- It took 4 or 5 takes.
- The first one he asked if Montreal was my favourite team (presumably because of my shirt). I froze on answering – because it wasn’t really my favourite team (the Leafs were at the time, more on that another day). I was just trying to impress a girl (#FAIL).
- The second take he asked about my favourite hockey player. When I said Wayne Gretzky he cut the take because he didn’t think anyone in the U.S. (where this aired) would know who that was (this was right after Gretzky was traded).
- Then I burned a couple of takes trying to come up with a stunt I liked without repeating “um” or “uh” every 2 seconds (still uh, a problem, um, sometimes).
- I remember after the second last take Super Dave threatened he’d pick someone else if I screwed up the next one. As always, when pressed with a deadline I pulled through (at least adequately) at the last second.
I have to say, that was probably the beginning of me and stage fright. Once you see that camera pointed right at you, with all the people in the audience, and that red light on top of the camera mocking you with it’s calm brilliance… more than a bit terrifying!
So in my last post I put a call out to The World to see if anyone out there would be able to find my lost 15 minutes (seconds) of fame: footage of me on stage at the Super Dave Osborne show.
Some incredibly kind person apparently has a ton of Super Dave stuff and sent me a message asking for some details and within a few minutes, they emailed me a screen capture:
Yes, that is a 15 year old me, looking like he could use a nap, a haircut, a tan, puberty, and a serious smack in the chops for ever wearing a Montreal Canadiens shirt.
[As an aside, my father worked with the aunt of one of the players on the team at the time. So getting signed stuff happened from time to time. There was also this really cute girl a year behind me in high school (little sister of a guy in my class) and she was a HUGE Canadiens fan. So, teenage boys being what teenage boys are I donned the “CH” in an attempt to woo her. I did not. Never actually got the nerve to tell her I liked her.]
So now I have asked the wonderful person who found The Lost Super Dave Footage if there is any way I could get a video capture of my “performance”. I haven’t heard back yet, but suffice it to say I’m extremely excited over this new development.
Next up:
Seeing if Penn & Teller have any of their old shows recorded and if somewhere in their archives there’s video of me on stage at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto (1991) assisting with the trick “Mofo the Psychic Gorilla”. It’s true!