Anchorboy

by Jay Onrait

  I felt that I had to get the word out somehow, so my friends in the TSN publicity department contacted someone in the MuchMore publicity department. I was paired with a lovely young publicist named Alison Salinas, and we hatched a plan for a quick media blitz with no promotional budget whatsoever. I reached into my own pocket and spent $72 on a monogrammed T-shirt from a store in Kensington Market. I had the guy behind the counter use the old-school 1970s felt letters on a purple T. The front said “JAY ONRAIT WORLDWIDE MEDIA TOUR 2011” and the back said “THE WEEK THAT WAS SUNDAYS ON MUCHMORE.” It probably would have been more effective for me to walk around Toronto just wearing that T-shirt like a sandwich board. I intended to wear the shirt during all my interviews. If CTV wasn’t going to give me any promos, then I might as well wear one.

  Alison booked a few interviews for our worldwide media blitz. The blitz would not in fact be worldwide but consist only of CTV-owned and -produced shows: CP24 Breakfast, Canada AM, and etalk. Yes, the irony was not lost on me that I was about to promote my show on other TV shows whose clips I wasn’t originally allowed to use on my own show. We would also make a quick stop on Off the Record with Michael Landsberg on TSN before I went across town to try to beg the TV executive to not kill half our show content. This was all going to happen within the space of a few hours.

  Meanwhile, back at The Week That Was offices, Brendan was busy trying to write sketches, and the other show producers were searching frantically for usable clips that could fill time if we weren’t successful in convincing the executive to change their mind about the clips. We were scheduled to shoot at noon the next day.

  I should have walked away right then and there. Before I even went on the Worldwide Media Tour I should have politely explained to the entire staff why this concept could no longer work. The show I had conceived and pitched was not the show we would be putting on MuchMore that Sunday. But a combination of (a) my stupidity and (b) my blind confidence that I could convince anyone to give me what I wanted kept me going that day and kept me encouraged as I prepared for the meeting.

  My interviews on CP24 Breakfast, Canada AM, and etalk went extremely well. The hosts could not have been more kind about the project and seemed genuinely enthusiastic. I performed some bizarre pratfall on CP24 Breakfast and pretended to hit on etalk correspondent Danielle McGimsie for laughs. Off the Record was an even better experience. Michael Landsberg is, in many ways, my hero.

  I had met Michael years before during my very first year at Ryerson, two years before I started at the network. I was given an assignment to contact someone in the Canadian broadcast industry whom I admired and wanted to interview. Michael came to mind right away because he was hosting the show I wanted to host someday: Sportsdesk. I called the TSN offices, then located on Sheppard Avenue in North York, and was amazingly put through to Michael’s voice mail. Keep in mind this was pre-Internet, so a cold call was the only way to go into this situation, just like What Color Is Your Parachute? had taught me all those years before.

  Unbelievably, Michael called me in my dorm room at Pitman Hall in Ryerson the following day. He was very Michael Landsberg, which I mean in the best way possible. I probably get asked about Michael more than any other TSN personality, and the questions about him are usually posted in a negative way: “Is he a jerk in real life?” “Is he as arrogant as he seems?” The answer is always no. In fact, Michael has always been one of the most kind, generous, and supportive people at TSN. On the phone that day back at Ryerson, he invited me to shadow him at TSN for an evening while he worked, and he said we could complete the interview while he was preparing for the show. I couldn’t believe it. The experience was truly amazing. Michael had also attended Ryerson, and we talked about how he managed to land at TSN. He let me watch the show live from the studio and offered to help if I ever wanted to apply for work there someday. I never forgot how kind he was.

  That afternoon when I went to be interviewed by Michael for my fledgling little TV project, I was once again reminded that not everyone working in the Canadian TV industry was trying to keep me from reaching my goals. Before we sat down for the interview, I explained all the issues I had been having trying to clear clips for the show and the roadblocks in front of me. He immediately gave me permission to use any clip from Off the Record that I wanted. He flat-out encouraged me to make fun of him and his show for the sake of my own show, though he pointed out that he would be sure to give it back just as good. I honestly wanted to hug him. I thought I might break down and cry. For a moment, I thought everything was going to be all right.

  Then I walked into the meeting with the executive.

  I knew the entire fate and future of our show was probably riding on this meeting. I had yet to meet the executive with whom we would be meeting that day. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m withholding the name of that executive and will continue to do so as I describe this meeting that fateful afternoon. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is that I am not ready to take on another profession. As Mike Bullard learned the hard way, this is a small industry. I’m not interested in burning bridges. I don’t want to get overly dramatic, but for the purposes of this account I will refer to this executive as “the Dreamcrusher.”

  I met my executive producer, Ben, in the lobby of the Dreamcrusher’s building, and we went over our plan. Ben was not confident that we could get access to all the clips we had intended to use, so our strategy was to try to get the least offensive ones. I also mentioned that I would offer to personally travel up to the Dreamcrusher’s offices at least once a week to go over clips that we intended to use, even offering scripts and jokes for approval. It was a deal I didn’t think any reasonable human being could turn down.

  But I wasn’t dealing with a reasonable human being. I was dealing with the Dreamcrusher, and I knew we were in trouble as soon as we walked into the office.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Dreamcrusher

  THE DREAMCRUSHER WAS ON THE phone, back turned to us, and remained that way for about a minute while Ben and I made funny faces at each other. Usually a person hosting a meeting in this situation might turn around, acknowledge the people in the office, and raise one finger to say, “Just a second, gentlemen, I’ll be right with you.” I began to wonder if maybe the Dreamcrusher had forgotten about us, even though they had summoned us to the office. Was this some sort of intimidation tactic? I wondered. I really should be helping to write jokes right now.

  Suddenly, the Dreamcrusher spun around and faced us.

  “Where are my flowers, guys?”

  “Uh …” I stumbled before quickly realizing what the Dreamcrusher was referring to.

  I had brought a bouquet of flowers with me to the set of Canada AM that morning for my interview with Bev Thomson as a peace offering for all the funny clips I had hoped to use of her, though really it was just a simple little sight gag. The Dreamcrusher had seen the interview. “I can run out and grab some flowers right now!” I offered cheerfully. But the Dreamcrusher was no longer interested in talking flowers and quickly moved on to the next subject. The Dreamcrusher was about to crush dreams.

  “Guys, here’s the deal …” began the Dreamcrusher.

  I leaned forward in anticipation.

  “You will get nothing.”

  “I’m sorry?” I replied.

  “You will get nothing. No clips from any of our shows. Nothing. All of those clips are off limits.”

  “Okay, hold on …” Ben started, but the Dreamcrusher was not finished.

  “Sorry, guys, I’m not budging on this. I can’t have the reputations of my talent compromised in any way.”

  It took every ounce of my strength to remain calm. “You do realize that your talent sent us many of the clips we intended to use? We have some great stuff that we think will make your talent even more popular.” Even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew the Dreamcrusher wasn’t buying the argument.

  “Forget it,” replied the Dreamcrusher. “You guys w
ant to make fun of us, and it’s not going to happen. I don’t care who sent you the clips. What happens if you play one of our clips featuring one of our hosts and it goes viral?”

  “They … become even more popular?” I replied.

  Surely, several funny clips from the Dreamcrusher’s shows had already appeared on YouTube by this point. There was no stopping funny clips from going viral. Did this person realize that a funny clip from a show “going viral” was a good thing? Apparently not. This person was a television person and was above the concept of clips “going viral.” This person had absolutely no intention of being a team player. I wanted to throw something at this person so badly.

  “No, I’m not going to let you guys embarrass us,” the Dreamcrusher replied.

  “What if,” I reasoned, “I drove up here to your offices once, twice a week and we went over the clips we intend to use together, and you can voice your concerns or ask us to make any changes you like? I’ll even bring you scripts and jokes so you can make sure nothing will embarrass any of your talent. We can even talk to the talent!”

  “I don’t have time for that,” the Dreamcrusher stated matter-of-factly. The Dreamcrusher was ready to wrap this meeting up. I looked over at Ben. He continued to try to reason with the Dreamcrusher, but it was clear the Dreamcrusher had never intended to be reasoned with. The trip had been a complete waste of time. Ben and I stood up and walked out without saying goodbye; it was as polite as I could have possibly been in the situation.

  As I drove back downtown to my condo after saying a dejected goodbye to Ben, I started to have revenge fantasies.

  The first thing I fantasized about was taking a shit on the Dreamcrusher’s car while it sat in the parking lot of the studio building. How would I get away with it without people seeing me? I wondered. Could I possibly shit in a bag and then dump the shit on the Dreamcrusher’s car? Maybe I could just wipe my own shit on the nameplate that hung over the Dreamcrusher’s parking stall. I’m not sure why I was so obsessed with defacing the Dreamcrusher’s property with shit—I was never very imaginative when it came to pranks.

  I also considered actually spray-painting the outside of the Dreamcrusher’s office with some sort of creative tag like “asshole,” but then I realized all I’d be doing in that situation was making a bunch of work for the custodial staff at the network. I soon came to the conclusion that I was being childish and I needed to “park it.” I was so frustrated with the Dreamcrusher for refusing to even be reasonable in this situation that I was thinking irrationally. Luckily, my thoughts did not turn into actions, and thankfully I haven’t seen the Dreamcrusher since. I highly doubt the Dreamcrusher gave the meeting a second thought.

  We were flat-out screwed. Losing half our content one day before taping the show forced us to use clips from shows that had aired, in some cases, several months ago. Many of those clips were from American shows that had surprisingly given us access. The clips were okay, and the fact that their producers had given us access was truly appreciated, but the truth is I was gutted. I had not intended to use clips from American shows at all; what would have been the point of that? I was trying to do everything I possibly could to separate ourselves from The Soup; instead, we were looking more and more like The Soup every day. The show was supposed to be a celebration of all things Canadian; instead, I was being undone by Canadians who were too sensitive to be made fun of. In other words, I was being undone by the one thing that makes Canadians so Canadian. Damn Canadians!

  We had intended to try to write some sketches involving people around the office: “show behind the show” sketches pioneered by my hero on Late Night with David Letterman. We thought we might try to introduce such sketches after the two-week break for the Kraft Celebration Tour as a new and funny element that would take the show to the next level. Instead, because of the dearth of actual clips we now had to work with, we needed actual content that we could shoot and edit in less than twenty-four hours.

  There just happened to be a massive heat wave that week in Toronto, and Bell Media had sent out a company memo to all employees encouraging everyone to go ahead and wear “summer-appropriate attire” because of the rising temperatures. Quickly seizing the opportunity in front of us, we wrote a sketch that would fill time and hopefully shock people a little bit. The premise of the sketch was that after reading the company-wide memo, I arrived at work in what I considered to be “summer-appropriate attire”: completely naked except for one of those floppy women’s summer hats you’d imagine ladies wearing in a stage production of The Great Gatsby.

  To achieve this effect, I walked a few blocks down Yonge Street to the massive three-storey sex shop, Seductions, known in Toronto as the Walmart of sex shops. There I bought a flesh-coloured thong (Caucasian flesh of course), though they only had one in a medium. My penis and balls were squished into that thing like a jack-in-the-box, and it was not flattering. I don’t consider myself well-endowed by any stretch, but the combination of full-blast air conditioning combined with the tiny thong made my penis and testicles look like bait in a tackle box. There were several women on staff, and they all must have been thinking the same thing: “So, it’s true: Tall, skinny guys have small wieners.”

  I didn’t care. In fact, it was fairly liberating to put my modest junk on display in the name of a few much-needed laughs both behind the scenes and on-camera. I wasn’t completely thrilled with the way the sketch turned out, not because of my compacted genitalia, but because we simply didn’t have the time to write or edit something that would have been more worthy of a first show. We were left with no choice.

  The next day we taped our first episode. Spirits were high, and the entire crew joined us as our “audience,” much the same way The Soup used their crew as a makeshift audience to provide laughter. We had all been through a pretty damn rough week, and I think everyone just wanted to be done with episode 1 and hope things got better for episode 2. I tried to abide by my mom’s favourite piece of advice: “Do the best you can with what you have.”

  Viewership was low, like 8,000 people for the first viewing, 24,000 for the second. To put this in perspective: If an hour of SportsCentre got 8,000 viewers, my bosses at TSN would probably commit suicide. Expectations were lower at a station like MuchMore, which didn’t have the viewership of TSN, but the writing was on the wall. We weren’t getting promoted, and therefore we weren’t getting viewers, and we weren’t even doing the show we wanted to do in the first place. We were screwed.

  After the first show aired most of the feedback we received was negative, but much of it surprisingly did not centre on the content of the show; instead people were annoyed by the small studio audience. It just confused the hell out of them. We kept getting requests to either make the audience bigger or forget the audience altogether. I had underestimated how few people in Canada had actually seen The Soup.

  We decided to play off those complaints, and I used my relationship with the very kind executive producer of Marilyn, Nan Row, to set up a sketch with me “stealing” some of the audience waiting to walk into the studio to see a taping of Marilyn and taking them over to my show. It worked really well, and I was so grateful to Nan and Marilyn for trying to help us out.

  Another time-filler sketch involved me auditioning to be the in-game arena host for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Then Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke even sent me an e-mail wishing me luck on the sketch and apologizing for not being around to make a cameo. What a guy! My spirits were lifted somewhat, but we were getting no closer to having more clips to use on the show. Comedian Brent Butt from Corner Gas graciously agreed to record a fake voice mail for the show to use in another sketch, working for free while he was busy on other projects. Other than the sketches, our shows consisted of the same clips over and over from the same shows that would allow us to lampoon them: etalk, Marilyn, 1 Girl 5 Gays. In other words, only CTV shows. My vow to not let The Week That Was turn into a half-hour commercial for CTV was failing miserably. I was also exhausted. The
whole point of doing a clip show was to allow me to have the time to work at SportsCentre and not be wasted at the end of the week. Now I was getting up early and working on sketches after hosting on TSN the night before. I knew I couldn’t keep up this pace unless we were able to secure some more clips, but all we kept hearing was “We’ll pass it on to our lawyers and see what they say.”

  I had really, really blown it. I should have spent about a year clearing clips behind the scenes with other broadcasters. Now we were stuck doing what was essentially a sketch show without a sketch troupe and just one writer. Something had to give. There would be times when Brendan and I would come up with a concept based on a clip from a Canadian show. We’d get halfway through writing it, and then we’d remember to look over to Marla to see if we had permission to use the clip. She would never answer verbally, just slowly shake her head from side to side to indicate there was no chance to clear the clip in time for our show taping that Friday. I came to despise that head shake almost as much as I despised the Dreamcrusher. The problem was that I didn’t have to deal with the Dreamcrusher anymore, but the head shake I had to deal with several times a day, every day. Roadblocks were all we saw in front of us. We weren’t trying to take anyone down, we weren’t trying to ruin anyone’s career, we just wanted to make a funny little Canadian show, and it just wasn’t happening.