By Blythe Russo
Are you
tired of sitting at home every weekend? Do you need a date?
Maybe it’s time for you to buy a Mini-Brazilian Soccer
Team, or perhaps the Sheen-Machine action figure which makes
all your old toys pale in comparison.
You can find all this and more on "The John Abrashkin
Show," an original, comical and creative variety show
aired on Northampton’s public access channel every week.
It stars Northampton High School juniors Matt Kristek, Eric
Doyle, and Sam Drzewianowski, a trio straight out of the 80s
who are ready to take over your TV and tell it like it is.
"The John Abrashkin Show" is on Northampton Channel
15 Tuesdays at 6 and 9:30 p.m. and Thursdays at 5:30 p.m.
The three film and edit their show themselves. It has been
airing on NCTV since May and is one of a kind on that station.
Some call it a talk show, others a comedy sketch show, but no
matter how you see it, it’s just a few kids trying to
have some fun.
And now,
your hosts...
The half-hour
program features Kristek and Doyle as the "hosts"
of the show. Drzewianowski’s character name is "Staff
Boy," and he both films and participates in parts of the
show.
The hosts wear sports jackets and each episode consists of
interviews, commercials, desk talk, phone call sections and
advice given by Staff Boy. Kristek and Doyle dress up as zany
characters for each story line. Drzewianowski acquired the
name "Staff Boy" after the first few shows and is
now labeled as their "wacky sidekick."
"He was just going to be an actual staff guy but her
evolved into a character in the show," said Kristek.
Drzewianowski is friends with the two and knows a bit about
cameras.
"They came up to me and asked me if I wanted to be on
the show because I had taken A/V a couple times," he
said. Audio/Video is a class that is held at Northampton High
School.
The program isn’t planned out or rehearsed and half the
time it doesn’t even make any sense. But it’s not
supposed to, the trio says.
Humble
origins
In fact, they
never even expected to produce their own show until they
stumbled upon the idea one time while walking down the street.
"We were just goofing off one day when we thought of the
show. We just decided to name it after him (John Abrashkin)
to confuse everybody. Abrashkin is also a student at their
school.
"It’s a non-sequitur show with a non-sequitur
title," according to Kristek.
"When we first started doing it we didn’t have a
story (line). We just showed up and thought up the stuff,"
said Doyle.
They come up with an outline of what they’re going to do
but most of it improvised, especially the parts of the show
when they’re sitting at the desk.
Doyle was pretty reluctant to do it at first, but all three
overcame their fears of embarrassment and let themselves go.
"Our first episode we made was we never aired. We liked
it but it was total improv," he said.
Every show is filmed in the basement of Rick Kristek Tax
& Business Services, Matt Kristek’s dad’s
office in Florence center.
The plot
thickens
For the first few
episodes they interviewed people on the streets and thought
up questions on the spot. However, they stopped doing this,
due to the fact that it seemed too similar to MTV’s The
Tom Green Show.
Now they fill in their interview time by dressing up as funny
characters that they create. These characters grow more and
more interesting each time under their motto; "If it
seems normal than its just not right."
In Episode #106, Kristek dresses as Professor Philo T.
Farnsworth who is interviewed by Doyle, unveiling his latest
invention, a time machine. The professor leaves his machine
on the show to go claim his medal from Congress and Kristek
and Doyle cannot resist the temptation to use it. They go
back one week in the past and call up their past selves who
are taping a previous episode. It all gets very confusing and
nearly results in the universe collapsing on itself.
Afterwards Staff Boy answers some letters from future people
then Kristek and Doyle agree to let him use the time machine.
They accidentally leave him 3,000 years in the past, but they
destroy the time machine, forgetting about Staff Boy.
Viewer Feedback
The three
students like the fact that they were able to do this on
their own, and many of their friends enjoy watching it.
"A lot of people come up to us and say ‘Hey, I saw
the show.’ They don’t say if they liked it or not,"
said Kristek. "You don’t know whether to say ‘thank
you’ or ‘I did too’."
Several of their friends have asked to be on the show, but
Kristek and Doyle feel that some don’t seem too have the
same sense of humor, and noted that they already have set
ideas for the format.
While adults are welcome to watch the program, the trio does
try to reach out to their age group. They feel many adults
don’t understand "The John Abrashkin Show" and
its humor.
"My whole family watches it but they don’t get it
at all," said Kristek.
Doyle works at the Cooley Dickinson Hospital and he often
gets people telling him that they thought he was "normal."
Not much
technical trouble
Getting the
program going was not difficult for the group.
"It was a lot easier than most people think," said
Doyle. Most people can get their own television show on the
public access channel as long as it’s deemed appropriate.
The teens were first going to use cameras from their school
but were able to use ones from MediaOne. They also edit the
shows at the station after they film them. They film on
Saturdays, which gives them time during the week to edit. It
takes about as long to film as to edit, which is usually
three or four hours each.
"It depends on how well the episode was filmed.
Sometimes we mess up and start cracking up," said
Drzewianowski. They do not have time to do one every week and
seven episodes are completed.
A few Saturdays ago they filmed their eighth program, "The
John Abrashkin Show Telethon." In it they take Staff Boy’s
mom’s credit card and spend all the show’s money,
so they hold a telethon to get it back. Then they proceed to
spend it all again.
Tune in to Channel 15 and see for yourself what everyone is
talking about. It’s not just a kids’ show—it’s
funny, original, and full of surprises.