White - Mad Movies With the La Connection

Mad Movies with the LA Connection

By Mike White

2014, BearManor Media All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the USA by:
BearManor Media
P O Box 71426
Albany, Georgia 31708
www.bearmanormedia.com

ISBN: 978-1-59393-590-0

Printed in the United States of America

Cover design by Mike White

Book design by Robbie Adkins, www.adkinsconsult.com

Table of Contents

To Skizz
Thanks for sharing the same warped sense of humor.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to all of the people who took time to help me with this project: Andrea White, Kate Hennessey, Joe Tropea, Robert St. Mary, Barbara Goodson, April Winchell, Terry Thoren, Randy Ridges, Craig Mitchell, Randy Nogg, Jim Riffel, Josh Hadley, Straw Weisman, Robert Harmon, Lloyd Kaufman, Charles Kaufman, Skizz Cyzyk, Kurt Gardner, Matthew Manjourides, Steve Pinto, Bob Buchholz, Connie Sue Cook, Andrew Leavold and Kent Skov.

The Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection cast: Steve Pinto, Stephen Rollman, Connie Sue Cook (back row), Bob Buchholz, and Kent Skov (front row).

Authors Note

Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection premiered on WDIV, Detroits NBC affiliate, on September 13, 1985 at 7:30 p.m. Cable television had begun to make inroads into more American homes, though the industry was still in relative infancy. I was a young pup myself; only thirteen years old but already a connoisseur of comedy. Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection tickled my funny bone and I became slightly obsessed with the show.

After the premiere of Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection, the show moved to its semi-regular spot of 1 a.m. on Saturday nights (in Detroit, at least). Not wanting to miss an episode, I stayed up well past my bedtime and tuned in my thirteen-inch black and white set to the show, turning down the volume to barely audible levels so as to not wake my parents. There, in the late night glow of the cathode rays, I experienced my first foray into the world of mock dub, a subgenre of comedy that I grew to appreciate more as the years progressed.

When Ben Ohmart of BearManor Media asked if I would be interested in writing a history of Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection, I jumped at the chance, recalling those viewings in the wee hours. I had been hoping to write about the show and talk to its creator, Kent Skov, and I finally got my chance to learn how everything came together and what Skov and the rest of the L.A. Connection have been up to in the intervening years.

Kent Skov

You cant explain Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection without discussing Kent Skov.

Skov grew up in Kentfield, California in Marin County. This area north of San Francisco produced several notable people including Robin Williams and Pete Carroll.

I had a tape recorder that I got for Christmas as a kid, says Skov. I would do all sorts of voices and take-offs on TV shows like Lets Make a Deal. I wasnt even ten years old. I didnt really get into acting until I was seventeen and had my first theater class. I got an award in class for Distinction in Drama and thought, Boy, I didnt have to do hardly anything to get this. My teacher told me he thought I had the ability to go on and make a living in the business, and that really gave me the confidence to do so.

After graduation, Skov attended San Francisco State College, where he joined The Committee, an offshoot of The Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Howard Hesseman (WKRP in Cincinnati) and David Ogden Stiers (M*A*S*H) had founded The Committee in 1963. They basically had three companies. To get into one of them you had to come in on Saturday afternoon to an open workshop where thered be anywhere from forty to sixty people. If you came to that afternoon workshop enough, and if they liked you, youd get invited to join the group. Then, you had to get there at nine in the morning on Saturday and Sunday. As a college student, that was not a lot of fun. Plus, I had to commute from Marin over to San Francisco. Nevertheless, I loved improve, so I kept at it. When I got into one of the companies, the Committee Players, we would perform in Berkeley once a week. In about nine months, I did my first show with them, working my way through the ranks for almost two years until The Committee closed in 1972.

I started my own improv group when I was in college and got a VJ job when I was in my senior year. Video Radio, a public access show, went to the 10,000 local households that had cable. It was pre-MTV, and people could see us talking and spinning records back in those days we had records and some reel-to-reel tapes.

Skov worked on Video Radio with legendary DJ Norman Davis. I went on his show and did pantomime and comedy routines, says Skov. He said to me, Look, I cant do this anymore. He was coming right from work doing 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and would come in to do the show at 1 a.m. and he was just exhausted. He wasnt going home in between because this was in San Francisco and he lived in Mill Valley. He offered me his spot on Video Radio. I had enough music for about two shows.

I played my music during the first show and I did poetry and it was all artsy and stuff. All these people just loved it because I was playing classic Neil Young. I did that for a couple weeks and was starting to get a nice following; I mean, it was only in 10,000 houses, so how much of a following can you get? We were on MetroMedia television, which was kind of like Comcast cable was in 2014.

Eventually, Norman told me that hed have his daughter, Susie, get music for me, different and eclectic stuff because Norman would get all this free music sent to him because people would want to get it played. It was like delivering drugs. Id go to his house, Heres your music. One time, The TubesFee Waybillhe brought a cassette and asked me to play it. I think I may have been one of the premiere guys who introduced White Punks on Dope. And, a couple years later, wed run into The Tubes again. The people who liked me for the first couple weeks were like, What happened to that guy?

In addition to Video Radio, Skov also worked with Norman Davis at KSAN radio doing voices and impressions. Nixon was being impeached at the time, so I started doing Nixon for him and eventually went on to do all the presidents, mainly Ronald Reagan.

Skov moved to Los Angeles in 1975, where he worked for two alumni of The Waltons, Ralph Waite and Will Geer. He commuted between L.A. and San Francisco, doing a two-man comedy show while continuing to work with Norman Davis. When Daviss show moved to other cities, Skov did his bits over the phone. We have a relationship even today: he has a web series now and we still fool around doing voices.

The L.A. Connection versus the Aztec Mummy

The L.A. Connection