Almost Live!

I have grown up in the Seattle area, and my daddy weaned me on "Almost Live." Consistently funny, great timing, and some truly inspired skits make for great Saturday evening viewing. I have been known to leave parties to come home and watch it, then go back. The local NBC affiliate that shows it, KING 5, airs "AL!" at 11:35pm, then "Saturday Night Live" at 12:05am. In my almost 15 years of watching "Almost Live", I have never seen it resort to the 'dick and fart jokes' that I saw on SNL time and time again. There are so many things in the Seattle area to make fun of (Kent, Lynnwood, Ballard, the entire east side of Lake Washington), there's no reason to fall into toilet humor as the more recent years of SNL did. I guarantee that any way you can get ahold of an episode of "Almost Live", it will be worth it, a million times worth it.

Almost Live was one of my favorite shows, ever! Local TV stations rarely makes their own product anymore, outside of newscasts, but KING TV in Seattle ran this local comedy show for 15 years up until 1999. I would count down the hours to see the next episode every Saturday night! Billy Kwan, The High Fivin' White Guys, Speed Walker, Sluggy, Cops in Ballard/Issaquah/Renton/Mercer Island, The John Report, The Worst Girlfriend in the World, Pat Cashman in D.J. Priest/D.J. Cop/D.J. Dentist, Roscoe's Carpet Emporium (Going out of Business since 1958!), The Ineffectual Middle-Management Suck-ups, Uncle Fran's Musical Forest, Ballard Driving School, The Street Walking Lawyers of Aurora Ave, & Jet Guy!!! This show was a great example of how creativity and localisms cam make a show work without having a big budget, or being based in LA or NYC.

At last! Someone else knows what I'm talking about when I mention "Songs for the Slightly Inebriated" or picture Joel McHale dressed in a kilt instead of his "The Soup" wardrobe of grown-up attire. I watched Bill Nye on Disney with my kids, but still yearn for the cultural splendor of "Green River Dance". Not to mention the various and sundry items tossed, dropped, blown up or otherwise destroyed in some manner every week. Has anyone followed the careers of other cast members ? "Almost Live" was one of my favorite things from WA state. I recently bought a "J.P. Patches" DVD, if anyone remembers him. Does anyone know how to get KONG TV on my Direct TV satellite ?

This was one of the most consistently funny shows I've ever seen. Even SCTV in the early years would occasionally meander off somewhere that made you want to get up and get a soda.

"Almost Live" was kinda like Conan O' Brien's show on those rare nights when he's really on, just off-the-wall observational humor and completely silly stuff like "High-Fivin' White Guys", which was hilarious.

I really wish this would come out on DVD instead of craptastic tripe like "Scary Movie" and oh-boy-more-reality shows.

This was a funny show. We used to watch it a lot in 1992 or so along with the original UK Whose Line Is It Anyway? in college when our college cable picked up Comedy Central. Reading some of the user comments it's coming back to me a little more.

I remember one skit was a game show called "Who Killed J.F.K. Today?", in which contestants had to present their conspiracy theories as to how JFK was killed. Bill Nye's character won, because his took the least time to explain: "A tiger ate 'im!"

I also recall Bill Nye did science demonstrations. He tested the urban legend about "if you jump up at the last minute in an out of control plummeting elevator, you'll survive" years before MythBusters even started. Of course, he didn't use a dummy in a real elevator, but an egg in a small model elevator - but he came to the same conclusion.

This is actually much more deserving of being on DVD than SCTV, in my opinion.