A look back

Trying to figure out and remember when it was exactly that I started thinking I wanted to be on television and on late night television in particular, well that's kind of tricky… it's probably impossible actually.

I remember always telling my grandparents that I wanted to be just like Johnny Carson, but that was probably just something I said to make them let me stay up late. They always watched The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and I knew that it was on late at night!

My grandfather made his living as a professional photographer and at some point, I can't remember when, I got my hands on one of his 8mm movie cameras. It was very expensive to get the two minute reels of film developed and it still is to this day. I guess that's why I was so excited to get my hands on a video camera in the late 80's. It was easy to use, video tapes weren't that expensive and you could shoot as much footage as you wanted. If you didn't tape anything funny, then you could tape right over it the next day, it was incredible!

I completely idolized David Letterman back in the day - I still do! They used to go outside the studio and do hilarious stuff like screwing with the drive-thru guy, like we used to do, or maybe we used to do it because he did it, that's probably more accurate. When I found out that the university I was going to had a handful of video cameras, I figured out how to get a hold of one and in the fall of 1989, I started shooting footage for the late night talk show I had always talked about having.

I didn't know what I was doing back then, but it was a really big deal to get my hands on an actual video camera to shoot footage with. Click here to check out a little bit of that footage shot back in 1989!

Fast forward an entire decade to 1999. Still dreaming and talking about someday having my own late night talk show, I found myself pursuing other interests.

Back in '99

In the summer of 1999, things seemed right on track and going well for me. I had finished university, spent a little time traveling and goofing off out west and I owned and operated a very successful skateboard shop located less than 100 feet from the beach where I spent most of my mornings skim boarding.

Aside from shaping, manufacturing and distributing my own JR DIGS branded skim boards, I was also busy designing and manufacturing my own clothing line called "Shags Clothing Co."

Back in the day, Shags Cargo Pants were one of the hottest selling pants you could find in skateboard shops across the province of Ontario, where they were distributed. After reaching my goal of selling more than 10,000 pants, I expanded the clothing line to include shorts, hats, hoody's, t-shirts and a variety of other items.

The venture proved to be more successful than I ever could have hoped for, and it was very profitable. All the money I made selling cargo pants and FlexFit hats would later be used to finance another dream of mine - the dream to have my very own TV show on network television!

I always had an interest in shooting video and making Hi8 movies, but in the summer of 1999, my focus was on making skateboard videos. Shags clothing had by now begun sponsoring a few skateboarders and I was shooting lots of video (I left the riding up to the kids who really knew how to do it). One of the first riders I sponsored was a young kid who at the time was only 13 years old. These days, that little kid makes six figures riding as a professional skateboarder - his name is Mark Appleyard.

I was always an average skateboarder and clearly recognized that if I was ever going to be in any of the videos I was shooting, I would have to use footage of me doing something other than skateboarding. For as long as I could remember, I had been shooting footage of myself and my friends being idiots. I started thinking that maybe I could put some of that footage in my skateboard videos. Then one night while flipping through the channels, I came across a TV show that would inspire me to stop shooting and producing skateboard videos all together. It was a late night talk show that I had never seen before.

The new cable package I had recently subscribed to included a new comedy channel called The Comedy Network. The late night talk show was called The Tom Green Show. I couldn't believe the crazy shit this guy was doing and what was even more unbelievable to me was that it was actually being shown on television. This guy had obviously grown up in the same skateboard culture that I had and he was taking all his crazy ass video footage and airing it on cable television nationally. I couldn't believe they would let this guy air this stuff on TV, it was amazing. It was the kind of show that guys like me always dreamed about having and now this Tom Green guy was somehow making it all possible for us.

I stopped shooting skateboard tricks and making videos and turned all my focus towards thinking of new comedic ideas that we could shoot video of and then somehow create my own TV show. I still didn't really have any idea how I was going to actually do that, but I had a Hi8 video camera and enough enthusiasm to do anything I set my mind to. Having my own late night talk show was something that had been in my mind for as long as I could remember.

Summer of 2000

It had been almost an entire year since I began shooting footage for the purpose of making a pilot episode for his new comedy series. Unable to keep friends interested in taking the project seriously, I realized that we would have to figure out a way to get new people involved in the process of shooting, editing and producing JR DIGS, which was now the working title of the comedy series I was creating.

The original title for the show was The Shakerbelly Show, but that didn't really stick. We shot two episodes at the local cable station in Simcoe, Ontario, which was the only town around that even had a studio and some old cameras for us to use. There were only three volunteers who worked at the cable station and they weren't too interested in working with me on a show that seemed pretty stupid for the most part.

After we shot our second episode, I left the set up for a couple days thinking I could get some friends to help me tear it down before they shot bingo on Thursday night. When we got there Thursday morning, the set was completely taken apart and I was told that I could never use the studio at the cable station ever again. This was the first of many setbacks I was about to experience over the next few years in the pursuit of a network deal for JR DIGS, my own late night talk show!

Fall of 2000

It soon became apparent that I would probably have to hire an actual production company to help me produce the show if I was ever going to get a pilot episode made, and be able to pitch the series to any networks.

I ended up hiring a small production company located in Burlington, Ontario, where I lived at that point with three of my friends in this really cool house that had a pool table as our dining room table. It wasn't too long before I had a pilot episode of JR DIGS produced at a cost of $4000. It seemed like a lot of money, but the skateshops were doing well, so I had the cash and I guess I felt like it was something I had to do at that point. Most of the footage we used was from the two episodes of The Shakerbelly Show that had never been seen by anyone. I never did find out why the program director at that little cable station was so mad at me. I always remember kissing his ass and telling him how amazing it was of him to give me the opportunity to make my own little cable access show. Never screw around with insecure little men and their bingo sets, I guess. That's about all I can figure out from the experience. Maybe it's good advice to all of you out there thinking about doing a cable access show in your little town!

Anyway, I had a half hour pilot produced in the fall of 2000 and my next step was to figure out what to do with it. I didn't know anything about the television industry and I definitely didn't know anyone who worked in it. The production company that took my $4000 to polish up the footage I wanted to use in the pilot, mostly did corporate videos and they didn't know anyone in the television industry either. I really didn't have a clue what to do next!

Winter of 2000

Most of my memories of that winter have nothing to do with trying to get my own late night talk show on TV. I was living with three of my friends in this big house with hardly any furniture, a pool table and a ping pong table and about six guitars. To say that there were plenty of distractions that could divert my focus from working on the show would be an incredibly huge understatement. I still talked a lot about making the show, but I had been seriously doing that for over ten years. It turns out that talking about doing stuff is way easier than actually doing it. I guess that's why so many people spend all their younger years talking about the stuff they are going to do in their lives and then grow old wondering why they never did any of it. I was turning into one of those people!

Calling up networks and figuring out a way to get the pilot of JR DIGS into the right people's hands was difficult. It's actually not that difficult of a process, but when you don't have a clue how to do it, I guess it is. It was for me, at least.

I ended up figuring out who to contact at The Comedy Network and I sent the guy the pilot and he sent me a letter thanking me for the submission and to tell me they were not interested in developing any late night talk shows at that time. It was a total bummer, I thought for sure they would like the pilot I sent them.

Spring of 2001

By the time spring rolled around, I had become pretty discourage about the idea of ever getting a network to help me develop JR DIGS. My skateboard / surf shop at the beach needed to get ramped back up again because most of the money I made from the shop was in the summer time. It was a total beach town, packed all summer, dead all winter!

I couldn't just give up on my dream, though. I was way more passionate about making the TV show that spring than I was about running my shop. Instead of giving up, I ended up contacting the cable access station in Burlington. It was a much bigger station than the one in Simcoe and after learning that Tom Green had actually been on cable access for years before getting on The Comedy Network, I thought that's what I might have to do as well.

So I ended up taking my pilot episode to the cable access station. I met with the program manager and he told me the pilot was very well done. He also told me that the show didn't fit into the style of programming that the access channel was currently producing. I couldn't even get JR DIGS on my lousy cable access station! Not too many of my friends were that interested in helping me with the show anymore. Now that I couldn't even get it on cable access, well that pretty much confirmed for everyone that the dream was over.

Summer of 2001

After two years of shooting footage and seriously thinking I was for sure going to get my own late night talk show on television, I was now out of inspiration! That's when desperation took over! By now, Tom Green was very well known and on his way to La La Land, blazing this new trail for guys like me to get our own brand of video comedy on television. I felt that if I didn't get my stuff out there soon, someone else would and then it would be too late. Besides, we were shooting some pretty funny stuff and everyone I showed it to thought it was really good. The people at the production company I had hired to help me make my pilot definitely thought what I was doing was funny.

They had agreed to help me produce my first season if I ever got things going and I got them to agree to let me build a set in their garage if, and when that time ever came. Although it was just a dirty garage where they parked their bus, it had a lighting grid on the ceiling and enough space for me to bring in a studio audience. It was also free as long as I hired them to shoot the shows.

So one night while watching one of those infomercials on TV, I thought what if I bought some of this infomercial airtime, but instead of selling some vegetable peeler, I'll just air my TV show? Once people see the show, they will keep watching it and I'll get good ratings and some network executive will find out about it and by the end of the summer, I'll finally have my network deal.

Desperation is a crazy thing! On June 20th, my first episode of JR DIGS was on television. Not on cable access, either, although that would have been nice and a lot cheaper. NO, this was network television!

A lot of stuff happened that summer as you could imagine. I won't get into all the details here, because I should save something to write about some other day, but here's the important part: the show pulled great ratings and by my fourth episode it was a hit, pulling higher numbers than Conan O'Brien and Craig Killborn. By the end of the summer, I had spent over thirty thousand dollars on the production of eight episodes and I was into my credit cards for another thirty thousand to pay for the network airtime. My skate / surf shop wasn't making me that much money because I was totally neglecting it and had become completely consumed with making my show each week. The production company turned out not to know that much about producing an actual television show, and I was left doing pretty much everything by myself. I averaged about four hours of sleep each night that summer. It was pretty crazy and I don't think I ever really had any fun, to be honest. The worse part was that I never did get any calls from any network about my new hit television series. I was deep in debt and had spent all the money I had been saving over the last couple of years. My plan to finally get that network deal had failed. I had to figure out what to do next and fast!

Fall of 2001

So after my crash course on how to produce a television show, I now had to figure out how to keep producing it. It's amazing how money (and usually the lack of it) can change and manipulate your perspective on things. I spent most of my life dreaming of some day having my own late night talk show and now that I had one, all I could think about was how to wake up from this nightmare of a late night talkshow I had manufactured for myself.

Physically, mentally and financially, I was not able to continue producing any more new episodes. I had eight original shows and had sunk almost $70,000 into producing them and buying the airtime to have them broadcast on network television. All my credit cards and lines of credit were now completely maxed out, and giving up on the dream now would have been devastating. People recover from losing the strength to keep dreaming in life. People sometimes never rebound from huge financial debts in life.

Having my own late night TV show was no longer the most important thing in my life, surviving it was! Somehow I had to find a way to keep the show on the air so that I could land this damn network deal and eventually get out of debt. The answer was beer, lots of beer!

The story of how I got a major beer company to begin sponsoring the show in the fall of 2001 is a good one, but it will have to be told another time. What's important to note here is that realizing that no networks were calling me about the show, I quickly accepted the fact that what I had really done was buy infomercial airtime to showcase my television show. That meant that I owned the entire half hour of airtime, including the commercial inventory. By getting sponsors on board, I could air their commercials and charge them accordingly. The show was still pulling good ratings, as it did throughout the fall, as I re-aired the eight shows again. Revenue being generated from my new beer sponsor allowed me to continue paying for the airtime without going further into debt and somehow, the dream stayed alive for another four months.

Spring of 2002

Dreams of having my own TV show on network television had now become the nightmare that woke me up every night in a cold sweat! Spring time can be an amazing time of the year, but there are those few days where everything that was left behind from the winter kind of stinks a little bit. Well, those few days lasted all spring-long for me. Having my own TV show or aspiring to make the best show I could didn't seem to matter any more. Somehow keeping the show on the air, figuring out how the hell to produce some new episodes with no money and finding some sponsors was all that mattered! I had to figure out a way to turn this all around or my great idea to buy my own airtime less than a year earlier would have been the biggest mistake of my entire life. A mistake I may have never been able to bounce back from.

Desperation is a funny thing! Well maybe it's not funny, but it can be one hell of a motivating factor in trying to get stuff done sometimes. The five thousand dollars I took from my settlement agreement with C.O.R.E. was given in little chunks to everyone who was asking for money from me. Telling people they will have to wait a few more months to get money owed to them, always goes a little easier when you give them a little bit of the money as you're telling them. Just about everyone knew that I had been screwed over and they were willing to help me work things out. The network even accepted a partial payment on the outstanding invoices for airtime and agreed to let me continue airing the show with the hopes that I could find some sponsors and pay back what was outstanding by the end of the summer. They knew the show was still pulling good ratings with the repeat broadcast of my first season and that I had been talking to some major sponsors about coming on board for a new season in the summer. I ended up landing a major deal with Sony PlayStation and I got Molson's back on board again for the summer. Somehow, I was staying afloat and keeping the sharks at bay. The next thing I had to do was figure out how to produce some of these new shows I was promising to everyone. I didn't have a clue how I was going to do that, but it didn't stop me from pretending that I was about to produce the hot new comedy series of the summer.

Summer of 2002

The thing about convincing people to believe in you is that at some point, you have to start doing what you say you can do. If you don’t, not only is your credibility shot, but so is any chance of those people ever believing in you again! In this case, the stakes were pretty high and the players were as big and as important as they get in the world of television here in Canada. I had somehow rallied the support of a major television network, and a couple big time corporate sponsors. Not being able to figure out a way to independently produce a new season of JR DIGS, without actually having a budget, would have probably been the end of my career in television and any chance of ever climbing out of the debt I was in.

With the help of a government grant I found out about, I ended up hiring a student for the summer who owned his own computer and editing software. I had been convinced by the previous production companies that I had worked with, that network broadcast standards could never be met by editing the show each week on a home-based computer and cheap editing software. They were wrong! With the help of some volunteers that summer, I shot enough footage to piece together a new season of JR DIGS.

I have to admit, I’m not very proud of most of the stuff I put on TV that summer, but making great TV wasn’t really my objective back then. I did what I said I could do and that’s all that mattered. I think I had even less fun making my show in the summer of 2002 than I did in 2001, and there were at least a few shows that I made in that first summer that I thought were actually pretty funny!

Fall of 2002

It was amazing that I had bounced back from being completely screwed over months earlier, and finding a way to still produce a new season of JR DIGS that summer ended up doing more for my credibility as a producer than I ever could have predicted. To this day, the folks at Sony PlayStation and Molson have remained interested in the development of my show and any other projects I’m considering to produce. The support of corporate sponsors will always be an important part of developing new television projects in Canada and knowing that I can always get a meeting set up to discuss future projects is an encouraging feeling.

My ability to produce and broadcast a new season of JR DIGS and once again pull respectable ratings with the show, was unfortunately not enough to resolve all my financial problems. When it became clear that I would not be able to completely pay all the outstanding invoices for the airtime, the network decided it was time to cut their losses, and the show was pulled off the air. A lot of people were looking for money from me after the debacle with C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures in the winter. And although I wasn’t able to bounce back enough to settle up with Global, I was able to generate enough money from sponsors to pay everyone else who was still owed money. I’ve always very proud of that and I know that there are lots of people who will always be willing to work with me again because of it.

JR DIGS had been on network television for almost a year and a half before it was pulled off the air. The ride wasn’t over yet, but for the time being, it was time to regain some focus on my skateboard shops that I had been neglecting. I needed to start making some money again and fast!

Winter of 2002

Although the show was going unnoticed by all the networks here in Canada, the fact of the matter is that good ratings were being noticed by a few more potential sponsors like Sony PlayStation and a couple major production companies that I had pitched the show to.

On Boxing Day, I left my family Christmas celebration early for what I was being told, was a very important meeting with the president of a major production company, partly owned by William Shatner. The company, called C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, wanted to partner with me on the production of another new season of JR DIGS, that would be scheduled to go on the air immediately. Promises were also made to have William Shatner himself, help pitch the show to Fox TV, among other major U.S. and Canadian networks.

I signed the agreement with this new partner of mine on Boxing Day, and I received a nice email from Captain Kirk himself, and we begun production of my second season. This time, with someone else's money!

A couple months later, after no new shows had actually been produced, I became concerned that airing those original eight episodes, for what was by now the forth time, we were going to lose the fan base I had been building all this time. A few weeks later, I was informed that because of financial troubles they were having at the time, C.O.R.E. would not be able to participate any longer in the continued production of JR DIGS as a new comedy series.

I then learned that because my name was still on the contract with Global Television for the payment of airtime being purchased, I would be held accountable for all overdue invoices for the airtime C.O.R.E. had agreed to pay for. I had also signed contracts with a few other production services companies, who hadn't been paid yet. As it turned out, almost $40,000 of outstanding invoices were now being sent to me to pay. I ended up settling with C.O.R.E. in a classic Hollywood style negotiation where they gave me two minutes to decide to take a five thousand dollar check that they were offering me, before their offer would be taken off the table, literally! I took the money, signed on the dotted line and suddenly became over $100,000 in debt in the pursuit of my dream to get a network deal for my dumb little comedy show called JR DIGS.

Spring of 2003

It's amazing how many times I aired each of the episodes I had produced up until that point. What's more incredible is how the show continued to pull impressive enough ratings to get sponsors on board to keep sponsoring the show. Within a few months of the show being on the air again, I was able to contact the networks with news that new sponsors had committed to sponsoring the show in the spring and I would soon be able to start paying off the still outstanding invoices. My plan worked!

I had to produce eight new shows that spring all by myself again and that's exactly what I did, literally! I hosted the show each week from my couch in my apartment with my camera set up on a tripod I shot everything by myself including most of the footage that was featured in the show as segments. One time for example, I dressed up in a Philadelphia Flyers jersey and hat and shot footage of myself going down to a playoff game with the Toronto Maple Leafs. What made it funny is that people just thought I was some jerk off Flyers fan with a video camera who had come to Toronto to see a playoff game. I almost got the snot kicked out of me but the footage was awesome!

I ended up finding another kid who moved his own computer and editing software and I hired him to help me edit the footage together each week. We worked in the basement of his parent's house where he still lived. By now the glamour of television was a way for me to continue collecting money from sponsors and moving my way out of debt with the networks.

Imagine a TV show being aired on national television that's entirely shot by the same guy who is talking into the camera! The shows weren't always that great but they sure were cheap to produce which was way more important at that point.

Summer of 2003

By now the strong ratings for my low budget little comedy show were being noticed by a couple executives at the networks. I was soon contacted about using the show to fill a few holes in the summer programming schedule in various markets across the country. Up until then the show was only being broadcast in Ontario although it is by the biggest television market in the country.
The show was suddenly being watched by people from all parts of the country. I remember what a big deal that was for me at the time. It felt like the dream was still alive!

The Blair Digs project as my friend Brian called it, rapped up and I started to find volunteers to help me shoot footage again. With all the shit that had happened to me since I began my quest for a network deal, I still can't believe I just kept hanging in there. It always seemed like every three or four months something really good would happen that would keep me going. Way more shitty stuff always followed but then sure enough, something amazing would happen to keep me believing in myself again.

Fall of 2003

Before the fall schedule was announced for the Global Television network in 2003, I was informed that my show had been placed as the lead in to Saturday Night Live in every market in the country except Ontario where it would continue to follow Mad TV like it had always done
My low budget, independently produced little comedy show was almost to be broadcast nationally on network television.

The new barter agreement that I had negotiated a while back was extended so that I could continue paying off the still outstanding invoices and with sponsors still on board, a small budget could actually be allocated to the production of new shows.

Winter of 2003

It certainly appeared like the dream of getting a network deal for my own late night talk show was finally dead. I still owed Global a lot of money for overdue invoices for airtime, and until those invoices got paid, I was never going to get the show back on the air to keep the dream alive! I needed some money fast and I needed a lot of it. It turned out that the fastest way to come up with a lot of money was to sell my skateboard shops, and that’s exactly what I did.

In keeping with the theme of me getting screwed over for large quantities of money, half of what the shops were sold for is still owed to me. And this isn’t the place for me to discuss this matter, so what I will say here is that I received enough money from the sale of my business to negotiate a new deal with Global again. Along with my initial payment for the overdue invoices, I would agree to continue making monthly payments if the network agreed to begin airing the show again, give me half of the commercial inventory and no longer charge me for airtime, so that I could continue getting out of debt with them, instead of getting deeper into debt with them!

By the end of January, the show was back on the air again. The re-aired episodes were pulling higher ratings than ever before and I was busy looking for new sponsors who would be impressed enough by my ratings for repeats, that they would sponsor another new season of JR DIGS in the spring.

Things were beginning to look up again, until the phone started to ring off the hook with collection agencies looking for me to start paying my credit cards that I ran up and then ignored. That’s another story.

Spring of 2004

Almost three years after I just began this ridiculous quest, I landed my first main sponsorship deal. Up until this point I kept finding ways to get sponsors interested in giving me enough money to keep things rolling but this deal was different. The beer companies traditionally spend the bulk of their advertising budget in the spring and summer so the timing was perfect to negotiate a major deal with one of them. The deal I signed with Labatt was major, it was the biggest and most lucrative sponsorship deal I ever landed!
Things were finally shaping up. I was able to buy my own computer and editing software and I found a government grant that would help me to pay the salary of the new editor I needed to hire. I set up an edit suite in the top floor of this cool old house that I was renting and I was back to making new shows and livin the dream.

I also completely paid off what was still outstanding to Global for all those long overdue invoices for airtime!

Summer of 2004

The show was pulling high enough ratings in the spring to make Labatt want to extend the sponsorship deal until the end of the summer.

After committing complete financial suicide, finally I had enough money to get every last collection agency off my back and take care of all my credit card debt.

By the end of the summer I was out of debt for the first time since I started buying my own airtime three years earlier. It was finally time to re-evaluate things and decide what direction to head in next. All that had mattered for a long time was up until that point, getting out of debt was the only reason to keep making the show. After I was able to actually do that, hopes of producing a good show that was funny started resonating in my brain again! I was out of the woods and looking forward to what lay ahead.

Fall of 2004

I had developed a loyal grass roots fan base, carved out a unique and clever barter agreement with the networks to have the show aired nationally. I had major corporate sponsors on board and had finally learned how to independently produce the show on a shoe string budget without sacrificing the production value. I was about to explore a world of financial prosperity the kind of show I always hoped I would when the unthinkable happened.
The All New JR DIGS show debuted on November 27, 2004 . The new show featured special guests, music acts, and me in a suit and tie sitting behind a desk for the first time ever. Video clips continued to be a part of the new show's format as they have over the last three and a half years of JR DIGS being on the air. A studio audience has not been a part of the show's format since the production of season one concluded in August of 2001. The new show's format once again includes a studio audience and for the taping of the second new episode of The JR DIGS Show, a local high school's drama club was given the opportunity as part of a class trip to participate in the taping of the episode. The group of students were video taped as members of the studio audience for the episode scheduled to air on December 4th, 2004 .

Following the broadcast of episode one of The New JR DIGS Show, I was contacted by a senior member of the local high school board regarding episode two which included the drama club as members of the studio audience. I was informed that a parent of one of the students had watched episode one and had now decided that they did not want their child to appear on television as part of the audience at The JR DIGS Show. Having already spent the assigned show's budget on the production of the episode and unable to re-shoot or re-edit the show in time to still get episode two delivered on time, the show was pulled off the schedule and replaced with previously aired footage from JR DIGS, season four.

I received several phone calls and emails from students and parents of some of the students who were upset and very disappointed that a couple of students' parents were somehow able to stop the show from airing, and now they were being told that the entire episode was going to be reconfigured so that it wouldn't include any footage of the students who were a part of the studio audience at the episode taping.

All the students parents were aware of the class trip and the late night talk show taping that their children would be a part of, well before the trip took place and the episode was taped and produced.

As I continued getting feedback from parents and students, the point made most frequently in emails and phone calls to me was that any parent who had concerns about the show's content should have never allowed their child to go to the taping in the first place. If all the audience shots were taken out of the episode, how would that be fair to all of the students who still wanted to be included in the show.

On December 11th , the episode was finally broadcast nationally and it did include footage of the students as part of the studio audience. A decision was made to place black bars over the faces of any students whose parents did not want their children visible as part of the studio audience. Black bars were also put over the faces of the two teachers who organized the class trip at the request of the school board.

Several shots still had to be cut from the originally produced episode because of how ridiculous the shots looked with black bars over people's faces, but in the end it seemed like the right thing to do in consideration of everyone involved.

Although I was never contacted by any of the parents concerned about the content of the show, and it is still unclear as to what was objectionable about the show, on December 16th, 2004, I was informed by an employee at Global Television that The JR DIGS Show was being taken off the air, effective immediately.

One parent, along with the superintendent of the school board, had apparently contacted Global (once again) to express their concerns about The JR DIGS Show. Now faced with a potential lawsuit, the network was put into a situation where some sort of action had to be taken. A decision was made to pull The JR DIGS Show off the schedule after three and a half years on the air. All this time JR DIGS has only had approximately a half dozen complaints regarding the content of the show.

Winter of 2004

I was mentioning earlier that it seemed like ever three or four months something really good would happen to keep me believing in myself and this quest to land a network deal for my show. The other thing mentioned was that mostly shitty stuff happened all the rest of the time. Most of the really shitty stuff was financial in nature. I no longer had my skateboard shops to generate any money for me and just about all the money I was receiving from my sponsors was going directly to Global to pay off those long over due invoices for airtime. Whatever was left at the end of every month was then being used to get the show produced and cover all those cost so I wasn't going any deeper into debt trying to make the show each week. In the beginning I had to do that but if I continued down that path again it would have been a huge mistake!

Being broke isn't something I would wish on anyone. I don't come from a wealthy family or anything like that but I don't think I ever went without much that I needed or ever really wanted in my life. Back in the summer of 2001 when I first started buying my own airtime, eventually I ended up maxing out all of my credit cards. Well I still hadn't been able to pay back any of that money. Calls from collection agencies had become a daily part of my life by now and in January I finally reached a breaking point. I was constantly three months behind in my lease payments for my truck so one day I just took the truck back to the dealership, handed them the keys and walked home. It's called a voluntary repossession of your own vehicle and after you do it they still expect you to pay whatever loss they take on the sale of your vehicle at an auction. Six months later they were after me for fifteen thousand dollars. I still had over $30,000 owing to credit card companies, it was a tough winter. I had my own nationally aired TV show though, yep, I was livin the dream!

Spring of 2005

Finding the inspiration to continue pursuing my dream of landing a network deal for my late night comedy series was one thing. Finding my groove again so that I could still come up with some good ideas and enough funny stuff to shoot footage of to actually get the show back on the air was entirely another.

I've never really had the support of too many people along the way but sometimes all you need is the support of just one person if it's the right one. At the network, there was one executive in particular who always had noticed the potential in what I was doing. He was solely responsible for getting my show aired nationally a year or so earlier and he was my only hope at getting the show back on the air anywhere ever again.

There was nothing ever in it for him other than being able to use the show for its Canadian content and if he was going to go to bat for me again and get the show on the air, it had to be good. I had to have some new footage that showed I still had some good ideas left in me for another season.

I knew that I still had the support of my sponsors who where eager to see me get my show back on the air again and my sponsors wouldn't have still been their with me if I didn't have a loyal fan base who had continued watching the show and kept my ratings strong but none of this mattered if I couldn't get the show on the air.

After I delivered the DVD showcasing some of the new footage I had been shooting to the network, everything boiled down to one mans opinion and his ability to somehow get my show back on the air.

Summer of 2005

I hope there comes a day when I get to make some lame thank you speech in front of a large TV viewing audience. Not because that means everything eventually worked out for me and I found the success I have always been searching for in TV land. Mostly because I will get to publicly thank one man for his support, his faith in what I was capable of and for making any success I will ever have in this industry even remotely possible.

After making alterations to the existing network programming schedule and convincing several other executives to find a way to get my show back on the air, in the summer of 2005 my little late night TV show was back on the air.

Fall of 2005

After another new season of my little late night comedy series had been broadcast on network television I found myself in very familiar territory.

Completely out of debt and free of all the financial pressure that had dogged me ever since I began this quest, I now found myself back on television and able to once again carve out a night for myself on the dial.

With plans to re-air my new season again in the fall and right up to the New Year, I began thinking about what my next step would be.

It had been years now since I first went on the air and more than ever I felt I was still just doing the same old dog and pony show. I needed a new tack! If I was ever going to go beyond this point in this so called career of mine I was going to have to find a new concept and discover a new found inspiration for myself.

That inspiration came in September at the Toronto International Film Festival. Every year I would go down to the festival to look for celebrities to shoot footage with and have some fun on the streets of Toronto . This year was different because I was actually invited to the festival and a few of the functions because I was in a film that was screening at the festival.

Months earlier during the period when the show wasn't on the air, I had time for the first time in a long time to work on some things other than the show. I was asked by a film student to act in a short film he was working on and I agreed to do it. Chris wasn't just a young film maker, he was also a talented musician who had been creating original music for me on the show for the last year or so.

Being involved in the film project was a lot of fun and it turned out great. Like I was mentioning, the film actually ended up being accepted and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, so after years of creeping around at the Festival and trying to sneak into various functions ect, suddenly I was being invited to the red carpet gala parties and events I had to sneak into a year earlier.

I was meeting lots of talented young film makers and screening all kinds of short films that no one ever gets to see. I guess that's when I became inspired to go in another direction with my television show I shot lots of behind the scenes footage on the set of “Day of John” for my blog back when we were shooting it. People really seemed to enjoy watching the footage I had been putting on my website and I started thinking, maybe this kind of stuff would make for interesting T.V. as well. Maybe I could create a new television series that would showcase a new short film at the end of each episode and the rest of the episode could feature a behind the scenes look at how we make the movie with no budget and in hardly any time. I could work with unknown filmmakers and first time directors and keep things interesting each week for the viewers by adding a few surprises into the mix while shooting the movies.

It was the inspirational idea I had been searching for and so, I set out to have my new series on the air by January 2006.

Winter of 2005

Not since I had begun this quest for a network deal, had I ever been out of debt and in a place where I could step back, relax and figure out what it was exactly that I was looking for.
Was it still a network deal or had it become just about the money and getting out of debt? Maybe it was more about finishing what I had started and reaching a level of success that I could live with if in fact, I was nearing the end of my journey.

Having the show pulled off the air, in some strange way, had given me an opportunity to catch my breath and decide what direction to head in next. I'm sure I never would have willingly stopped the weekly grind of trying to produce another new episode in hopes of re-inventing myself over and over again. So in retrospect, maybe it was good that the decision was made for me. It didn't feel that way at the time, because I was finally out of debt and preparing for the first time to produce some television for the right reasons. It wouldn't have been just for the money I could get from sponsors, who liked the ratings the show continued pulling every Saturday night, it would have been for the purpose of making a good show, for a change. A show I could be proud of without always thinking it wasn't as good or as funny as it could have been.

Or did that even matter any more? I spent most of the winter thinking about it. My folks have a place down in Florida and without a show to produce each week, I was able to spend a little time down south over the winter. There's nothing like a warm breeze off the ocean while watching the sun go down in the middle of January to help a guy relax a little.

If I was going to keep trying to land that damn network deal, I was going to have to get back to working on it sooner than later. After all those years on the air, it only took the network suits a couple months to pretty much forget who I was. Taking too long to figure out what I was going to do next would have probably ended by quest for good!

Winter of 2006

Nobody told me five years ago when I was strapping myself in for this rocket ship ride towards TV land that there was only enough fuel for a couple years and there wasn't an escape hatch.

Hell I feel like I need to vomit after two trips around on the tilt-a-whirl so imagine what this ride has felt like for me all this time. I'm not sure if I'm suddenly qualified to become an astronaut but I'm finally enjoying the view. The tanks seem full and the ride doesn't even seem so bumpy all of a sudden.

In January I am producing a brand new television series, I've got myself a pretty good late night time slot and the folks at the networks and my sponsors both seem as pumped about my new direction as I am!

The series will showcase a new short film each week along with all the outrageous and sometimes almost unbelievable things that happened while shooting these films. All the movies are being made by unknown film makers with no budgets and I'm giving them just two days each to shoot their short film. I'm involved in each project and will act as the television viewer's guide and top secret spy. I'm also involved in the casting of these movies so expect to see some unlikely actors to be in some of these short films. I'm the one responsible for giving every one of these writers and directors the chance to showcase their talents to a national television audience but I'm probably their worst nightmare as well. It's more fun than anything I have ever done on television to date.

I think for the last five years I have been trying to re-create the kinds of things my friends and I were doing five years before that! I've been motivated by all the wrong stuff and inspired by my past not the future. All that seems to have changed for me now and working along side young and talented film makers and writers has opened my eyes to the future again. This truly is a rocket ship ride I'm on right now and I can't wait to see where it takes me…

Spring of 2006

Spring is one of those seasons that represents change. The cold frigid winter gives way to warmer days and another new beginning. Now keep in mind, I have seen four seasons of change pass me by and not much had ever changed in this relentless pursuit of a network deal. I suppose that is why I wasn’t all that optimistic about meeting all the new suits who recently were hired to take over and reinvent the network I have been calling home for the last four and a half years. I guess my somewhat jaded perspective on where I was getting in at the network blinded me a little to how open-minded the new folks at Global were with regards to the development of new programming at the network.
Almost five years after getting myself on television, it was the first time for these guys to ever real learn about me. For all they knew, I wasn’t some guy who had almost entirely had all his enthusiasm and spirit kicked out of him. I wasn’t some guy who had all but given up on the idea that he had lots of creative and original ideas that could be developed into an entertaining television series. I was some guy who was coming in for a meeting to introduce himself and possibly pitch an idea for a television series.

Although it seemed almost unbelievable to me that I was still so far under the radar that television network executives, after almost five years on the air, still had no clue who I even was, I soon realized that I was way better off being considered as the new bid in town as opposed to that guy who bought his own airtime and is still plugging away on latenight television.

Luckily for me, the same two guys, and only two guys, at the network who had ever really supported me all these years were still at the network, and were more optimistic than ever about the this meeting hey had set up for me. This was the break I had been looking for all these years and they made damn sure I knew it.

The meeting didn’t last all that long, but it went awesome. I didn’t even have to pull out the size 14 bowling shows I had brought along with me in my bag. Before I knew it, I was being asked how I would feel about working with a producer and abandoning the idea that I needed to do everything myself to make funny and interesting television.

I suppose I couldn’t blame them for being concerned about how willing I would be to start working with other people after independently producing and making television all on my own for so long. Clearly they had no idea how burnt out and tired I was of doing everything completely by myself.

All I have ever wanted was to be able to focus on the creative side of producing television. Being funny always ended up as the last thing I ever worried about. I had always had my instincts, but it was all the other crap that I needed to work at and make sure I took care of each week to keep hanging in there.

Summer of 2006

For five summers I toiled away mostly on my own creating a half-hour latenight comedy show in an attempt to catch the interest of a network executive who might see the potential in I might be able to do if I wasn't doing everything all on my own all the time. I wish I could say that for five summers I had been making creative and truly hilarious television but that's never really been the case, or at least not in my mind.

As I slid into my sixth summer of Television 101, it felt a great deal like I had indeed graduated to a higher place of learning and this would absolutely be a brand new opportunity for me to define and carve out my future.

I spent five years in Highschool learning how to take a joke and that being funny was the only way to meet girls when you're four-foot nothing and skinny. I spent five years at University having the time of my life and reassuring myself that the four-year Outdoor Recreation degree I was getting would never perpare me for life the way a honed sense of humour could.

Now that my five-year crash course in Television 101 had come to an end, it was time to embrace this new-found emthusiasm for what could have been. Ten years too late, but the summer of 2006 was the beginning of what will probably be another five-year chapter of what has now become more about my life history than an actual show history.

My very first network television series went into production half-way through the summer, and three-quarters of the way through the shooting of my independently produced series that aired Friday and Saturday nights nationally all summer.

This new series was scheduled to go on the air in in the fall as a prime-time Canadian produced series. More people were working on the show with me than I had in total to help me make my independently produced series for the last five years. There were more than a dozen of us working on the show, but with everything else I was doing that summer, if felt like I was busier than I had ever been, but there was one thing different: I was enjoying every second of it!