Being communication majors meant we were expected to put some time into the student-run television station just as we did the radio station. One of the class requirements, usually for upperclassmen, was to produce some sort of weekly television program. Some people created movie review programs, some attempted game shows, and others tried their hand at artsy dramas that made little sense outside the creator's mind. Nathan "Nat" Bernstein aimed to emulate David Letterman with the creation of "Wright at Night." J.T. Wright was Nat's radio name that he carried over to his television program, a sort of hip persona that he thought would mesh well with the supposed hip and trendy guests he would have on his show (see It feels like I'm talking to a lonely man without a vision).
Admittedly it was an interesting idea; however you have to realize that for something of this caliber to be successful you have to have a dedicated staff. Meaning, you either put everything else aside to make it work or you did it half-ass and let the viewers see through the whole mess for what it was. Nat envisioned a grand production with a house band and special guests and contests and becoming a minor campus celebrity. Again, I emphasize: we were college students with shoestring budgets. Our imaginations spit out grandiose ideas that time and money constraints dried out instantaneously.
I think the concept of the house band is what did the show in, sadly from the get-go, no less. Let's list some of the pitfalls, shall we?
A band must be found.
A band must agree to perform, for little or no payment, weekly.
A band must perform live-to-tape.
A band must perform in the only studio we have, already short of usable space because of other set pieces.
A band must be on time.
A lot of people hung around the first night of taping just to see what would happen and how Nat was going to pull this off. How was he going to be able to host his dream show as well as produce it from afar? How was he going to act when nothing went right that night?
The band wasn't on time to the first taping, by the way. They showed up late, which made the production crew mad. Then the band, an eight-piece local group called the Ska-Bees, got mad – they wanted to practice first. By no surprise, this riff was worsening at nearly the same rate as the riff between the host and guest. Soon both riffs were combined in an effort to save time and the single, larger riff was now between any two people in the studio. Thankfully there was no riff involving the audience because no audience existed. So there was a riff involving the non-existence of the audience, or where the audience-to-be should be located, which convoluted the whole show and made for a bigger mess.
For the record, this was my only encounter with the oddly named Ska-Bees, some local pains-in-the-brass third wave ska fanatics. I can only wonder how and where Nat found the band (consisting of a couple of guitars, drums, keys, trumpet and trombone, and a singer who was crossly regulated to tambourine for the instrumental theme to Wright at Night). The Ska-Bees didn't stick around long enough to sell any self-released album or do any radio promotions that first night. In fact, it was everybody's only encounter – the Ska-Bees were so pissed off about the whole thing they reportedly swore off the program and said they would never return.
Or so they thought.
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Theme to Wright at Night
(unknown)
The Ska-Bees
From the television program Wright at Night
c.1997
