I don’t remember when I showed up in the Newsradio newsgroup. I just wandered in one day and probably started talking like I’d already been there. The internet was a lot easier then. My time in that group may have lasted a year or five years. I don’t know. What I do know is that a lot of those people that I met in that group, in the late 90s, are still a part of my life. And though we may go through long periods of not talking to each other that much, they’re still family. Every once in a while, I come across a Christmas card or ticket stub or boarding pass in an old box of crap and go down a total nostalgic rabbit hole of the good times. I flew to San Francisco in 2000 to attend some Kids in the Hall shows with Rynn. I went to DC for the same reason, that same year, and met Tavie and Cheryl and Gina and Erica and Steve. A few years later, I went to an event in New York and stayed with Tavie and Gina and that time I met Stephanie and Linn. Just last year, me and Steve went to see a Scott Thompson show. It’s been literal decades and it’s still going on. They all, plus a dozen others I could list, are some of the funniest people I’ve ever known.
Newsradio, the show, is important to me, not just because it is brilliant and hilarious and rewatchable to this day, but because it brought so many beautiful people into my life. Also? This is a show I share with my parents. Every once in a while, my Dad will just randomly declare that someone is the strangest son of a bitch he ever saw. We stan James Caan and it’s not because of The Godfather. A few weekends ago I went to their house and the TV was blaring. No one was in the room. It was because he was making breakfast but the digital channel that now runs Newsradio was airing the “Review” episode, and he didn’t want to miss a second of Bill’s Adequasivity.
In 1999, the writing was on the wall for the show, and it seemed pretty likely NBC was going to cut it this time. I was lucky enough to be able to get on the list for a taping. Thanks to Mike Risner aka LawnCow, a second AD on the show and one of our usenet besties, my friend Steph and I go to go see the “Freaky Friday” episode taped in front a life studio audience. I expected to just get in line, go in the studio, enjoy the show and that would be that, but he led us to the stage before the regular audience got seated and we got to *touch* stuff. Touching stuff is my favorite, let’s be real. We got to sit at Dave’s desk and sit in the booth and I got to run my fingers along the console and touch the cigar labels on Bill’s side of the desk. This was less than a year after Phil Hartman’s death and it was a lot to take in. It was one of the absolute best nights of my life as we got to watch Dave and Jimmy and Lisa and Joe and Matthew and new weirdo Max. No Beth that night. Vicki had the flu, and they filmed her scenes later. And yet…nothing about that night was disappointing. It was perfect in every way.
Other shows will come and go, but Newsradio will never not be one of the very closest ones to my heart. I could go on for pages and pages about it and what it means to me. Years from now, I’ll be old and senile and the workers at the home will probably be massively confused about why I shout “PANTYHOSE” or “GAZIZZA!!” at weird times for no reason. And they’ll never be able to figure out who Jimmy is and why I think his goatee is so very, very sexy. But, I’ll know. Because the ladies loved it!