The Steven Banks Show

I caught this show on PBS around midnight some Friday night in 1998. It was one of the funniest things I've EVER seen on TV, on par with the best Simpsons episodes and Robin Williams doing stand-up. I stayed up for the next 3 weeks on Friday night, waiting for more episodes, but never caught it again.

Watching Steven do his thing was incredibly off the wall funny. The show basically followed him around his small apartment as he went through his evening, including: listening to his answering machine messages, doing a re-enactment of Indiana Jones running away from a giant boulder with little plastic action figures, playing the drums (incredibly poorly)... it was GREAT.

I loved this show! We had both Showtime episodes on tape, but we've sadly lost the tape and have no hope of finding them. This is a plea to anyone that has either of the Showtime episodes or any of the PBS shows on tape to contact me, for I will fully reimburse you for your tape(s) and shipping.

For anyone that never saw this show, I must tell you that you are definitely missing out and you should also find a way to see this show. One of the funniest things I've ever seen.

One of the finest one man shows was the basis for this show. I never saw this series but my friends and I, 13 years later, still fondly remember his one man show that was presented on Showtime. What makes it all the more remarkable is that we probably have not SEEN the show in about 12 years and it still resonates as one of the funniest and memorable things we have ever seen on television.

This show is based on Banks' hilarious one-man show, 'Home Entertainment Center', continuing the exploits of our hero, renamed Steven Brooks, a multi-talented musician with the attention span of dryer lint stuck in a cubicle job. In transforming such a marvelous show into a series, the higher-ups at Showtime gave Banks a cast of neighbors and drop-ins, including the boss' mealy subordinate, a guitarist cop, the heartless landlady and her sympathetic father, a neighbor who rants whenever Brooks attempts to play music and a girlfriend. A lot of the humor and music originality that Banks displayed in his play did make it to the show, but was buried under time restraints and plot.

Not a bad show, but nothing like what got Banks to this level in the first place.

Okay, am I the only one who saw this ONCE and still sings: "at the B-A-R-hyphen-B-hyphen-Q at my house"??

I see in chatter below where someone is trying to sell pirate copies of this but I'd really love to see a legit copy for sale somewhere that will benefit the brilliant man who made this show. I seriously haven't seen this since I was in college but random segments quite frequently jar a giggle from me now 16 years later!

Love it, Steve--where are your money people? Sell it! No price too high for the real deal. As I deal with hours of Spongebob these days with my kids, I see why it's so amazingly likable--Steven Banks.