Constant Viewer: "The Gordon Keith Show"

Local television programming here in the Dallas / Fort Worth area includes one station, KFWD Channel 52, that airs The Twilight Zone weeknights at 10:30 and immediately before that on most weeknights one of the great guilty pleasures in the annals of situation comedies, Married With Children. Catch as catch can, I’ll sit back some evenings and watch both.

On Thursday’s at 10 pm, however, the independent station indulges in a bit of independent talk show programming, the Gordon Keith Show. (Actually, the show is a production of another local station, ABC affiliate WFAA, Channel 8. It just happens that I discovered the show on Channel 52.) Better known, so far at least, as a radio personality and writer, Keith is an affable if slightly affected sort, inclined to low-key mugging before the camera and an attitude toward the whole operation reminiscent of Letterman calling segments of his show “Network Time Wasters.” The production values (show biz talk for how much money is evidently being spent) make a Robert Rodriguez film budget seem like a David Lean epic, and the shows I’ve seen so far suggest the producers aren’t wasting any money unnecessarily on behind camera frills like professional writers, either.

Still, the show is fun in a goofy, Mickey Rooney / Judy Garland “Hey kids, let’s put a show on in the barn” sort of way. In one program, for example, Keith has the curator of a collection of celebrity bric-a-brac claim that several ceramic pots on display were made by George Washington, setting Keith up moments later to smash them “accidentally” with the neck of a guitar once played by Elvis Presley. In another he had a local critic sit in to provide an ongoing critique throughout the show.

Despite the early promise of cable television and its lamentable sop to local government, the “community access” channel, there hasn’t been much local programming in the U.S. for decades. What once there was, back in the black & white, rabbit-ear antenna days of my childhood was largely either local news or children’s programming. Local news endures, but that’s about it.

And that’s a pity. The talk show format in particular, invented by Steve Allen and perfected by Johnny Carson, remains one of the paradigm inventions of the medium and is perfectly suited to low budget local productions. Alas, the catch is that the seemingly effortless way a master like Carson could make home audiences relax and feel a part of the conversation is anything but effortless, as every behind-the-scenes peek at the Tonight Show made clear. It is art to conceal art even when the “artlessness” of a David Letterman is in fact the art on display.

If the Gordon Keith Show isn’t ready for primetime or, for that matter, syndicated or network late night television –and, believe me, it isn’t – that isn’t because Keith lacks the potential but because, so far at least, the apparently casual artlessness of the show is genuine. But that’s okay. Some of Carson’s own early Carson’s Cellar shows make Keith’s show look as polished as a Marine sergeant’s brass buckle. And besides, like I said, it’s goofy fun. The only question I keep asking myself is, “Sure, but wouldn’t I rather be watching Married With Children right now?”