" member (Bill Bagley) and another who later drifted away (Russ Holmes). I met Bill in 8th grade Spanish class, and he ended up as the best man at my wedding. Russ was very much into military history, and we both built WW2 ship and plane models. No idea what happened to Russ.

Up next--Star Trek, Star Wars, the Olympics, politics, and a clip show.

Meanwhile, here's some bad impressions from Mark Saylor and myself.

When I last blogged, it was 1978 (not when I last blogged, but that's when we are in the story), and I was just about to see if Eric Fenton was the right person to make strange noises with me into my tape recorder. I had received an Atari 2600 as a Christmas present, and something told me that it would be great audio to record us playing it while doing bad impersonations--hence the first SF Productions tape, "Celebrity Video Games", on June 20, 1978 (now known as SF Anniversary Day). We also did the old "Man in the Street Interview" bit, where a long running character was born--Martha Hick. Okay, it was just me doing a bad impression of Jonathon Winters' "Maude Frickert" character. It was clear that Eric "got" what I wanted to do--and he even put up with it! We tried it again on "Mark Schmidbauer's Flying Circus" (as you can tell, not a lot of originality in the early days).

Our first real inspiration came about when "Superman: The Movie" hit the screen. This was the first movie I remember waiting in line for in order to see the first showing--I had and still have a big interest in comic books (listen to the "How I Got My Wife to Read Comics" podcast if you're interested as well). I talked Eric into tackling this as our third tape. "Superlaughs" wasn't ground breaking, but at least it was fairly coherent, as we could hang our bits on the movie plot.

Following that, we did a Star Trek parody (from the original TV series--this was before the movies and sequel TV series came out). On the same tape, Eric introduced a character named Eppi. She was named for the "table lunchroom wiper-offer" at the Junior High--she was crabby and had short black hair. Eric decided she must be Hitler's Mom, and we produced a short documentary on her. We then took a second shot at what we did in the first tape, and something called the "Natural Causes Telethon"--I assume Labor Day and the Jerry Lewis telethon was the inspiration for that.

Next time--NBS is born, Eric goes insane, and our cast begins to expand.

Meanwhile, here's something from the early 80's, where myself, Mike Harrison, and Bill Bagley (more about them later) took a portable recorder to a local fair. I like to think of it as early-Lettermanesque. Enjoy!

For most of my life, I've been involved with a semi-real production company known as SF Productions--I even used it to name my website. I figured it was time to document as much as I can remember about it before dementia kicks in. I'm sure I will have items out of order, and some thoughts might be completely made up, based on my fantasies of what really happened. I'm also using this as an excuse to present to the world (or at least the handful of people who happen upon this site) some comedy and music bits we did over the years. So--let's get started.

First off, "SF" does not stand for science fiction, San Francisco, special forces, or even state fair (thank you Google). It's the last initials of the founders, Mark Schmidbauer (that's me) and Eric Fenton. SF Productions started with a cassette recorder--this is what geeky kids wanted before computers--that I received as a gift circa 1975. I was eleven years old, and I wanted a cassette recorder for the normal reason--my older brother had one. He and some friends did some goofy bits with it, and being the younger brother, I was excluded from the fun. So, after spending some time with my new recorder reciting Monty Python routines and making strange noises, I got bored and decided I needed someone else to make strange sounds with me. I asked a few friends, but they either were not interested or just didn't get it.

Enter Mr. Fenton, who I met in 7th grade when the elementary schools were merged into middle school. My first memory of Eric is a math test where everyone including me got a terrible grade--except for Fenton, who was beating himself up for missing one point. We also shared an English class, where the teacher for whatever reason decided to make examples of the two of us. When the class was assigned to write a report on someone else in the class, everyone seemed to pick either Eric or myself. He and I struck up a friendship, and when I was over at his house, he showed me some things he had been writing (funny bits, not Unibomber stuff). Could this be the person to make strange noises with me into a tape recorder? We'll find out next time (although the name of the production company is a clue).

Meanwhile, here's something we put together in the later active years of SF--that's Eric doing the singing. Enjoy!