UHF25 & RSU Public TV Events - Tulsa, OK

[OneWAY]

Well, I went with Alicia, and we got there about 20 or so minutes before 4 PM; there was a pretty decent line ahead of us, but before too long the line started leading outside of the theater. In fact, the lines for the three screening rooms were starting to wrap around the corner, but I'm getting ahead of myself. They had the line for the signing zigzag across the halls of the theater, but we had made ourselves a pretty decent place. Shortly after 4 PM, Al actually walked by us! I almost missed it, but caught a glimpse of him as he walked next to me. I remember seeing Jay Levey walk around a lot, and he grabbed a bunch of the READ posters with Al and Billy (from Al's children books) on them.

By the time we made it to Al, I had run up to Al and got a bunch of stuff signed. I told him that I found one of the Hawaiian shirts he used to wear on tour, and he seemed genuinely impressed, which was pretty cool! I ended up forgetting about a picture, and ended up being rushed away. Alicia got her picture and things signed and we talked about it afterward. Pretty quickly we made it over to the lines for the screening, and ended up being separated, due to the theater splitting up pretty much everyone.

I ended up in theater 2, I believe. We got Gray, Jay and then Al. One of the stories that kept popping up was about how much Al slept on set, so by the time Al got to us, someone went right out and asked, "Did you get enough sleep on set?" He responded with, "Okay, who's been talking?" Very fun stuff. When asked about deleted scenes, they all brought up "Those Darn Homos" and talked about how they pretty much knew that bit was doomed from the start. This was my first time seeing/meeting Gray Fredrickson, and he had some very good insight and I ended up learning a lot more about UHF than I thought possible.

I remember someone asked about the budget, and Gray said that it was about 5 million. Al said that for the Indiana Jones stuff at the beginning, they used some very outdated (by today's standards) special effects stage technology that was only available in California, which was pretty much the only thing not shot in Tulsa. We got to see plenty of UHF cast members, and Jay talked about how much he wished that Michael Richards was there and how he felt about the incident at the Laugh Factory. When talking about Michael, Jay and Al both mentioned that he was a very sensitive-type actor and that he was feeling a little out since he had to do so many "by the book" script readings, which was why they ended up shooting that Corn Flakes bit with the toy army man and basically let him go crazy.

A lot of the questions for Gray were basically about what a producer does, and basically he said that he was more involved with handling finances and where everything was happening (Tulsa being a city in the State he was native to, of course). After the screening, they told us that if we wanted to go to the 9:30 PM screening, we would have to go to the theater one. They also said Al and everyone would be hanging out in the hall where the book signing occurred, so I went there instead.

I caught back up with Alicia pretty quick and we talked while Al was whisked away to the signing table again. We got in line again, and saw that they started playing the Alpocalypse Tour Live DVD down the hall from us, and there were several folding empty folding chairs in front of the screen. We joked about getting front row seats, but also obviously wanted to see Al again, so we stayed in line to meet him again. I talked a little more with Al, finally got my picture, and Alicia got a second picture as well as an arm hug from Al. Awesome night.

I got another copy of "My New Teacher & Me," a Conan the Librarian poster, a special, signed UHF poster and unknowingly... a Twinkie Wiener Sandwich. It was... interesting.

Sorry if this a bunch of rambling incoherence, I'm still pretty tired and excited!

EDIT: Also, I believe all Q&As were filmed, does anyone know where/if those will be popping up anywhere?

[Alinite27]

They have added a video on the RSU Facebook page that has footage from throughout the day. At the end, there is Q&A footage from the theater I was in.

[Alinite27]

[HalifaxKat]

Loved reading the details of this event -- just learned a few new things!

[fred27]

bought my uhf tour tix