Darrell Vickers – The Ballad of Sweet John Dugan Part Two: Danger Bay, Will Robinson!

The moment of truth was upon us like a bachelor elephant on a Mr. Peanut love doll. We had journeyed nigh on one hundred yards and walked up a full flight of stairs, but now, with our treacherous trek finally at an end, we found ourselves comfortably seated before the bewigged-one. Benevolent John shone his blinding light of ultimate cognition, and the need for a gripping act break, upon our eager and sponge-like cerebellums. Soon we were armed with the scads and skeins and scoops of essential information required to make a whiz-bang sale.

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.

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.

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 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 Three: Hollywood!

By the 1960s-killing-year of 1970, Ted had decided to seek fame and fortune in a place where a vast majority of people with that very same dream end up as drug addicts, prostitutes and off-ramp pre-loved churro vendors. But having streets paved with the shattered souls of generations of the young and hopeful did not make him any less amorous for the glamorous, so he loaded up the truck and he moved to Beverly.

Darrell Vickers – George Carlin: Part One – He Hired Who?

     In 1973, George Carlin was an absolute filthy sensation. “FM & AM”, “Class Clown” and “Occupation: Foole” had taken an easily scandalized world by storm. Who knew mentioning “cocksucker, motherfucker and tits” (which sounds like Jimmy Swaggart’s room service order at a Baptist convention) could be so uproarious? I can recall precisely where I was the first time I laid my tender ears upon “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” A shindig was being thrown for the young and swingin’ volunteers of the local, government-mandated Cable Access station. We, the young and unpaid, sat around that north Oshawa living room in stitches while Bill Ridell, the government-mandated station manager, mimed along with the shockingly brilliant piece.

Darrell Vickers – Oh, You’re Back

From California to Coventry

As Inquisitionally torturous as traversing the U.S. of A. by bus had been heading due west, at least our ultimate destination was the undisputed entertainment capital of the world. Andrew and I were now being forced to endure the very same 72 hour crucible, trapped inside an unhygienic, glaciated stink-pit, just to get back to Oshawa. Clearly, we were being subjected to unspeakably cruel and unrelenting retribution for the simple crime of intermittently enjoying ourselves.

Darrell Vickers – First Trip Part 2 – Making Up Reality

Andrew and I had been ensconced in the fire-hazard hills above the City of Angels for about a week and fortune had smiled down upon us like it thought we were somebody else. I’d shared a chat and a giggle with a half-naked woman, we’d eaten at The Sizzler and my apartment in Oshawa began to seem like a badly decorated, foul-smelling dream. By the time The Fifth Estate arrived, Nicholls & Vickers had become as Hollywood as a high colonic gift certificate.