A Tale of Two TV Pilots

 In Blog, Crew, Production, television, Uncategorized

Funny People Descend on Kansas City

IMG_0470AlMadrigal_JakKnight_ThePhoenixownerandteam_IMG_0517 Kansas City was the location for two comedy television pilots – Comedy Central’s Travel Fun Show with Al Madrigal and Jak Knight (working title) and School of Humans/Tru TV’s Eugene Meets the Mayor starring Eugene Mirman and Wyatt Cenac. Eugene Mirman played the recurring character ‘Eugene’ on the  acclaimed HBO show Flight of the Concords and is the voice of Gene in the award-winning animated series Bob’s Burgers. Wyatt Cenac was a regular correspondent and writer on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Al Madrigal was also a regular correspondent on The Daily Show, is the co-founder of All Things Comedy podcast network and was a co-star on NBC’s series About A Boy. Jack Knight is a young stand-up comic and actor.

Why is Kansas City the spot for these two pilots who are hoping to be given life as serial TV shows?

Being a friendly, fun, cool city in the middle of America had something to do with it, not to mention our super hip Mayor Sly James.

IMG_0476Eugene Meets the Mayor filmed from about August 13-17. They “helped” at Kansas City’s water treatment plant, took a tour of an open house in Hyde Park and finally a 5am morning jog with Mayor Sly James along the river in Berkeley Riverfront Park. They invited an audience to participate in a live taping of a stand-up comedy scene at The Record Bar in IMG_0471
Westport which had us all genuinely laughing at the same jokes over and over! The production stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel on the Plaza and they hired some of our awesome Kansas City professional crew as grips, gaffers and PAs.

IMG_0544IMG_0546IMG_0467IMG_0473

Travel Fun Show filmed the week of August 17. Al and Jak took a Kansas IMG_0516City Fountains tour with KC’s version of Leslie Knope, Parks and Rec Marketing and Media contact, Heidi Downer. They crashed the Charlie Parker City-wide Jazz Festival. The Phoenix Jazz Club and Lonnie McFadden gave the stage to Jak Knight for a little impromptu stand up routine. The band gave Jak’s jokes a proper sound bed. The production stayed at Hotel Philips and we learned their female director of photography is a Kansas-city homegrown.

IMG_0510IMG_0513IMG_0506

Recommended Posts