I started playing with tape recorders at an early age. I would make up my own radio shows, play at being a DJ, record sound effects and make weird noises. Then I'd play them back and laugh hysterically whether it was funny or not. The fun was in the creation.
It wasn't long before I got my friends involved. There was Larry from across the street, and Kim and Debbie who were the girls next door. There was also Mel from school. I think our first written and performed comedy skit was Kim making moaning sounds and calling out "Fred," and I would groan and say "Judy," while in the background we made bed spring sounds. After a few seconds Mel started groaning and saying, "Oh, Judy." Kim started saying, "Oh, Marv!" So now it was Fred and Marv, and it built to a climax and then there was silence. Then I said, "I think she's dead," and the recording stopped.
You had to be there, I guess. We thought it was funny, but then again, we were just kids. Sex was this forbidden thing that made us snicker.
Pat and David from around the block started joining in. By this time I had graduated from a portable tape recorder to a stereo with dual microphones. I played with this a lot. It was fun making my voice go from one speaker to the other.
We made several comedy tapes and decided to give our little group a name. I don't really remember where "Imperial Marsupial Players" came from, but it was most likely under the influence of Monty Python and the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players. Soon we added more members from Junior High, which were Brad, Mike, and Don. It was right about then I got a super-8 movie camera (with sound!) We were ready to make movies!
We shot and developed a lot of expensive film (all at the expense of my dad's company). Not much of it made any sense, but we had a lot of fun doing it. By the time Dan and DT and Jeannette were involved it looked like we might actually start getting good.
One very underground hit we had was called "Red Sidewalk" which was a send up of the bloody driver's education film "Red Asphalt." Instead of cars, I used stop motion photography to have the "drivers" scooting along the sidewalk on their butts. Driver inattention would cause collisions, followed by scenes of gore that featured entire bottles of ketchup sprayed everywhere. We actually showed this at school and got wild laughter.
There was occasionally talk about going professional, and we would make up schemes to get famous. None of it was serious, though. I don't think any of us believed it would really happen. Personally, I was too nervous to ever go up on stage and perform, so I was concentrating on film and recordings. Even having people watch our films made me turn red as a beet. What it was all about, to me, was an excuse to have a group of friends all doing something together. Everyone had talent, but it was too obvious that we were all heading in different directions.
Toward the end we did come up with a movie script that was so funny that, even reading it years later, I still laughed my ass off. We even filmed parts of it. It was to be a spoof of Reagan's anti-drug programs, filmed as a new documentary. Called "Placebo Madness" we were going to warn the populace of this dangerous, uncontrolled drug. Commonly thought to be harmless, these placebos were destroying today's youth. We would show its illegal manufacture (made out of candy), it's distribution (a pusher on the street selling placebos to addicts), and have interviews with placebo users (wearing paper-plate masks with happy faces drawn on them to protect their true identities). Law enforcement was helpless to stop it, because they couldn't prove in a court that it was even a drug. If not stopped, it would be the end of civilization as we know it.
The group started splintering off before we could finish it. Everyone had their own interests, and we were getting jobs, and were going on dates. I continued making tapes, but not as a member of the Imperial Marsupials. By this time I had returned to using a portable tape recorder which I could take along with me and interview people at random. We took it to the beach at Santa Cruz and made a really wacky tape with strangers we met on the beach.
If the experience taught me anything, it was that comedy can't be forced. It takes true talent to perform it (which I never had). Above all, it's a state of mind. You have to think funny to be funny. You have to allow yourself to be weird to see the humor in situations.
I recently went back over all the old tapes I'd made; listening to it with the thought of "Do I want my kids to hear this crap?" That which failed my listening test, I destroyed. The small percentage that passed my listening test, I converted to MP3 files and put on CD. These samples will probably be played at my funeral.
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