Kevin and the Peacock – Part Four

Here is the recount of my last days as an NBC Page, but bear in mind these were not my last days at NBC. No, Burbank was not done with me yet. Not by a long shot.

NBC Page (conclusion)

As March of 1999 fast approached, I realized my days as a page were numbered. Leaving the program after a year was a hard and fast rule. I started asking the people I’d gotten to know on the lot, but alas the network wide hiring freeze was still in place. My job situation was becoming a source of concern. The tone of my tours changed dramatically.

Many of the afternoon tours consisted of nothing but closed doors, which meant it was largely the personality and charisma of the page that kept the tourists from complaining and/or revolting. As the months went by, my tours had less to do with television and more to do with what was going on in my life. It was like a group counseling session, only the leader was the only one who ever got anything off his chest. For reasons I’ll never understand, the tourists responded favorably to this. I think it had something to do with them feeling as though they had been made privy to the inner workings of someone in TV (in their eyes, I was someone in TV).

Occasional job postings would be posted on the bulletin board in the page lounge. I remember applying for a job with Bob Hope Enterprises. I was offered the job, but told the job would end almost immediately after Hope’s death. Well, the man was older than God at the time. Who knew he’d outlive my days in the industry (almost twofold)?

A flier was posted one day advertising a small production company called Three Ring Circus with an opening as a runner. They offered pay was $10.00 an hour plus benefits. I also interviewed for a job at Walt Disney Studios, down the street from NBC. They needed someone to work in their publicity office. They were paying more than the production company and had a better benefits plan. It all came down to a week in February.

For some reason, I knew I was going to be offered at least one of the two jobs. I was hoping for Disney because it paid better and seemed more stable. Naturally, I did not get the job at Disney because that would’ve been easy. That’s not the way things happen for me.

My last day as an NBC Page was memorable. My last tour was legendary. It was so good, one of my bosses approached me less than five minutes into the tour to threaten to fire me. It was so good, virtually the entire Tonight show production crew came to their studio to heckle me one last time. It was so good, I kidnapped another tour group.

I decided to make my last tour one that I would enjoy, even if nobody else did. It was a full group of about 20 people. Standard tour procedure was to seat them all in a room and subject them to a 10 minute video presentation about the history of NBC with quotes like, “the pictures at first were fuzzy, but there they were… magic.” I informed the group it was my last tour and gave them the option of either watching the video and proceeding with a standard tour, or letting me take off the training wheels and have some big fun. We were off to the races.

I told them there was a rule that no one could take any pictures at any time on the tour. If they did, it was my job as a page to confiscate the camera. At that point I handed out a few disposable cameras to the tourists and told them to take pictures of me, and that I’d confiscate the cameras after the tour.

The regular tour route did not include passing by my boss’ office and having all the tourists wave at him through his window as we wandered to the farthest corner of the lot. I had been to stages nine and 11, but tours were never taken there. Studio nine had been empty since the cancellation of Saved By The Bell, but Sunset Beach was still being taped in 11 at the time. I made it as far as the stage door before being greeted cheerfully by members of the cast and crew. The show was taping, so we could not go inside, but they always felt so sheltered at the far end of the lot that they were calling people and telling them to come outside to meet us. It was right about then when the tour coordinator pulled me aside and told me his boss (the one we’d all waved at a few minutes earlier) was ordering me to return to the pre-designated tour route or be fired. Knowing the best was yet to come, I capitulated… sort of.

I brought everyone to studio one, my chapel, and really let them know as best I could how special a place it was. I brought them inside the green room, a beautifully ordained room with hand painted wallpaper and neat furniture. I took them to the control booth and from there I took them through the control booth and green room for the Tonight show. It was a cardinal sin to bring tourists to green rooms and control rooms, but they seemed interested and I was having big fun.

When we made our way to the Tonight show studio, I was greeted with a nice surprise. Most of the crew and band members assembled to heckle my tour one last time. It was a nice gesture. They even allowed me to sit behind Leno’s desk.

The Howie Mandel show crew was equally gracious. I actually took the tour group into their production offices and watched as the gag writers lead them in circles for 10 minutes.

Tours normally concluded in a room adjacent to where the tours begin. An unlocked door divided the two. As I lead my group into the last room, I heard Erika, another page, loading her tour group into the first room. I told my group to be quiet for a moment, and we listened as the other page gave the routine introduction and started the video. Since the pages had all heard the video countless times, it was not unusual for them to close a drape next to the door to the room and walk out of the room, which was exactly what Erika did. At that point, I opened the connecting door and swung opened the curtain. I quickly introduced myself to the other tour group and told them I wanted to play a joke on their page. I had them all walk into the last room. Then, I returned the drape to its original position and closed the door behind me.

I can remember vividly the high pitched scream as Erika pulled back the curtain minutes later. Her exact words were, “son of a bitch…” followed a few seconds later by, “Kevin!” She didn’t know what had happened, but she knew I was responsible.

A tradition of the NBC pages is that they all go across the street to Dimples, an old karaoke bar, get drunk and sing “Take This Job and Shove It” on their last day. Not being a fan of karaoke, it was a tradition I skipped. Why would I want to have anything to do with karaoke?

Another NBC page tradition is that you get your picture taken along side Tonight show host Jay Leno on your last day. I put on my best Hawaiian shirt for the occasion. I assume Jay thought I had escaped from a loony bin.

The two celebrities I came into contact with more than any other were Jay Leno and Howie Mandel. Howie and his writing team managed to include me in many of their skits. I got to know the producers and was promised a job on his syndicated talk show more times than I could count.

It just so happened that a group of ticket holders for Howie’s show one afternoon happened to be the Portland Trailblazers Dancers (they didn’t like to be called cheerleaders). One of the writers… hell all of the writers told me if I could get the dancers into the writer’s office after the show I’d get a job. I did it and I’m still waiting for the job.

As nice as both Howie and his crew were, the show was a bomb. The company that syndicated the show wanted a Rosie O’Donnell clone, and that wasn’t what Howie did best. The show was doomed to fail from the start and taping ceased at NBC less than a month after I left.

Howie had no sidekick on the show, but his announcer was vocal legend Maurice Lamarche. Maurice is probably best known as the voice of the Brain on Pinky and the Brain. I would go to the green room after the show to raid it for leftover food and drink and often find Maurice there watching some cartoon he had worked on. We’d sit and critique it and he’d tell me stories of that end of the industry.

Leno was a whole different breed of animal than Howie Mandel. I met Howie Mandel once, but I met Leno many, many times. To say Jay Leno has a short attention span is like saying the sun is kind of bright. Don’t misunderstand me, he is one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet in your life. I know because he introduced himself to me at least once a month. I’d be taping off seats for the VIP guest list, or I’d be leading a tour and Leno would pop out of nowhere. It would be like he’d never seen me before.

One of my college professors flew to California from Washington, accompanying a group of students attending a journalism conference. He dragged them to Burbank so he could see me give a studio tour. The Tonight show was on hiatus, but as we passed the show’s studio, Leno walked around the corner and started heckling my tour. He took a few pot shots at my former teacher, which was surreal.

Leno is funnier than critics give him credit for, but that’s because they don’t hear his best material. Most Tonight shows consist of what the pages called the Leno 25. Those are the same 25 monologue jokes with the names and locations changed to fit current events. Every page can impersonate Jay Leno, but to my knowledge I was the only one that ever impersonated him to his face.

Many of Leno’s stage crew were around in the days of Carson. Even Carson’s former executive producer, Fred De Cordeva, served as a consultant on Leno’s show. As near as I could tell, De Cordeva’s idea of a consultant meant he stopped by once or twice a week and told the crew stories from his days working with Lucille Ball, Jack Benny and some other legends. He almost always wore plaid which reminded me of my grandfather.

Having been an NBC page is a badge of honor. People in the business who find out you were a page feel sorry for you on sight. You are the bottom of the ladder in a mismatched, worn out suit and tie. You are the first, and in most cases only, first person impression tourists will see of the studio, and they will tell you everything that is wrong with the network or TV in general, as if you had any power to change it. Pinned to the bulletin board in the page lounge was a list of former pages who went onto achieve success. Everyone from Regis Philbin to Michael Eisner all wore the same bad suit, and that’s not an expression. Those suits have been around for decades and they’ve been worn by successes and failures alike.

I removed that suit for the last time in February of 1999. My parents sold their house and I moved into an apartment in Anaheim. And my girlfriend wanted to be “friends.” It was time for a change.

It was time to join the circus.