My effort to write for myself – something I always encourage the actors to do – had its election week inspiration in the fact that we had the right cast to play the celebrity supporters of Mitt Romney. In the show, it followed a very successful porn-themed sketch, so the response wasn’t quite what I wanted – but I hope you enjoy it!!
TOSSED ELECTIONS AND SCRAMBLED THOUGHTS by Michael Hughes
Watching Obama’s performance in last Wednesday’s debate wasn’t easy for me. But I still had to get comedy out of it. And thinking about how the same Republicans who were abandoning Romney the day before suddenly rallied around him, I thought about what might happened if those closest to Romney let slip how they had felt about his chances.
Mitt Romney’s troubles connecting with Southern voters, the Puerto Rico primary falling on the same day as our show, and the fact that two of our cast members of Latin descent were in the cast gave me the inspiration for this look at Mitt’s attempt to be kinda Puerto Rican!
As I mentioned in my last post, our special Super Bowl Sunday episode of Top Story! Weekly had just three actors, so we did a “Grill the Candidates” format, where Mike McLendon and Kipleigh Brown questioned each of the four remaining Republican candidates, all played by Phillip Wilburn. We took question ideas from our writers, then assigned each of the four candidates to a specific writer to write a segment. I did the Gingrich one (although the rules were written by Matt Blitz).
As we finished up our readthrough Thursday night for Top Story! Weekly, we realized we didn’t have a particularly strong political sketch for that week’s show. Then we saw the video from that night of President Obama singing at the Apollo Theater:
And from there, writing the Republican candidates singing their own versions of 70’s soul hits became pretty easy. All the actors really nailed this one.
Boy, having Michele Bachmann in the presidential race is making things fun! Especially since Kipleigh Brown does such an awesome characterization! Throw in Sean Cowhig’s hilarious Marcus Bachmann, Brian O’Connell as the photographer and that crazy Newsweek cover, and this one was easy to write!
Yes, Newt Gingrich actually blamed the fact that he cheated on his wife on the fact that he loved America too much. So that proved a perfect topic for comedy with our guest star, Deanna Russo from “Knight Rider!”
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Watch “Tossed Elections and Scrambled Thoughts” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 157: “Return of the King!”
November 16, 2012My effort to write for myself – something I always encourage the actors to do – had its election week inspiration in the fact that we had the right cast to play the celebrity supporters of Mitt Romney. In the show, it followed a very successful porn-themed sketch, so the response wasn’t quite what I wanted – but I hope you enjoy it!!
TOSSED ELECTIONS AND SCRAMBLED THOUGHTS by Michael Hughes
Starring Michael Hughes (Kelsey Grammer), Phillip Wilburn (Donald Trump), Grasie Mercedes (Stacey Dash), Artemis Pebdani (Victoria Jackson) and Blake Walker (Kid Rock)
Directed by Kristina Adelmeyer
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Tags:2012 election, 2012 presidential campaign, 2012 presidential election, Artemis Pebdani, Blake Walker, Clueless, Donald Trump, Frasier, Grasie Mercedes, Kelsey Grammer, Kid Rock, Michael Hughes, Mike Hughes, Mitt Romney, Phillip Wilburn, Stacey Dash, Top Story! Weekly, Victoria Jackson
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