
king5.com
This past weekend saw, at last, the moment for which TV viewers in the entire region had waited, patiently and otherwise, for a long long time.
But enough about the season premiere of Downton Abbey.
Instead let’s welcome the return to local screens of my ol’ UW Daily buddy John Keister and his longtime cohort Pat Cashman, plus the debut of Cashman’s son Chris, on their new sketch comedy show The [206].
It airs after Saturday Night Live at 1 a.m. Sundays, when reruns of Keister and Cashman on Almost Live! had aired since that show’s 1999 demise. It also airs Sundays at 7:30 and 11:30 p.m. on KONG-TV.
At the time Almost Live! was canceled, KING said the video landscape had become too fragmented to support a local comedy/entertainment show. That scene is even more fragmented now; and there are so many other electronically based home entertainment options (including the one you’re looking at now).
So what makes this show feasible now, when AL! was no longer feasible then?
In three words: Outsourcing, Downsizing, and Tech.
- Keister, the Cashmans, and their business partners own and package the show themselves. They even sell some of the commercial slots. KING/KONG picks up the show on a “barter” basis.
- The new show has only three regular writer-performers (all male, for what it’s worth), instead of the old show’s eight or nine.
- It’s shot and edited by a small crew using compact digital equipment. The studio parts are taped, in two-episode batches (no breaking-news references), at a small rental space—in Bellevue. (Fret not; Bellevue jokes are still part of the repertoire, as are Tacoma, Renton, and Kent jokes.)