The Dumbest Kid in Gifted Class

by Dan Ryckert

  “Rajah’s WWF News & Rumors” was too wordy, so I imported a WrestleZone logo into my photo editing software. I included my name, some form of “editor” as my title, and printed the pass. One trip to Kinko’s and a cheap lanyard later, I had myself a laminated press pass with my name printed clear as day on it. Surely I’d be strolling around backstage like I owned the place.

  Chris attended the event with me and wanted no part of my plan. He wasn’t about to try to sneak backstage, but he agreed to drive me to the arena early so I could get the lay of the land. The wrestlers wouldn’t be arriving until late in the afternoon but I was there scouting the area by 10 a.m.

  It seemed that there was one clear entrance point for WWF crew. Production trucks were being unloaded in a fenced-in parking lot, which was guarded by security tasked with keeping fans out. I had to assume that this was the lot that the wrestlers and creative team would be parking in as well.

  I did another lap or two around the arena even though the guarded fence was surely the only access point. Like it or not, it was my only option and I’d have to give it my best. I’d have my badge proudly displayed and then walk right past the guy like I was supposed to be there. If he gave me any guff, I’d just flash the obviously genuine credentials at him, he’d apologize, then he’d usher me right to Vince McMahon’s office.

  I told Chris that I was going for it, and he left to grab McDonald’s while I embarked on my harebrained scheme. In a rare display, I was wearing a polo shirt and slacks to look more professional. I put the lanyard and “press pass” over my head, making sure the text and logo were facing outward. With a deep breath, I rounded the corner leading to the security guard.

  His eyes locked onto me the second I became visible, and they didn’t move an inch. When I was about twenty feet from him, I looked at the guard, smiled, and gave a friendly nod. He responded by sticking his arm straight out in front of him in a “stop” gesture.

  “I need to see your badge,” he said.

  “Oh, okay! Here you go,” I said, as I flashed my homemade credentials.

  “This isn’t it. I need credentials from Kemper Arena or the World Wrestling Federation.”

  “Oh, I’m not with either of them. I’m a member of the press, from WrestleZone.com. I’ll be reporting on tonight’s show.”

  “Not from backstage you won’t. Do you think media outlets print their own badges?”

  I instantly realized how stupid the plan had been from the beginning.

  “Well, uh, we always have in the past, and it hasn’t been a problem. Give me a second—I’ll call my editor-in-chief and we’ll get this straightened out.”

  Defeated, I went back around the corner and tried to think of a new strategy. I didn’t have a cell phone, so I couldn’t even mimic a fake conversation. This lack of a cell phone also made my backup plan tricky. Plan B involved Matt Murphy, one of Harley Race’s standout wrestlers from his promotion in Missouri. I had kept in contact with Matt ever since I met him at Harley’s show, and he was scheduled to have an untelevised match before the SmackDown taping. Matt had mentioned that if he could figure out a way to get me backstage, he’d do his best. But with no phone and no sign of Matt, I gave up on getting backstage and joined a group of fans waiting on the public side of the fence.

  As the show drew closer, some of the wrestlers approached our group to take photos and sign autographs. Earlier in the day, I pictured myself meeting Vince McMahon and having chats about the business with The Rock and Kurt Angle. Instead, I settled on receiving a perfume-drenched hug from Trish Stratus and getting Steve Blackman’s autograph on an empty package of Corn Nuts.

  I made one last attempt after the show to get backstage, explaining that my name was “Steven Hickenbottom” and that I was Shawn Michaels’ cousin. Even with a new security guard at the post, it proved to be as ill-fated as my first effort.

  Eventually, I would make my way backstage at a big WWE event. I don’t think my methods of getting there would have made much sense even if I explained them in detail to the teenage version of myself:

  Here’s the deal, Dan. What you have to do is become a well-known gaming journalist, design a really hard Super Mario World level, and then get on something called Twitter to challenge another gaming journalist to beat it. He won’t be able to, and then you can get your WWE wrestler friend to take you backstage to make fun of him with a bunch of other wrestlers. Also, Goldust is gonna talk to him for a while about Skyrim.

  Now that I think about it, this barely made sense when it actually happened in 2016.

  Cold Calls

  I was seven years old when I went to Branson, Missouri with my father, his thirteenth wife, and my stepsister. It took me a while to remember how old I was, until help came in the form of Billy Ray Cyrus (as it often does). For most of the trip, “Achy Breaky Heart” was playing everywhere we went. My dad spent a good chunk of our time going off about how much he hated the recently released song. Wikipedia informed me that it came out in early 1992, placing me smack-dab in the middle of my seventh year.

  Branson is a great city if you’re either seven or seventy, with not a lot for anyone in between. Water parks and campy attractions like Silver Dollar City sit alongside elderly friendly activities like inoffensive comedy shows, tributes to the glory days of country music, and tons of slot machines. I loved Silver Dollar City, and I maintain that it’s our country’s greatest source of painfully rickety wooden roller coasters and weird wooden pistols that shoot rubber bands. Everything at Silver Dollar City seemed to be made of wood, except for those softball-sized chunks of caramel corn that always hurt my teeth.

  We arrived at the hotel one evening after a long day at White Water, the main water park in town. Sunburnt and exhausted, we needed to get some food in our stomachs that didn’t cost amusement park prices. My stepmom and stepsister broke off to go to a restaurant, while my father and I were dead-set on a McDonald’s that we spotted down the street from the hotel.

  It was fully dark when we started walking at eight or nine at night. I’m not sure if Branson even has a downtown, but if it did, we were definitely not there. There were only two other people to be seen as we walked up the hill to McDonald’s. Their posture and slow walk made it clear that they were an elderly couple even though the darkness made it impossible to make out features from afar. We eventually passed them and exchanged quick hellos before continuing on our way.

  For about 30 seconds, I could tell my dad was thinking about something. He seemed distracted and kept glancing behind him at the old folks, who were getting farther away. Out of nowhere, he did a 180 and started sprinting back toward our hotel.

  “Keep up!” he yelled. “I’ll explain later.”

  Later in the night, I’d learn what was going through his head during those 30 seconds. The sign below our hotel’s logo read “WELCOME BOB AND DOLORES HOPE.” When we passed the old couple, my dad felt like he’d seen the man before. Then he remembered the sign. We had just walked right by Bob and Dolores Hope.

  I was seven, and zero seven-year-olds in 1992 knew who Bob Hope was. All I knew was that my father had passed a couple of old people, acted weird for a bit, and then sprinted back toward them faster than I’d ever seen him move. Not wanting to be by myself in a strange city at night, I did my best to keep up. To be fair, I doubt that any part of Branson could be that dangerous. Its most dangerous street gangs probably consist of a handful of polite Travis Tritt impersonators.

  We reached the old couple and my dad struggled to catch his breath for an introduction.

  “Excuse me, sir,” my wheezing father said. “I couldn’t help but notice the sign at the hotel and I had to ask if you’re Bob Hope.”

  “Yes, I am,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you. Is this your son?”

  “Yes, this is Danny. Danny, this man is Bob Hope. He’s one of the greatest comedy legends of all time.”

  Without any context regarding his career and accomplishments, I could still tell that th
is guy was important based on my father’s tone. I had never heard him sound so reverent. It made sense when I got older. My father and I are both lifelong fans of late-night television. Being born in 1984, two of my heroes from a young age were David Letterman and Conan O’Brien. My father loved them both and was old enough to have also watched many years of Johnny Carson hosting The Tonight Show. Hope’s frequent “surprise” appearances on the show were legendary, and my dad was understandably starstruck in front of him.

  Even if I couldn’t fully appreciate meeting Hope at the time, the encounter stuck with me as I grew up and learned more about his legacy. It also kicked off a desire to meet my own heroes as I grew up.

  I’ve been fortunate enough over the years to make this happen on numerous occasions. Either from being in the right place at the right time or through my job in the media, I’ve interviewed or met most of the people on my checklist. Conan O’Brien, Norm Macdonald, Louis CK, Ric Flair, and Vince McMahon were checked off over the years, with Letterman being the big exception. I don’t know if anyone in the world has been responsible for making me laugh more than him, and I’ve never had the chance to meet him. Given his almost reclusive nature, I can’t imagine a scenario in which that’ll ever happen.

  Writing about video games was always my first choice for a career path. That never changed, even when I started making comedic short films as I inched closer to college. I wanted to get as much advice as possible before I landed on a major. Should I go for a journalism degree to help with games writing, or should I go the film route and utilize the studio and other resources that the University of Kansas had? I decided that I didn’t need any help writing about video games, so I’d major in film and write on my own time. Plus, the idea of watching a bunch of movies during class seemed like a solid deal to me.

  I took an odd approach when it came to getting advice before I officially signed up for my major. I didn’t want to ask guidance counselors or teachers about what I should do. I’d ask those who had actually landed positions that I hoped to someday get myself. If I was considering a career path related to video production, I certainly wanted it to be in the field of late-night comedy.

  Late Night with Conan O’Brien was my first choice. O’Brien was young and I imagined he’d be around for a long time, so I wanted to get a hold of someone at his show to ask about how they got there. I’d have to think of a way to make this happen, since there wasn’t any kind of contact information on the show’s website.

  As the credits rolled on Conan’s show, I had a realization one night. These writers weren’t big celebrities. Their names were in the credits and I doubted that they’d feel the need to keep their phone numbers unlisted. It’s not like I had access to a New York City phone book, so I found an online version.

  I recorded his show the next night and paused during the credits to read the writers’ names so I could look them up. Bigger names like Robert Smigel weren’t listed in the directory, but most of the others were. I tried calling the numbers listed for Brian McCann, Jon Glaser, and Brian Stack to no avail. These numbers either led to error messages or people who were in no way late-night comedy writers.

  One of the calls eventually went through. It was Andy Blitz, a writer who frequently appeared on the show. Most memorably (for me, at least), he played the “Chanting Sports Fan” character, who sat in the audience and performed chants that went on for way too long. Those bits always killed me and I was thrilled when he picked up the phone.

  “Hi!” I said. “My name is Dan, and this is going to sound really weird. I just turned 18 and I’m about to go to college. I want to be a comedy writer, and I’m calling to see if you’d have any advice for me.”

  Andy seemed surprised at first about receiving a cold call from some kid. Eventually he became more relaxed and gave me advice for over an hour while occasionally strumming on a guitar. It seemed like I had caught him at the perfect time. His advice boiled down to persistence. Keep writing, keep thinking up funny bits, keep shooting short videos. Some things won’t work and some things won’t get a reaction, but you have to power through that stuff and don’t get discouraged. This wasn’t surprising advice to hear, but it was reassuring nevertheless to hear it from somebody who had made it.

  Once I had gone through the Conan credits, I moved on to The Daily Show. One of my first calls was to Madeleine Smithberg, the co-creator of the program. She picked up just as she was sitting down to dinner. I apologized and told her that I’d let her go but she told me to call back in a half hour. I did, and she was just as gracious with her time and advice as Blitz had been. Once again, the biggest takeaway was the importance of persistence.

  Years later, I was at a college house party with my friend Nikki Glaser. She went on to find great success as a stand-up comedian, hosting shows on MTV and Comedy Central. Back then, she was just starting her stand-up career and looking for advice on getting her name out there. I thought back to how nice the recipients of my cold calls had been.

  “I’m telling you, you can just call them,” I said. “None of them were offended that I called, and they had no problem giving me advice. Just look up info on comedians and writers that you’d want to get advice from, and cold-call them.”

  “That’s insane,” she said. “That sounds like something a crazy person would do.”

  She never took me up on my cold call recommendation, but things wound up working out for her without calling strangers at their homes like a goddamn weirdo.

  Cold calls had worked for advice, so I wanted to expand on that idea. If people in the entertainment field were willing to talk to some random kid on the phone, maybe I should ask celebrities to make cameo appearances in my films.

  I knew that nabbing a celebrity for a role would be a long shot. I was 18 and had zero industry experience, so any actual celebrity was unlikely to even acknowledge my request. But when it came down to it, all I needed was one “yes.” I could send out 100 requests to various celebrities who were coming through the area, and it was worth it if a single one of them agreed to be in one of my projects.

  Early in my freshman year of college, I was still excited about video production and was moving forward with it as a possible backup career path. As such, I worked on several scripts simultaneously. They were all dumb comedies with a variety of roles that could easily be filled and tweaked if I landed a cameo.

  Each week, I’d keep an eye on websites that tracked concerts coming through Lawrence and the Midwest. If there was a musician or comedian that I liked, I’d do my best to find some channel to get a hold of them. Most of their websites had contact sections for press requests. I’d typically send an e-mail to that, hoping that the public relations person in charge of the account would pass me onto a tour manager or someone higher up.

  Nine times out of ten, I wouldn’t hear anything back. That tenth time was usually a flat-out denial. I kept going, though. The first celebrity who seemed like an actual possibility was Ted Nugent. This was before I had a full grasp on how insane he was. I was just excited at the prospect of getting the “Cat Scratch Fever” dude to do a bit.

  Nugent’s press people requested a script. I sent one that I never wound up making, and it revolved around a young Morgan Freeman trying to join The Allman Brothers Band. I was still at the age where I thought “random equals funny,” so this seemed like a good idea at the time.

  In the script, Morgan Freeman fails at securing a gig in the band despite following advice from the ghost of Duane Allman. His girlfriend breaks up with him, leaving him down in the dumps. A friend of Freeman’s says he’s got a connection with someone who can help him with his lady troubles, and sets him up with some life coaching from Ted Nugent.

  I sent the script to Nugent’s management and they moved it along to Ted. Word came back from his tour manager that Ted liked the script and wanted to chat with me about details before locking anything in. Before a concert that he co-headlined with ZZ Top, he was scheduled for a book signing at a Borders in
Olathe. We were to meet there, go over the scene, and then shoot it after his set at Sandstone Amphitheater later that night.

  When the book signing concluded, I approached the tour manager and introduced myself. He introduced me to Nugent, and we went to the employees’ back room to discuss the script. It seemed like Nugent had skimmed it at best, but he was willing to do it as long as it wasn’t a big time commitment. I explained that it would take 15 minutes at the most, and that the script was intentionally stupid and weird.

  “I can do weird,” he said. “Buzz my tour manager once I’m offstage, and we’ll meet up and get it done.”

  This brief chat seemed to confirm that the cameo would be happening. I was thrilled. A genuine celebrity had agreed to be in one of my films. This would surely help in terms of getting exposure. An 18-year-old making a short film wasn’t a news story, but maybe an 18-year-old making a short film with Ted Nugent was.

  We hadn’t shot anything else for the film yet, as its entire production hinged on the involvement of Nugent. If we couldn’t get this scene in the can, I’d have to overhaul or trash the script and go in another direction.

  I tapped my friend Brandon to play Morgan Freeman, so he’d be coming to the concert with my father and me. We arrived at Sandstone just as Kenny Wayne Shepherd was finishing his opening act. Nugent’s tour manager had given me backstage media passes, but I wanted to get some shots of Brandon’s character in the concert crowd before the backstage scene.

  I managed to get my small MiniDV camera into the venue without security finding it. If anyone gave me trouble, I was confident that the media pass in my pocket would remedy the situation. Not long after we posted up on the lawn, Nugent took the stage. The Morgan Freeman character had only been told to meet up with “Ted,” so we shot a scene in which Brandon walked into the concert crowd and realized that it was Ted Nugent that he’d be meeting with.