I'll Tell Stories..I'm Not Afraid

I still haven't made up my mind whether Kevin Pollack's Chat Show is something to get excited about or not...but will give it a shout out and let you go see and decide for yourself.



Here's the deal - Kevin Pollack, very funny and very talented actor/comedian, recently falls in love with all the possibilities of twittering and the interwebs and the youtubes and decides to host a talk show. On the internet. Live.

Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show is a live streaming video talkshow seen every Sunday, 5pm, PST, at Kevinpollakchatshow.com. An award-winning actor, Pollak (The Usual Suspects, Casino, A Few Good Men) was also named by Comedy Central as One of the Top 100 Comedians of All Time. Here, he interviews celebrated actors, writers, directors, comedians, and masters of the tech universe.

Here's how it worked. Last night at 5 PST you went HERE and for two hours could watch Pollock first interview Lavarr Burton (Star Trek: TNG) and then Samm Levine (Freaks & Geeks) in a 'let's just shoot the shit' kinda way as the pictures and sound streamed live to you. The set was very low tech...basically a table between two chairs against a non-descript background. There were two cameras, one on Pollack and one on the guest. There was a Director or someone switching between the two cameras. And when it came to playing clips (I thought this was actually pretty cool), it appeared onscreen in a Quicktime/YouTube-type player.

The picture and sound quality was average...not 'great' and not 'brutal'...but certainly acceptable I thought. And below the video player was a chat screen where you could log in and comment or ask questions. That element (which I'm sure was what was supposed to make it different from 'your daddys talk show') kind of got lost in the shuffle. Chat text gets flying fast and furious and though a lot of it was just knobs saying things like: freaks n geeks suucckked or Do Walken - HAHA ROTFL...some legitimate questions would appear but then disappear quickly up the screen as people continued to comment.

At any rate, there weren't too many queries fielded from the internet audience...but it didn't really matter. Pollack seemed to be enjoying himself and the guests seemed to be enjoying themselves...there was a lot of funny stories told and behind the scenes scoop and poop. Overall, I would have to agree with several of the commenters that posted: Better than Fallon's first show.

There was a counter under the player that listed 'Visitors' and 'Online Now'. Nearly 30,000 visitors dropped by over the course of the entire program, while around 1,500 - 2,000 were consistently online watching.

Is that a interwebby net hit? Or a complete bust? How much does it cost to produce and stream something like this? I have no idea. But what I could gather during the interviews and some of Pollacks recent Youtube video diary posts, this has been all thrown together in less than a month with next to no promotion. So all and all I would consider it a success.

And next week he has on Joe Montegna and Jim 'Hot Pockets' Gaffigan...kewl.

Anyway, here's what will bring me back. Pollack and Levine were dishing some of the dirt behind the scenes of Tarantino's new movie Inglorious Bastards (Levine has a role), and then they segued into some of the hoops actors have to jump through when auditioning for directors, and both referenced Rip Torn. The stories! Legendary! exclaims Levine. And then Pollack says:

"I'll tell stories. Not tonight because I want to talk with you (Levine), but I'll tell stories...I'm not afraid."

And that's when I thought...'Hmmm'...this could get interesting.

Check it out next Sunday and see what you think.


EDIT: Apparently last night's show is available via iTunes HERE in top right corner.