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A MATTER OF CHANCE

    

SHEPHERD'S PIE was and remains my best achievement of my 20 years of telling stories for a living. There were some really hilarious moments, for instance - When a best dressed couple came to the NJPTV studio one evening to have dinner at our fictitious Palm Court Dining Club stands out. With lots of laugh and a bit of chagrin they enjoyed the tour of our set for that segment and I gave them directions to a great nearby restaurant.  The fan letters were amazing too.  People assumed Jean would like having stuff that they thought was worth memorializing (thinking he was the master of nostalgia which he hated) or just plain fun. The best was from a lady that sent a rubber dagger with a note that read, "Dear Mr. Shepherd, Here's another rubber dagger for your collection  as I assume that last one I sent several years ago must have worn out by now!"  We got dozens of letter each day - more than the station would get in a month for all the other shows.

      And so it went and so it continues on YouTube in fragments that fans recorded.  (The original master tapes were toss in a waste bin by the moron who bought the network when the State decided to dump it).  But as all things must end, so did my time with Jean Shepherd.  Doug, the mighty program master, did not see fit to spend another penny on the most watched show on his schedule and when our grant money was gone our show was too.  After the 26th program was in the can (a film term even though it was videotaped) I said goodbye to my fun days on the road with Shep and  returned to my staff directing duties that included the worst torture of all - directing the NJ lottery drawing for a week once a month. 

The Lottery was the most watched 5 minutes aired on our network.  This early experiment in state run gambling had  more viewers than our most expensive offering- The New Jersey Nightly News produced with a staff of 28.  However this valiant effort to inform Jerseyans about what was happening between New York and Philadelphia had such a small audience that it was not measurable by the national ratings services.  I suggested with tongue imbedded deep in my cheek,  that it might be better to save the taxpayers hard-earned money by just calling each of the viewers with a quick update on what happened that day. This solution was not appreciated.

      Immediately following the news was the lottery and one could hear the click of TV sets (mostly in bars)  being turned on all over the state.  Directing the lottery show meant hanging around the studio until  8 PM - going out for a drink before it was not a good idea and could get one  fired by Doug who was opposed to any sign of artificially produced human pleasure.   New Jersey was one of the first states to have a state lottery and to televise drawings live. And even though the show was only 5 minutes our studio made a bundle of bucks producing it.  Hela Young (Youngst was her real name) was the hostess.  She was a former Miss New Jersey in the genuine Miss America Pageant - not the watered down PC version that the show has become.  And "she is a real looker" as Big Gene our deaf audio man would say every night.  Thus, each time I set my close-up shot of her I tried to remember the white swimsuit she wore on the AC Convention Hall catwalk.  (I worked with three Miss NJ's over the years and they all were exactly alike except for hair color)

     (A semi-interesting footnote - I bought a Pick Three ticket, my son's birthday 322 the first night I directed the show. And I WON!  The  celebration when I got home  was akin to winning a million, even though that  night I took home just $229 bucks.  The extra income was used immediately to our living room. I played many times after that but never won again. Fleeting are the dreams of riches)  

I can still remember calling the directions for the show (what directors get paid to do):  

Quiet please...20 seconds to air - standby

Ready Camera 2 (wide shot)

10 seconds 3-2-1

Open mike - cue her

(Hela did her spiel the same way for next 25 years - her one big gig)

Ready music cart and credits slides

Take 2 - music in and up full

Super credits

Fade to black. 

     For a few years this was boringly routine - except for a flood that caused great panic. Not knowing the winning number until the next morning was feared to cause riots in the streets - so the three massive ball picking machines and a single camera was trucked miles to our transmitter and Hela called the numbers from the banks of machines and dials - the show did indeed go on and peace and tranquility prevailed in the Garden State.   TV that was "live" always meant walking on the tightrope without a net.  And the inevitable happened one night - this night would be like no other lottery.  A show that became legend in the annals of our station and the one I had the bad luck to be the director of by chance.  

And this is how it went: Our airtime for the show was changed from 8:PM to 7:55 PM for some reason only the scheduling genius in the programming department would know.  However,  she didn't  inform the production department of the time change. What was only a few minutes turned in to a huge magilla.  Our routine was that the cameras and lights were checked a half-hour before showtime. AT 15 minutes to go the camera crew would assemble moving slower than sloths.  And me too.  I would ask if everything was ready and it always was.  Hela would arrive, checking her makeup under the lights and wait for my countdown.  In the control room the crew sat and chewed the fat.  Occasionally I would glance at the big "air" monitor that was displaying what was being broadcast on our four stations across the region.  The time ticked down.  I gave a cue over the headsets to be relayed to the talent by the floor manager - "three minutes to air", (which was actually one minute!) Time dragged on as we continued to chat and when I was about to call the two minute warning I glanced at the monitor and laughed - Hela was using the monitor as a mirror and was trying to remove a piece of something caught in between one of her perfect choppers.  She succeeded in dislodging it.  Then she pinched each cheek to give her a tad of a blush I guess. Then I realized to my horror - I was looking at the "air" monitor and her routine face maintenance close-up was going out to the unwashed masses.  At that point - bedlam erupted as I screamed to everyone "Holy Sh$% were on the air, roll the music, roll the opening animation...roll everything you've got.  Well,  this impromptu comedy of errors caused and avalanche the next day of memos about memos, a staff meeting on new procedures, the wringing of hands, calls from the politicians and bartenders.  The result of this was that the NJ Lottery never failed to air on time for the next decade. 

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