When you start in the entertainment business you do a lot of unpaid gigs – or as they’re usually called, Telethons.
Derek's Recollections:CJOH used to do lot of local programming and one of the things that they would do every year, like a lot of local television stations would be a telethon . Usually, all telethons have free entertainment that carries the show while they’re getting the phones to ring.
Around 1984, Skit row had just begun around that time, we were brought on as one of the acts at the telethon and we did these pre-recorded bits, in a limbo Studio. It looked absolutely horrific but that was the way things were done back then. The lighting was pink and the backgrounds were on risers for these sketches and we didn’t have a live audience. These sketches really required a live audience reaction because you would actually change your performance based on what feedback you were getting during the performance. They weren’t written as TV sketches, so they come off as being pretty flat for the most part.
I think I was really sick at that time and was unable to actually perform, it was the rest of the group, so there is no video evidence of me at all on those.
The pirate sketch used to have a great audience reaction, that’s a sketch written by Rick Jones. Rick loved to play with silly language.
