Sam Jack sighting!

Day 43: The search for the Variety Society continues.

Word has it that a Millbrae man has sworn not to shave his beard until the Variety Society returns.

Further word has it that that man was actually a sheep, and that his beard was actually his coat, and that he has subsequently been sheared.

We may never know what was learned from this anecdote.

But finally, a breakthrough. Sam Jack, executive producer of the Variety Society, has apparently surfaced again, this time being spotted by a local wildlife photographer who originally set out to discover whether bears do, in fact, shit in the woods.

The following image, purported to be the elusive Jack, has not been altered in any way:




In a related story, a man claiming to be a local blogger claims to have interviewed a person claiming to be Sam Jack claiming to be Napoleon III claiming to be Sam Jack again about the future of the Variety Society. A crazy story? Sure, but coupled with the amazing photographic evidence above, how can we doubt him?

The claimed interview from the claimed man with the claimed Jack is claimed to be found here.

And now, I'm off to the Great Barrier Reef to investigate a reported sighting of Alexia Staniotas. Or was it Hoboken instead of the Great Barrier Reef? I get those things confused sometimes.

But there's one thing I'm never confused about: I will not rest until the Variety Society is back on the air!

I wonder if I have time to squeeze in a nap?

The Search (continues -->) Continues!

Day 36: The Variety Society is still missing in action. For over a month there has been no sighting of the wayward late night show.

Without them, there is a hole in this community. Local musical acts and sketch comedy groups, bereft of a late night program to perform on, have resorted to selling their bodies on stree tcorners (do we have a source on that?). It is a sad state of affairs.

But now several VarSoc members have confirmed they will be attending a screening of "Roomies", a short film submitted to this year's 48 Hour Film Project.

The time: Wednesday, June 22nd, 7:00 PM.

The place: Lumiere theater, 1572 California Street, San Francisco.

The cheese: Roquefort.

The Baldwin: Billy (disclaimer: Billy Baldwin may not be in attendance. Substitute Baldwins are on-call.)

"Roomies" stars Variety Society announcer and official sidekick Erik Braa and Variety Society executive producer Sam Jack, was directed by Variety Society director Colin Murray, and was written by Variety Society head writer Justin LaneLutter, and also by that other guy who writes some stuff sometimes.

Who is that guy anyway? You know, long hair, inappropriate sense of humor, kinda creepy, who am I thinking of?

Oh yeah, Russell Brand.

Will the Variety Society really be in attendance? Will the film provide any insight as to the whereabouts of our missing late night show? Will the circle be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by?

One more: By and by.

Okay, we made quota. Good, good.

Lost and found. And now possibly lost again.

On May 14th 2011, the cast of "The Variety Society" recorded their sixth live show. On May 15th, the cast of "The Variety Society" sold most of their possessions, bought some Harleys, and drove off into the wilds of the Mojave desert to "find themselves." They have not been heard from since.

After an extensive investigation on behalf of their creditors, we have concluded that the missing comedians are presently missing. No further information is available at this time. It took us long enough just to fact-check that much.

The following is a list of the items left in Dan Sullivan's apartment when the lock on his door "broke off" and then the wind blew it open and then the wind blew us inside and then the wind ransacked the place:

• Three black suit coats with identical mustard stains in the shape of Idaho on the collar.
• Four 8x10 glossy photos, autographed by Dan Sullivan to Dan Sullivan.
• One VHS copy of Elaine May's "Ishtar", still in the original shrink-wrap.
• One novelty double-sided business card with "See other side for details," on both sides. Showed signs of extreme wear.
• One external hard drive containing the last recorded "Variety Society" broadcast, dated May 14th.

We are releasing these recordings as part of our ongoing effort to locate the errant late night show. Also, for the benefit of the public, we burned "Ishtar", and we are thoroughly checking both sides of this card.

If you any information about the whereabouts of our late night show, contact our offices. Variety Society, if you're out there, please come home by September. Your fish miss you.

We just launched a Kickstarter Project: Get great incentives for pledging

Have you ever heard that producing a TV show is expensive?

Well, it does cost a good amount of money, but we've been able to get a great broadcasting deal with KOFY TV20 to air new episodes of The Variety Society!
Companies interested in advertising with us will get affordable prices on a variety(no pun intended) of promotional material.

If you just want to donate a little as a fan, pledges start at $1!! Incentives include downloads of episodes, free tickets, VarSoc T-shirts and much more!

The biggest announcement since our last announcement!

Well folks, last Saturday's show wraps up our pilot season. And to think, just six months ago it was six months ago, and none of this had even happened.

Normally when I say that I'm in a doctor's office or some kind of holding cell, so this is really neat for me.

Clips from episode six will be appearing shortly, and then we're gonna take a little summer break, you know, play coy and hard to get so you don't start taking us for granted and then go behind our backs with other late night shows.

Don't worry though, because we'll still be producing original content with all of our cast members, or at least, all of our cast members who can avoid getting pinched for taping without the proper permits.

That reminds me, we haven't checked in with our favorite announcer, sidekick, and voice actor Erik Braa in a while. Erik, why don't you tell us what the Variety Society means to you?

Yikes! Um, Erik is working through a few things folks, why don't we leave him to sort all of that out. Instead, a word from our resident investigative reporter, Alexia Staniotos. Take it away, Alexia:

Damn! I mean...damn. That's a side of Alexia we don't usually see. But now we'll see it every night in our nightmares, and possibly even just when we close our eyes, from now until doomsday. Brrrr.

Well, creeping alcoholism and unexpected psychotic episodes aside, we'll still be working to bring the Bay Area our special blend of irreverent comedy and local talent, rain or shine.

But not if it's hailing. Hail is where we draw the line. Or that thing where it's not really raining but not quite snowing yet? Yeah, we hate that, we're not going anywhere near that.

I've run the numbers a hundred times!

In case you hadn't heard, we're doing a show this Saturday.

But wait, you say (did you actually just say that? Because that would be so weird...), didn't you guys just do a show less than two weeks ago? Why yes, yes we did, and the fact that you keep such strict track makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like an inverted bunny rabbit.

But this upcoming episode is something of an emergency measure. You see, we have too much Stuff. "Stuff" is a technical term, so let me explain: "Stuff" means content, like the content that we put into each episode of "The Variety Society" (let me know if I've lost you). Usually we get about a two liter bottle each month, looks something like this:

Yeah, don't even ask where it all comes from, there are certain things you just plain don't want to know about TV. Anyway, once we have Stuff, we need somewhere to put it all, and that's where Show comes in:

And now for the number crunching:

Stuff/Show=1

Hot damn, that semester at MIT is finally paying off!

And that, my friends, is how we do business. But this month? Well, this month, we ran into a little problem:

Oh my God! That's almost twice as much Stuff as usual! In fact, let me do some more calculations...it's exactly twice as much! Quick, someone get me a calculator.

Stuff x 2/Show=2

Two?! It came out to two! That's never happened before! It always comes out to one! What does this mean? What dark sorcery has brought this to pass?

With more Stuff than we can fit into the single Show that we've completed, we have no choice but to do another Show in hopes that that will be sufficient to contain it all. And we'll be doing that show LIVE, SATURDAY, MAY 14th, at the BOXCAR THEATER STUDIOS, 125A HYDE STREET!

Let me just twist the cap off of this bottle of Stuff and see what we've got here...ah, it appears to be performance artist and musician Scott Alexander along with director David Moutray, who is just about to hit the festival circuit with his new film "Nobody's Laughing" (which, despite what certain smartasses will tell you, was not originally called "The Variety Society Story").

Now we just have to sit back and pray that the dreaded Stuffx3 bottle is only a myth, because our staff can only take so much. If we keep up this grueling pace, this job might start to feel like some kind of work.

Finding your loser.

Our originally scheduled guest, local dentist Orin Scrivello, bailed at the last minute, but lucky for us "Little Shop of Horrors" star John Lewis was around to fill in. Sometimes these things just seem meant to be.

Really strange the way Orin disappeared like that though. And strange how John was hanging around after he did. And strange how I always thought that plant in the green room was fake, but somehow its gotten bigger since last week.

Ah well, probably a series of unrelated and completely ordinary coincidences. And now, on with the show, without a thought in the world about these suspicious, unexplained events, which I'm sure will have no tragically ironic effect on our lives in the immediate future.

Boy, I sure hope our show is successful, because I really need a way to improve my quality of life and achieve my modest working-class dreams. If only there were a quick and easy way to get ahead that only required some morally ambiguous decisions and a complete lack of foresight or self-awareness.

Well, anyway, enough about my comically downtrodden circumstances and doomed but sympathetic nice-guy persona, instead let's hear about "Little Shop of Horrors":