The Talk Show What Ain't
Jason didn’t mention this in his catalog of Wil Wheaton’s accomplishments but according to this Salon interview, he’s a talk show sidekick. The catch is, it’s a talk show which isn’t filmed and doesn’t air anywhere: It’s talk show as theater play.
Short version: There’s this guy, J. Keith van Straaten, who apparently is pretending to have a talk show on TV. He gets an audience, and guests, and has Wil as his sidekick, and runs it all just like a talk show, but there are no TV cameras.
The guy has a Website (“The Best TV Talk Show Not on TV… Yet!”).
When is a TV show not a TV show? I find this totally bizarre. Between this guy, and the guy doing that reality show where he puts together a talk show in his parents’ living room, and all the stars jumping at talk shows, you’d think being a talk show host was a desirable job, when it in fact strikes me as Hollywood’s Ninth Circle. Like, you want to be a respected, powerful, artistically honored director; or maybe you want to be a powerful and influential executive producer. Dropping down, you can aim for A-list star; B-list star; TV star; TV director; and so on. I’d put talk show host way way down near the bottom, slightly above third assistant gaffer and Corpse in Morgue #2 in “Re-Animator.”