Darrell Vickers – The Ballad of “Sweet” John Dugan: Part One

Unlike the rather gloom-and-doom-to-the-tomb predictions of David Bowie and laugh-a-minute George Orwell, 1984 was a banner year for young Mr. Andrew and myself. Nothing major or full-time but enough paying assignments to keep the cockroaches eating our food instead of us. Mostly odd jobs, working for even odder people. While our next stint of gainful employ wasn’t terribly odd, the location of their production office and the executive producer in charge certainly fit that description.

Segarini – Guilty Pleasures for Crappy Times

This effort is going to be short (like most people’s attention spans), and sweet, (like a Lb. of sugar in your Starbuck’s Chocolate Caramel Over-Ripe Watermelon Half-Caff Sea Salt Honey Glazed  Cinnamon Bun Jelly Bean Sprinkles Vanilla Latte).

It’s about distracting yourself from whatever problems you are having that have become overwhelming and are making it impossible to focus on what needs to be done …and your sanity.

Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler Part 11: B**bs

Andrew and I Write for B**bs

Not every writing assignment Ted netted us during his arduous and high-spirited job trawling expeditions turned into pure gold. We once ended up in a condo in Encino teeming with a heap of people just exploding with excitement over their a once-in-a-generation project. They just needed some writers to help put it over the top. The premise was “Don’t Love.” That was basically it. The creator had come up with and patented a heart with a diagonal line through it. To indicate that he “didn’t love” something – I believe broccoli might have been one of the subjects of his copyright-protected stricken heart. That was it. Now go and conjure us up an award-winning show, fellas!

I think we got paid the same amount as the idea was worth.

Bob’s Completely Unfocused Journal of Important Issues (wherein the Ukraine, Covid, The Beatles, blind truckers, semi-famous people, and more, collide in a cacophony of broken glass, spilt drinks, and trips to the bathroom, and converge to brighten your day …or not)

Deserved or not, Human Beings have been firmly sequestered at the top of the food chain on this planet for the past 4 or 5 thousand years.

As far as planets go, out of the Gazillion or so that zip through space in their little orbits around almost as many stars, we lucked out and got one you can honestly label as a Paradise.

Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler Part 10: Nicholls and Vickers Set Sale!

Early on in our mutual quest to bring about world peace through comedy, Ted handed down his golden rule for success in The Business. “Suck up to the receptionist.” He would joke with them, send them thank-you notes or flowers and generally spread the butt butter on as thick as possible. They may be the badly treated and criminally overworked trolls of the entertainment industry, but the lowly receptionist is the gateway to talking to the asshole in charge. “Charm the underpaid and disinterested voice on the other end of that line and they’ll push their boss to talk to you.”

Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler Part 9: Stories and More from ‘84

At one time, Andrew and I had been minorly represented by Lawrie Rotenberg – an almost legendary Canadian agent. He couldn’t find us work to save his life – but he did once keep us waiting so long outside his office that Andrew’s MG got towed. It required a king’s ransom  to  retrieve his car from a barb-wired vehicle encampment under a freeway overpass – a ransom we did not possess because we were being semi-represented by Lawrie Rotenberg. And so, the only Canadian representation we’ve ever managed to semi-secure actually cost us money.

Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler Part 8 – Lights, Camera, Radio!

Andrew and I had found our tiny acorn. A funny-dressed, putty-foreheaded, professional goof who living in a rundown bungalow he bought off Cher’s mother. Eventually, this eccentric acorn would grow to make us two of the most envied writers in Hollywood. But, as today’s story begins, our little seed was hosting a CBC Radio pilot for us for a lousy six hundred bucks.

Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler: Part 7 – Boy, I Could Sure Use It!

It was just another, dreary, chaotic, backstabbing, life-sucking day on “Thicke of the Night” when I first espied the one and only Theodore L. Zeigler bounding into view. He was loping down the hallway of the production office in his rainbow suspenders, looking for all the world like a 3-D Robert Crumb cartoon. Little did I suspect that this lanky, eccentrically attired, grey-haired curiosity would one day change my life forever.

Darrell Vickers – Ted Zeigler Part 6: On a Winger and a Prayer

Time waits for no man but it can make your colors more vibrant and your whites even white-ier. Sorry, that’s Tide. I always get those two mixed up. Forget I ever said anything.

A New Beginning:

While our rubber-faced future manager was scattering the unfunny ashes of the Sonny and Cher reunion show over the gritty-to-the-taste waters of the Ganges, Murray had a drastically different, more revolutionary idea about where his glimmering future lay. No longer would he be beholden to “The Man” for his thin, sugar-free slice of the pie. Langston Enterprises would forge its own resplendent destiny and create a veritable Marie Callender’s of fruit-filled crusts for him to feast upon. 

Thusly, our fiscally astute funnyman decided to pour the entirety of his hard, TV-earned cash into a comedy club – a business venture that traditionally has the lifespan of listing fairground goldfish.

Roxanne Tellier – Musings On Movings and Marijuana for Multinationals

Today is the 12^th of December, and that means that Shawn and I are exactly one month away from the Big Move, from Toronto, to Windsor, Ontario.  The drive is a mere 230 in earth miles, but, in some integral ways, it’s also the equivalent of moving from the Moon to the Sun.