My song for this month is a fairly short one. It's the theme song from "Trivia Challenge", a cable access television show that I co-created and co-hosted in 1994 and '95.

In May of 1994, my friend Dan and I had just graduated from college, and he got a job at a local cable access station. From the very beginning, he and I were trying to come up with an idea for a show for the station. Which one of us came up with the "Trivia Challenge" idea is still being debated lol. I believe Dan thinks it was him, and I think it was me... but I feel that my claim has more validity. In high school, I was a cameraman on a similar cable access show in my hometown, so it seems more likely to me that I would've drawn on that experience for inspiration. But, whatever lol.

"Trivia Challenge" was a live call-in show hosted by Dan and I, in which callers could answer trivia questions to win prizes. What kind of prizes, you ask? Well, not very impressive ones lol-- after all, we had virtually no budget. A lot of our prizes were donated by local businesses (Burger King was probably our most loyal sponsor). The show premiered on September 13, 1994, and aired every other Tuesday night. It started as a half-hour show, but quickly expanded to an hour. Before very long, we gathered a bit of a cult following in the town where our show aired, and we'd hear many of the same voices calling back show after show. We got to know them by name, and by what trivia categories they were good at, and at which ones they were horrible. And then there were the people who called in just so they (and their friends, who'd all be watching) could hear themselves swear on live television. There wasn't much we could do about it. It was cable access, we didn't have any 7-second delay. All we could do is hang up on them when it happened, and then make fun of them on TV lol.

The show was a lot of fun to do. Dan and I had good on-screen chemistry, and we had a good behind-the-scenes crew who enjoyed doing the show. And although the hour or two leading up to each broadcast was nerve-wracking, as soon as those cameras went on, all of the nervousness went away, and was replaced by the kind of rush that only comes with doing a live show.

In early 1995, Dan submitted our Christmas episode into the Hometown Video Festival contest. It's kind of like the cable access equivalent of the Emmys, and is open to any cable access show in the United States and Canada. Soon, we were notified that our show was a finalist in the Live Entertainment category. Then, in May, we were thrilled to find out that we had actually won the award.

The victory would soon prove to be a bittersweet one. Dan and I were starting to have differences of opinion about the show. My feeling was that we had obviously struck on a winning combination, and that we should just continue in the direction we were going. Dan wanted to try out all kinds of new things with the show-- which in and of itself, isn't a bad thing-- but I didn't think his ideas were very good. To me, my opinion was "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", and his seemed to be, "if it ain't broke, break it". Within a week of "Trivia Challenge" being declared the best live entertainment show on cable access TV in the United States (and Canada lol), Dan asked me to leave the show.

How do you get fired from a volunteer position lol? I'm still trying to figure that out. But Dan officially worked for the station and I didn't, so there wasn't much I could do. On June 20, I co-hosted my last episode, after which the show went on a summer hiatus. I seriously considered ambushing Dan on live television, telling the viewers about how he'd stabbed me in the back. But in the end, I took the high road, said my goodbyes, and kept it classy lol.

A kind of vindication would come on July 6th, when we attended the awards ceremony. We were lucky to be able to attend at all, as the ceremony is held in a different location each year. The previous year, it'd been held in Hawaii-- a trip most of us could never have made-- but by sheer luck, the 1995 awards were held at Faneuil Hall in Boston, so many of our crew were able to go. Upon arriving, I learned that Dan had only submitted his own name, and not mine, as the award recipient. Never mind that I co-created, co-produced, and co-hosted the show. Now, I was pissed. But I stayed calm, excused myself, and went and found one of the show organizers. I spoke to them for a moment, and then went back to my seat. Imagine Dan's surprise when we were both called up onto the stage to receive the award. Oh, but that's not even the good part. The icing on the cake came when they played a clip from the episode we submitted up on the big screen... and the clip that they used focused on me (imitating Captain Kirk's death scene in "Star Trek: Generations" lol), and barely featured Dan at all. As Captain Kirk would say, it was... fun. :D

"Trivia Challenge" did return for a second season in the fall of 1995, but with two new hosts, as Dan moved to a mostly behind-the-scenes role. I have been told by several people who were there to see it that the new version paled in comparison to the first season... much like when Bo and Luke were replaced by their cousins Coy and Vance on "The Dukes Of Hazzard" lol.

After several years, Dan and I eventually patched things up. He's admitted he didn't handle things very well, and we still see each other every once in a while. In three-and-a-half weeks, I'm attending his wedding.

OK, so now that you know everything you need to know about the rise and fall of "Trivia Challenge", I won't write too much about the theme song. There's not much to write... it's a simple enough little song, much as you might expect from me. It was recorded at Salem State College in Salem, Massachusetts on September 8, 1994, less than a week before the show premiered. The full-length version was never heard on the air; it always faded out before the end. On that last episode, we tried to get the guys in the control room to stretch out the end credits and let the whole thing play out, but it didn't happen. I really love the intentionally out-of-tune piano notes at the very end of the song. They make me laugh every time I listen to this.

*Whew*... and I thought this was going to be a short journal entry! If you actually read this whole thing, you truly have my gratitude. I like to tell the stories behind my songs, and I really appreciate it when people take enough interest to read whatever I ramble on about lol. ^_^


"Trivia Challenge Theme" (2:03)
Written August 1994
Recorded September 8, 1994