Almost Live!: Still Alive is an audio podcast mini-series, featuring the creators, cast and writers of one of Seattle’s most iconic TV shows, Almost Live! (1984-1999) It was a show so popular, that it also found a home on Comedy Central – and in worldwide syndication. Pat Cashman hosts this retrospective podcast series – spending time with every key player – through long and intimate conversations. Cashman‘s a more than appropriate host – himself a former cast member. He worked with everyone for much of the show’s fifteen years – and was individually responsible for bits like The Adventures of Sluggy, Roscoe’s Rug Emporium, Unsolved Mysteries of Seattle and others. His contributions were just part of the show’s memorable menu of favorite sketches and characters: Mind Your Manners with Billy Quan; The Lame List; The Worst Girlfriend in the World; Uncle Fran; Cops (in Mercer Island, Kent, Redmond, Leavenworth, etc.), Green River Dance, The High-Fivin’ White Guys and many more.
Almost Live!: Still Alive official sites
And after it was all over, the show had produced a remarkable group of considerable accomplishments and talents – including one of the of the world’s best-loved science personalities; an Oscar-nominated screenwriter; a big-time Hollywood star; several top national keynote speakers; one of Australia’s best-known TV sports personalities – and a top television director. Not to mention a clinical psychotherapist, emcees, auctioneers – and a stand-up comic or two. Not a bad lineup.
Almost Live!: Still Alive features one-on-one discussions with the show’s best-remembered players – from Ross Shafer to John Keister; Nancy Guppy to Joel McHale; Tracey Conway to Bill Nye – plus Bob Nelson, Bill Stainton, and all the rest. They’ll be sharing the stories of how they got on the show – their best-remembered experiences (including favorite and/or least favorite bits,) tales about other people they worked with through the years – and what they’re all up to now.
The show’s long-running popularity may well have come from its distinctive focus on the very place it was broadcast: Seattle and its neighborhoods. It reflected a remarkable time when the growing city, its surrounding communities, citizens, businesses, music and culture were changing. Newcomers to the region invariably confessed that they learned more about their new home from Almost Live! – than from any travel guide or chamber of commerce pamphlet. Since the show ended production in 1999, Seattle has exploded with the arrival of a massive tech industry, bringing with it thousands of new residents from around the country, and the world – likely blurring the old lines between Redmond and Bellevue, Federal Way and Auburn, Renton and Mercer Island. That’s why watching rebroadcasts of Almost Live! today – or on YouTube – offers a witty, funny, and insightful window into how Seattle used to be – while simultaneously previewing where it was headed.
We think you’ll enjoy the special conversations you’ll hear on “Almost Live!: Still Alive” – in hopes they’ll bring back fond memories of a remarkable place and time, from some of the people who comically chronicled them. Please share these episodes with anyone and everyone who lived in the Northwest during the original airings of Almost Live! – and through its long, continuing afterlife in reruns.
Because as long as people remember it, Almost Live! really IS still alive.
“Almost Live!: Still Alive” The podcast.
