>> Northwest Now is supported, in part, by viewers like you.

Thank you.

>> Mr. Keister: Welcome to the Ballard Driving Academy.

>> Thank you.

>> Mr. Keister: All right.

Now, before we start, please adjust your seatbelt.

Okay.

Good.

>> Tom Layson: Remember the Ballard Driving Academy?

How about Seattle's quirky superhero, Speed Walker?

It was all part of our favorite locally produced sketch comedy show, Almost Live.

And for most of its run, it was hosted by local funny man, John Keister.

Tonight, we sit down to kvetch about the good old days because there just hasn't been enough of that here on Northwest Now over the years.

John Keister is next on Northwest Now.

[ Music ] Almost Live ran on King TV from 1984 to 1999, 10 years of it hosted by John Keister.

It was such a hot show, NBC allowed King to run it before Saturday Night Live in the Seattle market, and why wouldn't they?

Almost Live held a mirror glazed with satire up to Seattleites who are well known for taking themselves way too seriously, even while their results frequently fall below the mark.

So how about a gameshow called Pike or Pine, where even the locals can't get it right?

>> I can see it.

It's either pike or pine.

>> Mr. Keister: Right, that's the point of the game.

Is it pike or pine?

>> Oh God.

Come on.

>> Mr. Keister: Oh, I'm sorry.

Time is up.

>> Tom Layson: Or another favorite, the heartwarming story of a lonely boy who found a pet only a Seattleite could love.

>> There seemed no hope, and then a miracle.

[ Music ] It was the miracle of Sluggy.

>> Tom Layson: How about a fake Boeing news conference that, let's face it, still resonates today?

>> There have been some disturbing reports about quality control on the assembly line.

For example, the wrong wings being put on a 737.

>> Mr. Keister: Okay.

Now, a lot has been made in the media about the wrong wings being put on a plane, you know, like they never make mistakes, you know?

>> Tom Layson: Here's a fall fashion show that pulled no punches on poor old Tacoma.

>> Mr. Keister: Dwane from Tacoma is sporting a lightweight camouflage gear for the man on the run.

It's stylish enough for the nighttime scene, yet sturdy enough to withstand a continuous assault of airborne pollutants and the occasional stray bullet.

>> Tom Layson: Almost Live was good, clean fun, but also a little biting at times, and today, one has to wonder if a show that pretty much goofed on everything could even survive in an era of cancel culture and easily hurt feelings.

John, thanks so much for coming to Northwest Now.

You've been on my list for a long time to get here on the program.

>> Mr. Keister: Hey, it's a pleasure.

I always like getting to this area of town, this part of town.

I always like being here.

>> Tom Layson: Good to have you.

>> Mr. Keister: I asked somebody outside, "I'm looking for the broadcast place."

And they are like, "It's right there."

Then they went, "Do you have $5 for a bus pass?"

And I was like, "I don't have any cash."

So anyway, you know, it's like the neighborhood that King was in.

>> Tom Layson: Right, it's an authentic experience that you get here.

>> Mr. Keister: Yeah.

>> Tom Layson: Was Almost Live, do you think, a unique product of its time?

And I ask that, could it even work today with cancel culture in this era of easily hurt feelings?

Was it a product of its time, or could it work now?

>> Mr. Keister: Well, it definitely was a product of its time.

The show, you know, yeah, it could work now.

If people wanted to do a sketch comedy about Seattle, it would be a very different show than Almost Live.

But the only reason that something like that is not being done is that there's no will.

No one in the local stations is taking the initiative to do it.

It just takes initiative to do it.

There's tons of talent out there that would love to do it.

>> Tom Layson: Right.

And now production's relatively cheap, a lot of the tools, you know.

Your sketches were basically one-camera shoots out in the field.

That doesn't take an army to do.

>> Mr. Keister: It does not, and sometimes when I look at YouTube, the comments are like, "Hey, you know, this is pretty good for YouTube comedy.

This could even be on, like, a show."

You know, like that.

And, you know, and then hopefully there's a comment further that, it was, you know?

>> Tom Layson: So let me ask you this, then.

Ultimately, people loved the show.

Fans would watch the show.

>> Mr. Keister: It was the number one show in Seattle.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

Why can't we have the show?

>> Mr. Keister: Well, that's a really good question, and the answer, I think, you know, I mean, this is the answer that people will give you.

The answer that people will give you is that, back in the day, you could only own a few stations.

You know, the law was that you could only own four television stations around the country, you know, and you couldn't have a newspaper and a television station in the same town.

And so those laws were put in place so that, like, one person couldn't monopolize all the, you know, ideas and whatnot.

Well, those laws have been thrown out, and so it's like there's been this great homogenization, and only two or three giant corporations own all the local stations.

And, you know, they'll look and say, "Well, what do we, you know, what is this show that we're doing over here?"

And, you know, whatever.

>> Tom Layson: What are the margins on that?

>> Mr. Keister: You know, what is -- yeah, and you know, it's like, "Get rid of that," you know.

I mean, that's what they'll tell you, but that's a cover for, you know, a cover for, you know, the fact that just local executives just don't have the -- it's always been a very timid business, and it's just -- >> Tom Layson: And maybe have never created anything.

>> Mr. Keister: Huh?

>> Tom Layson: And maybe have never created anything.

They're running the joint, but maybe they've never created anything.

>> Mr. Keister: Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

They just don't know how to do it, you know.

>> Tom Layson: This show was huge.

It aired before SNL.

It won a boatload of Emmy Awards.

>> Mr. Keister: It was the number one show in Seattle, yes.

When it was canceled, it was winning its time slot.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

What was it like to be a rockstar in this town back then?

>> Mr. Keister: Well, the show, it started off kind of slow, and then, when we moved it to right before Saturday Night Live, it wasn't working at 6:00 for a variety of reasons.

And, you know, part of that was that, when Ross Schaffer, the original host who had it for just about five years, was a very good interviewer and, you know, it was a pretty standard -- it was like a copy of The Letterman Show.

We had a band, and we did interviews and things like that.

And, you know, after a few years -- I'm sure you understand this -- you run through the celebrities that you have in -- you run through the sports figures and the people.

It's very difficult to get guests.

And, you know, the kind of stuff I did was not related to the interview.

I figured, "Oh, I can do interviews really well," because I used to interview rock bands for the -- I worked for a magazine called The Rocket, and we did a lot of the -- so I worked for years interviewing rock 'n' roll stars and whatnot, but it's different doing it for print than it is for broadcast.

And I wasn't very good at doing it for broadcast, but I was very good at running a creative team and keeping things together so that we could do interesting comedy, and that seemed to be the real value of the show.

Then it gets moved to -- we push Saturday Night Live back for a half an hour.

This was at a time when SNL was not doing very well.

You know, SNL always has its sort of, you know, ebbs and flows and stuff, and it was not doing really well at that time.

And at first, people said, "We got to wait for SNL, you know?

This is crazy."

But then that stopped, and then after a while, people were like, "Well, this is kind of cool that we have this local show, and then we can watch SNL up to Weekend Update, and we've got this solid hour of real hot, you know, sketch comedy."

And then the people at NBC noticed that SNL was doing better in Seattle than in any other of their markets, and they thought, you know, "This is working for both of us.

Let's not mess this up," you know.

>> Tom Layson: What was it like going around town when you were a big deal?

>> Mr. Keister: Well, I would say one of the things that happens is, you don't realize you get trained by the people in town to -- you become a different person, but it happens in this teeny, incremental, little way where you walk into a place and say, "I'm looking for a table.

I'm John Keister."

And they go, "No," you know, "we know who you are."

You know, like, and so they would kind of be angry that you would introduce yourself.

"I know who you are."

So then you'd stop saying who you were.

You'd go in and say, "I need a table."

And they would be like, "Right this way."

And then you realize that a lot of what happens in day-to-day life that puts people at ease is if they know who you are.

Like, if you go to a Rent It shop or whatever, things got done very quickly because people would go -- I'd say, "Hey, can we borrow this for our shoot, and then we'll bring it back?"

And they'd look at you and go, "Oh, yeah.

I know you, so I know where to find you.

So yes, you can borrow this car," this whatever, this -- and so we would just go through town just to get the show done, and you wouldn't notice it, that you're just going through and you're just saying, "Hey," you know.

>> Tom Layson: Meanwhile, everybody else is like, "That's Almost Live.

That's Keister."

>> Mr. Keister: Okay.

So eventually, what happens is that a tape deck's stolen out of my car, and I tell my wife, "Well, I'm going to go -- I got to go drop off -- on the way to work, I'm going to go up to Magnolia Hi-Fi," which back in the day, it's where you get your car stereos.

"And I'm going to drop it off there."

And she said, like, "Well, how are you going to get to work?"

And I said, "Well, there'll be somebody there to take me."

And she's like, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I'll just go outside and someone will take me."

And she's like, "What are you" -- And so it was just this thing where, you know, I went up to, you know, I went up to get my tape deck, you know, replaced, and I went outside, and I just stood on the street, and a car pulled over and went, "John, what are you doing here?"

And I said, you know -- >> Tom Layson: "I need a ride, man."

>> Mr. Keister: Yeah.

"Are you going into the town?

Because I need a ride."

And they're like, "Yeah.

Come on.

Get in."

And that's the way it was.

It was just -- >> Tom Layson: Talked about the highs.

The show was on for a long time.

Fifteen years is a long time.

>> Mr. Keister: It was 15 years.

Yeah, I was the host for 10 years.

>> Tom Layson: For 10.

>> Mr. Keister: Ross was the host for five.

>> Tom Layson: Describe cancellation.

That must have been -- as high as the highs were, that must have been a shock.

Did you cats see it coming?

>> Mr. Keister: Well, yeah.

We did, you know.

I mean, to be quite honest, my feeling about it was that, you know, when I started on the show, I was 29 years old, you know, I was just turning 30.

And then, you know, I mean, we're in our 40s.

And, you know, there are certain parts you can't play anymore, and we were bringing younger people on in the show.

You know, we were trying to switch people in and out.

But I was arguing with the people at King because I understood that, like, there needed to be a generational change.

I got that, you know.

And we had people like Joel McHale was on the staff, you know, and some other people, and I thought, you know, "These people are doing really well."

I mean, obviously, look what happened with Joel and with, you know, Bill Nye and some other people.

I mean, Nye, not so much the age thing.

He was aging, too.

But we did have some younger people, and I was arguing that, look, this show has a lot of value.

I understand that we are getting older.

And, you know, I was thinking, like, "Well, I can't continue to host this forever, you know.

This is obviously going to go someplace."

But they just would not listen to any idea that we could roll it over into some new thing.

>> Tom Layson: And here's what's weird.

This is a little lame, in my opinion.

They cancel it, but it's in reruns forever.

I mean, have some pride, man.

>> Mr. Keister: Okay.

The weirdest thing was, I mean -- okay, I was like, when we were doing our last show, the last produced show, I said, "So this is going to be -- the last episode will be on this day?"

And they were like, "Well" -- And we were sort of talking past each other, and I was like, "Wait.

What are you" -- And they said, "Well, you know, we're not going to produce new shows, but we're going to keep the show on the air."

And I was like, "You're going to keep the show?

Like, we're leaving, you know, fire us, but you're going to keep it on the air."

And so then I went to Cairo, and I was going to be up against myself, you know, which they then moved it, the time slot, they moved it a little later, but yeah, then it ran for 20 years after.

>> Tom Layson: You really caught magic in a bottle.

Why didn't the reboots work?

>> Mr. Keister: Like the 206, things like that?

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

>> Mr. Keister: Well, it is -- >> Tom Layson: Because people love it.

>> Mr. Keister: I mean, I think that that show -- I mean, that show drew enough of an audience that it sort of -- it worked as well as it was going to work, you know, in terms of -- I mean, I think they could have gone on with that show.

I just felt like it wasn't exactly what I wanted to, you know, for me, it wasn't exactly the thing that I wanted to do.

It felt like we hadn't really moved on much, you know, in that show, and we needed to bring some -- again, I felt like we needed to develop a lot more younger talent, and that really wasn't -- it wasn't happening for me, at least.

And, you know, I just -- it was like it was nobody's main job.

You know how that is -- >> Tom Layson: Somebody has to own it.

>> Mr. Keister: Yeah.

When it's nobody's real job, it becomes real difficult because everybody's like, "Oh, I'm going to be doing this at that time."

So, you know, to get together and to get it done was very difficult, you know.

And it was sort of like, you know -- >> Tom Layson: One of the things that made Almost Live great was the hyper-local, neighborhood-centric humor.

You had to be from here to know why Ballard Driving School is funny or why the Lynnwood Beauty Academy is funny.

If you move here from California -- >> Mr. Keister: Well, I'll tell you something -- >> Tom Layson: Not so much.

>> Mr. Keister: Okay.

Because when we went -- we were on Comedy Central for a couple years, you know, and we did have Ballard-like material and stuff like that one it.

And there was this question, is this going to work nationally?

And I always felt like, you know, the Prairie Home Companion works nationally, and a lot of these other shows.

I said, "People are going to get this."

And in those days, Comedy Central didn't have a West Coast office.

And for the meetings, I had to go to Manhattan, you know.

And there were times I would be walking down, you know, Fifth Avenue or whatever, just down, you know, in Manhattan, and people, you know, they'd go like, "Hey, you're the guy, you know.

You're on that show."

Like, "What is Ballard?

You know, we're watching this show about Ballard.

Everybody watches the show.

It's really funny, but we don't know what -- like, Ballard is what?"

But they were, you know, they got it, you know, and I think -- >> Tom Layson: They got enough of it to make it work, yeah.

>> Mr. Keister: Yeah.

I honestly feel like -- because we got a lot of fan mail, you know, from people all over the place.

And the other thing is that we got a lot of letters from -- that ran on the Armed Forces Network, Comedy Central did, and we got lots of mail from military people from this area, so... >> Tom Layson: What are we missing these days with no -- and I don't mean news.

But from cooking shows to kids shows to Almost Live and sketch comedy, what are we missing by not having any local TV production happening?

>> Mr. Keister: You know, there are -- there's just so much stuff you could do locally, but people just -- the thing that gets me is when you watch local news and the way they treat every single story, no matter what it's about, with just deadly, serious -- "We found the cheeseballs over here."

You know, it's just sort of like, you know, "Yes, I'm standing here, even though this happened eight hours ago, but I'm here live with the satellite truck," you know -- >> Tom Layson: And that's the news.

It is what it is, but I mean, there's no other production.

There's one Wunda Wunda.

There's no J.P. Patches.

There's no Almost Live.

There's no -- you name a cooking show.

All the great shows from that era were local shows, from Captain Kangaroo and on.

They were local programs.

>> Mr. Keister: No, it's just -- Yeah.

It's just -- look, I mean, that's all migrated to, like, YouTube and stuff like that.

And it's just -- it does cost a certain amount of money to do things like that.

It's not very much, and the corporations that own the stations could do it easily.

I's just, they're very timid.

Like I said, showbusiness in general, and local television in particular, are very timid, timid people.

>> Tom Layson: People are going to want an answer to this question: what have you been doing?

A lot of them, obviously, remember you from Almost Live, and then wondering, what the heck has John Keister been up to?

>> Mr. Keister: Yeah.

What have I been up to?

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

What have you been up to?

>> Mr. Keister: Well, you know, after the show was over, I did do a lot of -- I'm retired now.

I don't do a lot of stuff now.

I do a little bit of stuff.

>> Tom Layson: You still do standup?

>> Mr. Keister: A little bit of writing.

No.

I stopped doing - I did a show a couple years ago and I said, "That's going to be my last standup show in Seattle."

I'd be open maybe to doing one in Tacoma.

>> Tom Layson: There you go.

>> Mr. Keister: So, you know, hey, call your -- >> Tom Layson: He's here all week.

>> Mr. Keister: Yeah.

Yeah.

But, no, I actually worked on a lot of television shows just behind the scenes.

I worked on a different version of the Bill Nye, the Science Guy show, and I worked on a show called Biz Kids.

>> Tom Layson: Yes.

>> Mr. Keister: Which ran on -- that was by the producers of Bill Nye, but it was a different show about teaching -- you know, how like, with the Nye show, it was about teaching kids how to be, you know, science literate, and this was about teaching kids about money, about financial literacy.

Yeah.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

Yeah.

>> Mr. Keister: And every time I would tell people that's what I'm doing, they'd go, "That's a really good idea," you know.

But I would never run into people going like, "Hey, I love you on" -- >> Tom Layson: Do you miss it?

Do you miss it, or have you found other things to replace that, or was that a time in your life you look back and go, "Man, that was the day"?

>> Mr. Keister: Well, it's always fun to, yeah, to think back on those days, but, you know, you get older, and I'm just, hey, I'm just happy to be able to get out of bed.

You know, it's like -- no, I have children, and, you know, in this pandemic, I've just been sitting in a chair just kind of like, you know -- >> Tom Layson: Contemplating.

>> Mr. Keister: Yes, contemplating, looking at my iPad, just sort of -- >> Tom Layson: Stay in touch with any of the old gang in the cast?

>> Mr. Keister: Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, with pretty much most of them, yeah.

When I'm in LA, I always visit Nye and Brooks McBeth and Lauren Weedman, who were regulars on the show.

And I was talking to Bob Nelson just yesterday, actually.

I see Bob a lot.

He's up at Whidbey Island, and we both have parents in facilities that we exchange stories about how we're dealing with our parents and, you know.

So, yeah, I have a lot to deal with.

Bob and I both are very busy dealing with our parents who are both in their 90s, by the way.

>> Tom Layson: I want to ask you this, too, about Seattle.

I spend a lot of time on this show, probably more than I should, reminiscing and kvetching about the old days, but I'm going to ask you the question that they asked in this Cuomo documentary.

Is Seattle dying?

>> Mr. Keister: Well, you know, I mean, here's the thing, is that -- let me just say a few things that you can edit, you know, this thing.

>> Tom Layson: Look out.

>> Mr. Keister: Okay.

All right.

Well, when we did the show, you know, Seattle was just crawling out of, like, the Boeing bust, and there were these, you know, if you were in Seattle, you'd lived there all your life, you know, there was -- very few people were moving into Seattle when we started the show.

Well, that started, and then there was, like, this torrent of people who arrived.

And where Seattle used to have these really well-defined neighborhoods, you know, that's gone now.

Everybody is just sort of, you know, all work and the tech industries and things like that.

That's sort of permeated Seattle.

And the thing that's very different about Seattle today, as in the time we were doing the show is that Seattle is full of people whose allegiance are to their profession, okay?

They are, number one, they are a, you know, a code writer or a, you know, whatever for Amazon.

Or, you know, they are their occupation, whereas before, there was a little more connection to just this area.

>> Tom Layson: They were Roosevelt grads or -- >> Mr. Keister: Yes.

Yes.

Uh-huh.

There was a little bit more -- there was a connection to the place, and there was a history.

It was like -- my mother went to the same high school that I did, you know, and it was -- Seattle, in many ways, was kind of like a small town in those days.

>> Tom Layson: Oh, yeah.

>> Mr. Keister: And now it's, you know, that Seattle, yeah, is pretty much gone, and there's this new Seattle that, you know, I wouldn't say that, you know -- I'd say, yeah, the old Seattle might be dead.

New Seattle certainly is not.

New Seattle is this big, play-around-the-world stage.

It's just that -- like many other cities around the country, it's just become one -- it's difficult when a philosophy becomes a destination.

Like when -- and this has happened in many different cities, you know, like San Francisco in the '60s and, you know, the Charlie Sheen, you know, '80s with the brokers and everything like that, and the stuff in the '70s at Venice Beach and places like Austin and Santa Fe and stuff.

Well, Seattle, you know, had its moment, and it's sort of having its moment still, you know.

>> Tom Layson: Yeah.

Yeah.

>> Mr. Keister: You notice there's a lot of - the jokes whenever it's like some drifty, weird person on a movie or a television show, they're like, "Oh, he's from Seattle."

>> Tom Layson: Exactly.

Last question for you.

I know you've been sitting at home out-waiting COVID in your chair.

You say you're retired.

Do you have anything on your radar, though?

Anything next for you?

What can folks like forward to?

>> Mr. Keister: No.

No.

>> Tom Layson: No.

No, which -- that's a valid answer.

>> Mr. Keister: No.

I mean, I'm working on, you know, some writing projects, but just mainly for my own amusement.

>> Tom Layson: I think there's a book in Almost Live, don't you?

>> Mr. Keister: Oh, you know, there is.

I mean, there have been books written about Almost Live and about The Rocket and things that I've been involved in.

And yeah, there is -- you know, yes, I believe there is a good documentary or some story about it.

I'm working on a thing sort of like that, but we'll see what happens.

>> Tom Layson: Fair enough.

John, thanks for coming to Northwest Now.

>> Mr. Keister: I appreciate it.

>> Tom Layson: The only thing we can count on is change.

The bottom line: Not every change is a good one, and the elimination of 99% of the television industry's non-news local programming is a sad example of that.

And that most certainly includes Almost Live, host John Keister, and the cast, all uniquely Northwest treasures.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

To watch this program again or to share it with others, Northwest Now can be found on the web at kbtc.org, and be sure to follow us on Twitter, @NorthwestNow.

Thanks for taking a closer look on this edition of Northwest Now.

Until next time, I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.

[ Music ]