Almost Live!

I have grown up in the Seattle area, and my daddy weaned me on "Almost Live." Consistently funny, great timing, and some truly inspired skits make for great Saturday evening viewing. I have been known to leave parties to come home and watch it, then go back. The local NBC affiliate that shows it, KING 5, airs "AL!" at 11:35pm, then "Saturday Night Live" at 12:05am. In my almost 15 years of watching "Almost Live", I have never seen it resort to the 'dick and fart jokes' that I saw on SNL time and time again. There are so many things in the Seattle area to make fun of (Kent, Lynnwood, Ballard, the entire east side of Lake Washington), there's no reason to fall into toilet humor as the more recent years of SNL did. I guarantee that any way you can get ahold of an episode of "Almost Live", it will be worth it, a million times worth it.

This was one of the most consistently funny shows I've ever seen. Even SCTV in the early years would occasionally meander off somewhere that made you want to get up and get a soda.

"Almost Live" was kinda like Conan O' Brien's show on those rare nights when he's really on, just off-the-wall observational humor and completely silly stuff like "High-Fivin' White Guys", which was hilarious.

I really wish this would come out on DVD instead of craptastic tripe like "Scary Movie" and oh-boy-more-reality shows.

This was a funny show. We used to watch it a lot in 1992 or so along with the original UK Whose Line Is It Anyway? in college when our college cable picked up Comedy Central. Reading some of the user comments it's coming back to me a little more.

I remember one skit was a game show called "Who Killed J.F.K. Today?", in which contestants had to present their conspiracy theories as to how JFK was killed. Bill Nye's character won, because his took the least time to explain: "A tiger ate 'im!"

I also recall Bill Nye did science demonstrations. He tested the urban legend about "if you jump up at the last minute in an out of control plummeting elevator, you'll survive" years before MythBusters even started. Of course, he didn't use a dummy in a real elevator, but an egg in a small model elevator - but he came to the same conclusion.

This is actually much more deserving of being on DVD than SCTV, in my opinion.

I grew up in Seattle and this show chronicled the rise of Seattle from a sleepy little nowhere town to the height of grunge and back down. However, I would imagine it would be a little hard to get if you aren't from Seattle (though, I think they edited out stuff that was totally Seattle-based on the Comedy Central version)... but if you are from Seattle (or rather Kent) like I am... this is an absolute classic. I give this show ***** out of *****.

Almost Live was one of my favorite shows, ever! Local TV stations rarely makes their own product anymore, outside of newscasts, but KING TV in Seattle ran this local comedy show for 15 years up until 1999. I would count down the hours to see the next episode every Saturday night! Billy Kwan, The High Fivin' White Guys, Speed Walker, Sluggy, Cops in Ballard/Issaquah/Renton/Mercer Island, The John Report, The Worst Girlfriend in the World, Pat Cashman in D.J. Priest/D.J. Cop/D.J. Dentist, Roscoe's Carpet Emporium (Going out of Business since 1958!), The Ineffectual Middle-Management Suck-ups, Uncle Fran's Musical Forest, Ballard Driving School, The Street Walking Lawyers of Aurora Ave, & Jet Guy!!! This show was a great example of how creativity and localisms cam make a show work without having a big budget, or being based in LA or NYC.