“Hey, can I be a high-fivin’ white guy, too?”

I would now like to take everyone on a journey into my childhood. Or, rather, a certain portion of it. Most people of my age or older from the Seattle area will recall a sketch comedy show, modeled after “SCTV” and Saturday Night Live (including an opening monologue and satirical newscast), called “Almost Live!”. It aired from 1984 to 1999 on the NBC affiliate KING TV after the 11 o’clock news, so it wasn’t public access, but was independently created by the VP of the NBC affiliate, Bob Jones, and locally produced. It eventually gained enough popularity to be repackaged and aired on Comedy Central, gleaned of it’s extremely specific and local content. The cast featured Ally Sheedy, of then-faded “brat pack” fame, and the original host Ross Shafer went on to host a show on FOX News. “Almost Live!” is also where the popular edu-tainment show “Bill Nye the Science Guy” originated, with cast member Bill Nye playing his “kooky scientist” character (or is it a character?) in segments wherein he would perform an experiment.

The show underwent a shift after the original host, Ross Shafer, left and was replaced by cast member and contributing writer John Keister. Almost Live! experienced success in both formats, but the overwhelming portion of the episodes were hosted by Keister. It was eventually cancelled in 1999 due to low profits, but had several reunion and encore shows following popular demand.

Some skits were general social spoofs in a local context, such as “The High-Fivin’ White Guys”:

And others were stale old jokes (as Youtube user ukulelechango puts it, “Drivers in _____ are sooo crazy!”) made fresh with insider commentary:

I went to middle school in Ballard, and let me tell you: It’s sooooooooo true. Old Scandinavian people are awful drivers. Now there’s a generalization you never expected to hear, did you, Midwesterners? I mean, unless you are from Minnesota… I don’t think that one made it to Comedy Central. Uf daa! Ballard was the butt of many Almost Live jokes, being one of the larger (and most ethnically specific) suburban neighborhoods of Seattle. Outlying suburbs and other neighborhoods were also lampooned, such as hippie/new ager neighborhoods like Fremont and Wallingford, “trashy” suburbs like Lynnwood, Redmond and Kent, and richer areas like Mercer Island and Bellevue. Other frequent targets were the extremely polite, politically correct culture of Seattle in general (and the West Coast/ US at large, at the time) and of course the local economic drivers and cultural currents: Microsoft, Boeing, local sports, grunge music, a booming then busting economy, and coffee.

A half hour special called “The Almost Live! Guide to Living in Seattle” Part 1 of 4 (“The Ballard Driving School” is from part 3):

“COPS in Wallingford”

Oh look! Local celebrities! My favorite Foo Fighters song starts at 1:40, “The Late Report” news segment featuring Dave Grohl at 4:50.

“Sports Talk with Mariners Broadcasters” (back when Seattle had good baseball)

Some of the more general skits:

“Folk Songs of the Slightly Inebriated”

“Simile School”

Now they just have to send that guy to Cliché Survivors meetings. The show wasn’t always hilarious. Keister was often a bit stilted as a host and attempted some very ill-fated interviews in an attempt to align the show more with David Letterman’s format. Overall, however, it enjoyed great success because it rang true to locals, and as previously mentioned, achieved an impressive level of national success considering it’s origins.