I was a bit in shock--I think everyone was--but for some reason I was curious to know which letters Tony had gotten, the e-mails or the snailmails. Tony didn't seem to know anything about any e-mails, and said that he's too old to learn about computers. So I'm pretty sure it was the postal letters that did the trick. Tony laughed when I said "Oh, you got the ones that were licked."
Someone asked Tony why he ran off stage so fast at the end of the show. Was it because of the goof-up with the "My thanks to..." cards? No, Tony said, he ran off quickly so that he could come out and get us. (Wow.) He said the reason that he didn't put the chef on the cards was that he really wasn't told about it. It was a very late change to the guest line-up.
Well, on with the tour, which was absolutely incredible.
First, some pictures at the desk. (Fortunately, Dave's chair was long gone by then; just think of the repercussions if we had screwed up his chair.) We all gathered behind the desk for a group picture, while Tony and Mike McIntee, with amazing patience and kindness, took picture after picture of the group as we handed them camera after camera. That not being enough, we then took turns posing individually at the desk, and again, Tony and Mike patiently took pictures.
Al Chez was still on stage, in the band area, so talked to him for a moment and gave him a DaveCon2001 button. (We had already given Tony a button and a T-shirt, and I think Mike McIntee got a button.)
At some point someone noticed that Marilyn and Nick (who had been seated on the other side of the theater, right by the exits), and Greg Anderson, were missing. The pages must have booted them right out of the theater before Tony got us all up on stage. Mike McIntee, in a stunning act of heroism, went outside and brought the three of them in. What a save, Mike. I hate to think of the three of them missing the tour. It would have been horrible. I mean really, really horrible. Okay, maybe a little bit funny, but mostly it would just be devastating.
Once we had our fill of desk pictures, Tony took us all around the theater showing us extremely cool stuff. As we left the stage area, I reached out to shake Mike McIntee's hand. Mike, if you're reading this, I was the idiot (and longtime Wahoo reader) in the red jacket who told you how nice it was to meet you, without bothering to tell you who on earth I was. Okay, I was a little distracted. What can I say?
So, where did Tony take us? Let's see. He took us into the prop room, where they make the props for viewer mail and so forth. Shirlee asked the woman who worked there (I didn't catch her name) if she makes the fake make-up for Dave to eat (yes), and what she uses for it (yogurt, cream cheese, things like that).
We went into the control room, where Tony suggested that we take turns sitting in the director's chair for pictures, and allowed a couple of AFLers to walk off with copies of the script for the show we had just seen.
We walked past the room where they do the sound mixing, and the Sound Effects room. It's probably a good thing Tony didn't take us into the Sound Effects room--I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to keep our hands off the buttons.
Mike McIntee, by the way, had thoughtfully left a trail of notes throughout the theater declaring "Tony Mendez is an Ass" :-)
We went in the Green Room, which isn't green (most are not), but yellow. A couple of AFLers pilfered cookies. Tony explained that the Green Room is mostly used by the guests' entourages. The guests usually stay upstairs in the dressing room. Someone asked about the klieg light, or whatever it is, in one corner of the Green Room. Tony explained that it's there so that they don't have to move lights in and out if they want to tape something. Dave likes to have everything ready to go.
Somewhere in the hallways, we passed Pat Farmer. Rocco asked him about the Oprah transcripts. Pat said that a few people have actually written in for the transcripts of Pat and Kenny Read Oprah Transcripts. I didn't hear whether or not they send them anything.
Eventually we made it upstairs, out into the lobby and up into the balcony. Tony showed us how the seats used to go further back, and explained that they removed some of them to create a more intimate feel. They use the area behind the seats (which looked tiny, but it may have been the angle where I was standing) for taping apartment scenes and things like that.
It's a great view of the stage looking down from the balcony, very different from down on the floor.
From downstairs, looking up at the ceiling, hidden above all the lights, monitors, microphones, etc., Tony pointed out an old chandelier that's still there, leftover from the days before TV when the Ed was a Broadway theater. (I guess it still is a Broadway theater, just a different kind of theater.)
We went back up onstage, where Tony reclaimed his T-shirt that had gotten left on the second guest chair, and went and got some cue cards, which he autographed for us, and a bag of Late Show mousepads. He had 10 mousepads, and had tried to get more from Walter when he realized how many of us there were (Tony mimicked Walter saying "NO.") I distributed the mousepads later at the restaurant, and the number was just about right, since many of us already had Late Show mousepads from winning the CyberQuiz, or buying one, or whatever. Pretty much everyone who wanted a mousepad got one, and everyone got a cue card.
Oh, I almost forgot about this. Tony explained how he does the cards for the monologue. They start with about 20 jokes, which Tony puts on cards. Tony doesn't put the entire joke on the card, just the beats. Dave memorizes the jokes; the cards are just to remind him of the main ideas. Around 5:00 (could it really be that late? I may be misremembering), Tony takes the cards up to Dave's office. Dave decides which jokes to use (about nine), and gives Tony whatever other changes he wants made. Tony uses white tape to cover up things that get cut or changed. The card that I got has a small taped out change ("series" was changed to "TV series"). Some of the other cards had entire jokes whited out.
Before and after the big tour, we talked to Tony about the Tony Mendez Show. He asked us if we watch it. I watch the TMS every night, as do a lot of the AFLers who were present. Kate got a laugh from Tony by admitting that she doesn't watch it. Renee and her rats definitely watch. Walter apparently passes AFL postings about the TMS on to Tony. Tony knew about Sharon Best, Alan Page, Renee's rats, and Sheattle Sue.
We talked about the cliffhanger season finale, the shifting eyepatches, and so on. A few things I learned:
- Tony now gets paid for doing the Tony Mendez Show. The first year he just did it because Dave asked him to. It was originally Bill Scheft who did the online show with Dave (remember when it was called the Comedy Review?), but then Bill Scheft left "because he couldn't take Dave" and Dave asked Tony to do it. Eventually they started calling it the Tony Mendez Show, and the rest, as they say, is history.
- Tony sometimes tries to think of what to say on the TMS ahead of time, but mostly he and Dave ad lib. (Okay, this wasn't really news, just confirmation of what I'd already surmised. If you watch the TMS, it's pretty clear that it's improvised. That's the beauty of it. It's just Tony hanging out with Dave.)
- Tony isn't going to do any more letters from dead people or people in jail. He's going to try to kill Dave every Friday for a while. Look for it.
By the time Tony finished signing cue cards for us, it was after 7:30 (which is when they turn the lights off), so it was time for us to go. I can hardly believe this all happened. Tony Mendez is incredibly generous, kind, patient, an excellent tour guide, and a handsome, intelligent, and sexy cue-card stud. Oh, and he's a good photographer--the desk pictures turned out great.
Afterward I thought of two things I would have liked to see but didn't: the shack where Mike McIntee watches the show, and Hal Gurnee's plaque. I was pretty close to sensory overload, so we may have walked right by both and I just missed them. Did anyone see the plaque?
Well, after saying goodbye to Tony, our heads still spinning, we walked about 9 blocks to Carmine's, where we had an 8:00 dinner reservation. They didn't have table(s) ready for us, so we waited outside. And waited. And waited. Finally, half the group was seated at about 8:30, while the rest of us, cue cards in hand, continued to wait.
During the long wait, I got a peak at the purloined script. The Top Ten that was cut, "Top Ten Dumb Guy Ways to Conserve Energy", was eventually used later in the week. The Summertime Dos and Don'ts piece that we saw was not in the script. In its place was a bit that involved a lot of the staff, and had something to do with things the Late Show is doing to appeal to international viewers. For example, Alan Kalter has a mini-Alan Kalter in a pouch on his abdomen. I'd like to see that piece; maybe they will use it sometime. [They finally used the piece a week later, on June 25, 2001. It looked better on paper. Oh, well, it happens sometimes.]
At about 8:45, Karen (who had been seated with the first half of the group, and had made all the arrangements with the restaurant) came to check on us. I whined about dehydration (I hadn't had a thing to drink in 7 hours, and was really feeling it), so Karen went to bring me a glass of water, which Rona promptly grabbed out of her hand. Oh, well, it was a good try :-). We were seated shortly thereafter, and stuffed ourselves silly with Italian food and lovely beverages. The waiter asked us about the cue cards, which we had stacked on an extra chair. He thought we were protesters, but could not figure out what we were protesting. The cards included monologue jokes about Saddam Hussein, Tony Danza, George W Bush, Dave's fictional Father's Day present from Dave Junior, etc. Quite a confusing protest we were holding!
Well, I'm running out of steam here, so I'll cut this short (too late, I know), and let someone else tell you about the candy necklaces. The party eventually broke up, and we said our goodbyes. Except for Brad, that is. For the second year, Brad somehow managed to wander off in Times Square without a proper goodbye.
I made it back to the hotel just in time to catch the big show on the cable TV, and flew home the next day. I must say, a cue card with a joke about Saddam Hussein is a strange thing to carry through an airport. They stopped me at the security check-in to see what it was, but let me through. ("It's just a sign? Okay, then.") I set it on a chair next to me while I waited for my flight, and people slowed down and craned their heads to read it as they walked by. Nobody asked what it was. I asked the flight attendant what to do with it on the plane so it wouldn't get squished. She suggested that I put it under the seat in front of me, writing side down so that it wouldn't get all stepped on, and put my carry-on bag on top of it to hold it down. When I got off the plane, she was glad to see that my cue card was in tact. She never did ask what it was.
Thanks go out to Traci, Renee, Karen, and the keeper of the dots David Kay, for making this extraordinary trip possible. Thanks to Traci for the buttons, and Karen and Brad for the T-shirts. A big shout-out for the talented writer of the Wahoo Gazette (it's a wry delight) Mike McIntee, for patiently taking all those desk pictures, and an ENORMOUS shout-out for the wonderful and kind Tony Mendez.
See you all next year.
Postscript
One of the first things I did when I got home on Tuesday was to watch Monday night's Tony Mendez Show, which was probably taped just minutes after we said goodbye to Tony. Tony was wearing the DaveCon2001 T-shirt and button we had given him. It looked like he had ripped up the shirt a bit. Dave talked for a moment about the TMS cliffhanger. He said it made him laugh, it made him cry, and it made him think. This was almost exactly what I had said about the season finale in my letter to Tony. Coincidence? (Well, probably. I stole the phrase from Dave to begin with.) Then, Dave declared that he was boycotting the Tony Mendez Show until certain apologies were made, and stalked out of the room. Tony said "Oh, he's just jealous," and the camera zoomed in on the DaveCon button. I wonder if Dave was kept waiting for a few minutes while Tony finished up our tour, and his demand for "certain apologies" was his way of busting on Tony for it. Dave kept demanding apologies all week, until Tony tried to kill him on Friday :-).Oh, and Al Chez still had his DaveCon2001 button on his music stand during the opening of Tuesday night's show, and for several nights after. How cool is that?
Thanks to Jim Cim for the animated GIF award.