Foot, Meet Mouth. Mouth, Foot.

"Straight Up with a Twist" was really funny -- although not as funny as the donkey-braying crowd in the back of the theater seemed to think it was. There seemed to be a contingent of the actor's friends who thought they'd help kick the hilarity up a notch by donkey-braying at every remotely funny line. I can't think of a time when I've heard a portion of the audience sell a joke harder than the comedian.

Afterwards we headed over to Ann Sather's for the opening night celebration. I noticed that Will Clinger, host of Channel 11's Wild Chicago, was in the audience at the theater -- sitting in the same row as me, actually -- and I got a chance to say hi at Sather's.

Now, having just come from a show about a socially awkward "renaissance geek" (not a metrosexual it turns out) with which I identified a little more than I should admit, it did not surprise me at all that given this opportunity to charm a pseudo-celebrity, I screwed up. In my mind, I was going to be confident and sincere and tell Will that I enjoyed Wild Chicago, that it was one of my favorite shows on television and that I was sad to see it go but hoped whatever he went on to was just as successful. It didn't happen that way.

Will was sitting with Harvey Moshman, the producer of the show, when I introduced myself. I promptly blurted out, "Hi Will, I just wanted to say, you had a great run with Wild Chicago over the past 10 years, and I was sorry to hear it's going off the air." Will looked a little confused and surprised -- which seems to be his standard facial expression, but even more so in this case -- and Harvey points out to me it's been 15 years. Oh, I said, and then realized I watched the 11th anniversary show a couple years ago. I said as much, and Harvey corrected me again: it was actually the "12th anniversary on 11." Sheepish and embarrassed, I said, "I'm just going to walk away now..." and we all had a chuckle, which helped smooth things over.

Will then told me they're still on the air, and that they're planning a special 15th anniversary special soon, which will be more of a "best of" compilation than the live thing they did for the 12th. I then mentioned I had heard a rumor that he was moving on to bigger and bolder things, and asked if it was true, to which he hemmed and hawed and looked at Harvey, and then said I'd just have to wait to find out. I wished him good luck and walked away.

So yeah, I made an ass of myself, and I didn't even think to ask for an interview for Gapers' Block. Oh well.

Posted by Andrew Huff at November 12, 2003 02:02 PM