Best of Basement Tapes
Basement Tapes were always my favorite show -- probably because I was better at writing skits than performing improv. Lots of people have invoked their favorite moments (such as Vomit Clowns and Nursery School for the Really Gifted and Senior Guilt Trip and Evil Avenger). So try to describe your favorite Basement Tapes moments in sufficient detail that old folks like me will know what you are talking about.
posted by (d)avid at 11/23/2004 04:38:00 PM
18 Comments:
Another one in a long line of skits designed to make the audience go "huh? what was that?" was a brilliant little contribution from Lucas Peterson. A whole bunch of us are on stage mingling as at a cocktail party, and we sort of hover around a chair on which sits an orange traffic cone with a plastic pirate hook duct-taped to one side. Nothing happens for a long time. Then finally someone says to someone else...
"The pylon thought it was a costume party."
I'm sorry, it was also wearing a rainbow clown wig.
Scene: Heather Wilkinson leaves to attend a quilting society meeting. Thus, John Fagan is left along with his little son Mergatroid (voiced by David Panush, embodied by a life sized baby doll).
JF: (to Heather) Bye-bye! (turns around to face Little Mergatroid rubbing his hands together laughing) Just us boys now, men, I should say.
LM: Daddy.
JF: Yes, daddy. What's this? (picking a pink frilly off Little Mergatroid's head)
LM: Favorite hat.
JF: Isn't this cute? No! (throws the hat away) Little Mergatroid do you want to play a game?
LM: (coos appreciatively)
JF: Would you like to play with Barbie or toss the old pigskin around?
LM: Bar-bie.
JF: Old pig skin?
LM: Barbie.
JF: Okay, let's play with Barbie. (Rips the limbs off of the barbie doll and stomps all over the parts) MAYBE YOU'VE CHANGED YOUR MIND! OKAY, LITTLE MERGATROID, NO MORE CREAMED SCHMUTZ FOR YOU UNTIL YOU CATCH A PASS FROM DADDY!
(JF winds up and nails Little Mergatroid solidly with the football)
(lights out)
Basement Tapes 1996: We had a series of running gags in the show. Kravis and I hashed this one out over dinner in Baxter one night (I was fueled by Boston Cream Pie).
First scene consisted of Felipe dressed in a full habit (Felipe bore a striking resemblance to Sister Delores, who beat the tar out of me as a child and assured me that I was going to burn in hell) slowing walking towards Jon Kravis dressed as a priest (we couldn't find two habits). Goose is lowly whistling the western show down music. All of a sudden, the nun and the priest pull out guns. Felipe draws faster and guns down Kravis.
Second scene: The strains of Beat It start blaring. The nun (Felipe) and the priest (Jeff McMahon) dance to the center of the stage with their entourages. They look pissed at each other. The nun and the priest pull out their switch blades. A member of the entourage ties their hands together Beat It style. While the nun and the priest engage in a dancy knife fight, the members of the entourages dance. The nun stabs the priest and then dances over his limp body.
Final scene. (black) The O'Fortuna section of Carmina Bahrana blare through the sound system throughout the scene. (Black light up) The nun (Felipe) and a priest (Goose) begin to fight with cool swords we found. Why were they cool? Because they light up and made sword clanging sounds when you pressed a button. So the nun and the priest engage in highly stylized sword fight stuff riffing on various movie sword fight scenes. The priest manages to knick the nun. The nun stops, tastes her own blood, and becomes enraged. She soon overpowers the priest and prepares to lop off his head. (black light off) (Sword lights and swoops down in a big slicing motion) (black light up) The priests body is lying in a bloody pool and the nun has a bloody head in her hands. She raises the head and bellows over the climax of O'Fortuna "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!"
Good times, good times.
MUPPET COCK!
TARANTINO OBSTETRICS!
&
TOM PETTY THRASH
Whoever's getting it is getting it with a 70'S MARXIST WHORE!
Just a quick comment on the "Have Some Candy" thing that Lucas came up with, that was almost performance art, it was more like an endurance test to see who would crack first, us or the audience. It may not be a good thing that it was the audience.
Does anyone remember the bit around that year where I got someone (this time, SexRob) to come up on stage and I started a pointless conversation with him where I insisted on calling him a name? I think it was Skippy but maybe not, and the skit was called "Stop Calling Me Skippy" to see how long it would take. I ripped it off from Letterman.
That's right, thanks Ben, Skippy was the innocuous Letterman version. So I got to use Smegs, Smeggers, Smeggity Joe, and so on.
I don't think it was ultimately very funny.
Stigma, Stigamata, Astigmatism...another skit saved by John Fagan, who could do no wrong that Spring....
And I totally want to be known as SexRob...what a cool fuckin' nickname...I don't care if he's a bane, butt or foil...that smokes....
Dude, what happened to Basement Tapes after I left? My senior year it was a seamless hour and a half of solid laughs. SNL would have died for our cast-offs. No wonder Ben Cooper's generation skipped a Basement Tapes.
The first Basement Tapes I participated in was probably the lamest, but it had the greatest opening. "Welcome to the White Trash Community Building Workshop. Before we begin, we need to make sure that we're dealing with the right type of folk, so if you never slept with kin -- GET OUT!" And then the opening when through a series of qualifications: "If you ain't never given to Billy Graham -- GET OUT!" "If your pick up truck don't have no rifle rack -- GET OUT!" Awesome opening. High energy and each line got a laugh pretty much.
Here's the line up from my senior year (theme: Feats of Adequacy!)
Opening: Um . . . it was barely adequate.
Deconstruct Deez: Flipper and Proven played college professors instructing Shit Foot and Kravis on ghetto grammar and rhetoric.
A feat of adequacy from Jeff.
Mary and Joseph Attend Parent Teacher Conferences
I Can't Believe it's not rhutabaga.
Got Milk parody (video): Courtesy of Jeff's directing expertise.
Nursery School for the Really Gifted: I swear, people laughed.
Moist Delicious Cake
Wanna Join a Cult?
Marx and Engels Hats #1 (we put the caps, back in capitalism)
A feat of adequacy from David Taylor
Car Alarms (passive, passive aggressive, codependent, ...)
MTV News: Yanni, was shot dead at the Acropolis
Deconstruction Workers: Peter and Kravis wrote a series of pick up lines ("nothing is too taboo for this totem.")
Hamlet directed by Mark Taylor (video): okay, this wasn't funny, but if you put the name Mark Taylor in front of some random shit, people will laugh.
Mores
A feat of adequacy from Peter.
Jeff tells a story
The next guy: A legendary skit for SOOOO many reasons.
Emily's Duck Joke (we needed to clean up the stage after the "next guy").
The Experiment (which caused real trauma in a child in attendance)
Beer Commercial (video): Best beer commercial ever.
Marx and Engel's Caps #2 (they still put the caps back in capitalism)
A Hallmark commercial: I still get misty eyed thinking about those two guys at the Alamo.
The Mother Who Loved too Much: Imagine Emily Christiansen done up like a 50s Hausfrau who ritualistically kills her children so they can avoid small traumas. Now, imagine it with buckets of blood spurting out of people's clothing.
Got Rhutabaga?: Sadru and Steve as pirates.
Beer video #2: Worst beer commercial of all time, but kind of funny (Peter Rubin is pretending to be Tiny Tim and making out with Emily Christiansen ... it ends with Jeff eating a rat).
Folgers commercial (we secretly replaced this couple's normal coffee with ground up human heads, let's see if they notice the difference).
Smurf: I related this in an earlier comment.
The Saturday Night Live Skit: Something I wrote to prove how easy it was to imitate SNL. We were stupid enough to perform it.
Squack: Peter, I still HATE this skit.
Auditions: Well, you think it is an audition for a play, then it becomes clear they are auditioning for roles in a cult. Magary and Steve had pingpong balls for eyes.
Hobbes Farms Potato Chips (we put the tater chips, back in dictatorships).
Professor Booty: Wharton Business School has a class on corporate piracy taught by the all too obvious professor.
Shaft (video): The basic idea is to film really mundane activities to exciting music.
Our Town directed by George A. Romaro: The dead townspeople rise up and rise out George's insides. Jeff was stuffed to the gills with raw meat, sausage, and ziplock bags of blood. The room stunk. Never had there been a better ending.
O2 dep: Shame that we ended with this.
Notice what was missing? Improv. Basement Tapes was skit after skit of pre-written material. Some of it lats minute, much of it written earlier in the year.
That was my legacy (that, and putting written material as transitions into shows). So sad that it died with Betsy and Ben Cooper. Oh well. Not my problem. I had a good run while I was in the group.
The "Shaft" video may be one of my favorite things that I have ever directed, and that includes my USC film in which peoples' heads explode. It consisted of watching Winch wake up in his boxers and then go blearily into his bathroom. Meanwhile, in every shot Pete Rubin is discreetly checking out the scene. Seriously, we found ways to tuck him into the corner of rooms as Dave left them and there he would be, already chilling in the next room. It ends with a furious toothbrush-off between Pete and Winch and finally it ends with Dave going into a stall and doing you-know-what.
Did I mention that the "Shaft" theme plays throughout?
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Fascinating stuff. BT was actually designed to showcase all the things people had idly considered or thought would be great to do, but believed we'd never get away with or could never pull off. In that way, it wasn't a burden because everything had already been thought up before (it was getting the invite-only audience to show and to watch totally experimental material that was the challenge). Oxygen Deprivation and Stigma, Stigmata, Astigmatism, for example, were never that funny, but they were different and did tell us alot about what the audience would and would not accept (who knew that during our performance of 'Mosh' in the first BT, someone in the house would actually start moshing, as can clearly be seen on the tape?) The show was just as much for our benefit as theirs and I'm sure every group has those prior musings to work with. Seems a missed opportunity to can the show altogether because of the burden of producing material, sketch or otherwise.
First-line-a-thon is indeed less useful, more of a stunt than anything else (though one specifically designed to spoof the crew team's Erg-a-thon -- does that still happen? -- makes alot more sense if so). I never knew anyone who didn't have a total blast doing it. Agree with Betsy on that one.
I'll explain a Basement Tapes skit that has been invoked, but never described to the uninitiated; Jeeter and Cleetus. Goose's brain child. He came into practice with one scene involving two hill-billies sitting around (as hill-billies are wont to do).
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(sittin')
Jeeter: Hey, Cleetus.
Cleetus: Yeah, Jeeter.
Jeeter: I been thinking.
Cleetus: 'bout what?
Jeeter: Well, the way I figure it, iffin Harry Truman hadn't dropped the A-tomic bomb on the Japanese in World War II, America might not have become the preeminant post-war power that it is today.
Cleetus: I reckon you got a point there, Jeeter.
(more sittin')
Jeeter: Hoe down?
Cleetus: Hoe down!
(hoe down ensues)
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Not bad, huh? So we worked out a format for the second and third installments (I wrote the second, Goose the third).
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(sittin')
Cleetus: Hey, Jeeter.
Jeeter: Wuht?
Cleetus: I've been thinking.
Jeeter: 'bout wuht?
Cleetus: Well, way I figure it, existence precedes essence. Man and the world are not given. Man defines himself and his world through his actions. Thus, everything is arbitrary and life is ultimately meaningless.
Jeeter: I reckon you got a point there, Cleetus.
(more sittin')
Cleetus: Hoe down?
Jeeter: Don't make much sense now, do it?
(more sittin')
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Did I mention that we had crickets chirping in the beginning and then kick ass banjo music for the hoe down?
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(sittin')
Jeeter: Hey, hey, Cleetus.
Cleetus: What?
Jeeter: I bin thinkin'.
Cleetus: 'bout what?
Jeeter: Well, the way I figure it, [something about love between a man and a woman.] Love is sublime.
Cleetus: I reckon you got a point there, Jeeter.
(more sittin')
Jeeter: Tango?
Cleetus: I thought you'd never ask.
(Goose and I do the worst tango the world has ever seen)
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At any rate, the skit was a huge hit at Basement Tapes (particularly with a certain Mr. Fogler who whooped it up throughout). So the next year we brought back the skits when we performed up at Hamilton College. Pete Rubin took Goose's role as Jeeter: a far more hyper and hairy Jeeter (did I mention we performed the skit with straw hats, torn up jeans and bare chested? Ah, those were the days).
Hilarious.
Quiton Tarentino's E.R. was a great example of the group coming together. I think it was Goose who came up with the initial idea that basically consisted of a pretty funny site gag (a man's hand coming out from between the pregnant woman's legs). But it just didn't work. So the group started fleshing out the idea by adding lines from Tarentino movies. My favorite exchange consisted of the following:
"There are two things in life that hurt this much: one is having a baby, the other is getting shot in the gut. So let's have this baby. ... okay, Mrs. Brown, I see that you are dialated --"
"I don't want to be Mrs. Brown. It sounds too much like Mrs. Shit. I want to be Mrs. Pink."
"Well, you can't be Mrs. Pink, because there is another woman in room 301 who is having a baby and she's Mrs. Pink."
Emily, the best part of the skit was that the two of you were dating at the time and you independently told stories of having nightmares recreating the episode. Either you cooridnated on the joke (which seems unlikely given Za's anarchist mores) or it really happened. So, do you still shake in fear when you hear the Charlie Brown theme song?
The Special Olympics birbery skit sounds hilarious. I mean, come on, a female mayor of Salt Lake City? Very funny.
Another Basement Tapes moment involving Emily: This big dude! Entirely Goose's brain child. I suspect that the group actually fleshed out the scenes, but that is really minor. Goose came up with the idea and convinced Dan Frasco (the big dude) to participate.
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Scene 1: Date at a fancy restaurant with Rich and Emily.
Waiter: And how will you be paying for the meal this evening?
Rich: I think one of these cards will do the trick.
Waiter: I'm afraid we don't accept of these cards, sir.
Rich: Well, in that case, it is a good thing I carry ...
(lights out)
(lights up to reveal Dan Frasco standing menancingly over the waiter)
Rich: THIS BIG DUDE!!!
Waiter: I think that is an acceptable form of payment.
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Jeff did a great job as the waiter. Dan Frasco was a huge football player with a shaved head would would not have looked out of place at as a bouncer at a really seedy strip club for motor cycle gangs.
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Scene 2: Rich and Emily walking.
Mugger #1: Hey pal, give me all of your money.
Mugger #2: And the watch.
Rich: Hold on, it's in my pocket, and while I'm getting it let me also pull out ...
(lights out)
(lights up to reveal Dan Frasco standing menancingly over the muggers)
Rich: THIS BIG DUDE!!!
Mugger #1: (to mugger #2) Hold me.
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Dan Frasco was a great sport. I guess he had another engagement the night of Basement Tapes, but he wanted to do the show, so w crammed all three shows in the first half of the show.
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Scene 3: Rich and Emily standing around.
Emily: It's Valentine's Day. I hear Johnny got Mary a dozen roses. That is so romantic.
Rich: well, a dozen roses is kind of romantic.
Emily: Stop, I know you got me something, what is it?
Rich: Well, I knew I had to get you something special, so I got you ...
(lights out)
(lights up to reveal Dan Frasco with a flower behind his head standing looking ... well, not quite as menancing ... but let's face it, Dan Frasco looked intimidating)
Rich: This big flower.
Emily: Ooooh.
Rich: Give me some sugar, baby.
Emily: Okay.
----------------------------------------
Dan Frasco as flower. The audience erupted when the lights went out and they thought Rich would yell, "THIS BID DUDE!!!" They laughted agains when it turned out to be "This big flower." Dan did look a little silly.
Not genius, but solid. And Emily did an excellent job of playing the girlfriend -- a role without laughs, but necessary for the scenes.
I do indeed still have the videos that we did for that years Basement Tapes, including the "Shaft" thing and the bizarre "Hamlet" thing that was basically Felipe and I trying to figure out what else to do since we had a camera, a bunch of wigs and costume crap, and too much free time, apparently.
So if no other Basement Tapes tapes can be found at least we have this stuff.
Keith, perhaps JJ performed a version of The Next Guy, but Basement Tapes 1997 featured its skit. The origins came from Emily Christiansen I think. I know that Pete Rubin quickly ran with it. The group eventually hashed out three scenes that we agreed constituted a whole (and it was a lot of fun generating ideas -- we must have spent a couple of hours riffing on the theme).
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(lights on)
(Felipe alone on stage with an ear of raw corn)
(Unhusks corn and takes a bite out of it)
Felipe: I like corn as much as the next guy (takes another bite).
(lights out)
Amped Voice: The next guy ...
(music cue: Jungle Boogie)
(lights up)
(David Nickerson jumps on stage with corn sewed all over his shorts and no shirt. Dances, starts undulating and caressing the corn)
(lights out)
(music off)
(lights up)
(Someone talking to someone else on stage)
Someone: Don't get me wrong, I like oatmeal as much as the next guy.
(lights out)
Amped Voice: The next guy ...
(lights up)
(A dispeptic looking David Taylor walks onto stage with no shirt and a bowl of oatmeal. Pours the oatmeal down his front and smears it around his hair chest)
(lights out)
(lights up)
(Jeff McMahon talking to someone on stage)
Jeff: No doubt about it, I like Pauly Shore as much as the next guy ...
(lights out)
Amped Voice: The next guy ...
(lights up)
(Peter Rubin, looking like a hillybilly automechanic, leads John Magary on stage. John Magary is wearing a long curly black wig, a plaid flannel shirt, a dog collar and is being lead by a dog leash)
Peter: Say it, say it.
John: The weasel?
Peter: Oooh yeaahhh.
(Peter gets behind Magary and bends him over)
(lights out)
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The audience liked the skit, starting to laugh and cheer the second they heard the object followed by "the next guy." The best image in my mind was David Taylor looking like a hirsute Calvin Klein model smearing oatmeal on his chest. My girlfriend at the time liked the corn dance so much she would request years later.
We joke about the skit not so much because it was funny (though it was quite the spectacle), but because it is easy to riff on. I mean like this joke as much as the next guy ...
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