You Had a TV Show? Yeah!

In May of 2009, I went to TV22 here in Marion with the idea of doing a late-night talk show called Marion Tonight w/ Spencer Phelps. I had done this show before way back in 1997 while I was a senior at Harding, so I wanted to re-live the fun of being the host of a talk show. The owner of the station, Ron Scheiderer, a slimy, back-stabbing, vision-less prick (which I will detail later) said if I basically put everything together on my own, they would tape it for me. So I did. I found a couple of awesome guys on Craigslist who wanted to be the show's band, I wrote all the jokes, scheduled all the guests, got everything for the set (minus the couch), and did my best to promote it because Ron and Andy Russell, the station's idiot general manager, were too stupid/lazy to know how to do it themselves.

Marion Tonight w/ Spencer Phelps was a late-night talk show featuring locally-tailored comedy, interesting guests, musical and comedic performances, and much more. Marion Tonight was supposed to air on TimeWarner Cable channel 3 at 10:00pm Saturdays and again at midnight, but more than 50% of the time, the general manager Andy Russell would literally forget to program the show into the system, so not many people saw it. The show ran from June 19, 2009 through August 17, 2009 until Andy and Ron stole it from me and put a horrible imitation of it in its place.

After 9 shows, the owners of the station decided to take the show from me and let their friend host it, instead. I was told I wasn't funny enough to run the show anymore. Then they aired a big "remaking of" segment were they trashed me and all the work I did. The new show was HORRIBLE, and I'm not just saying that because I'm bitter about them stealing it. It really was God awful. Despite dozens and dozens of e-mails that poured into the TV station wanting me back, they went with this unfunny imitation of me. After a few episodes of dead silence during the new host's attempts at monologues, they just dropped trying to be funny altogether. That was probably the smartest move they made. I'm not saying I'm God's gift to humor - far from it. I'm just saying these idiot rednecks were probably the least-funny people I had ever met.

• Read about how the owners of TV22 stole my show and proceeded to ruin the shit out of it. "They Were Just Being Complimentary"
• Rumors abounded as to why I wasn't host anymore. Fired for Nudity?

Unfortunately, due to my hard drive wipe, the only copy of this show that remains is show #8 which was a "best of" compilation show. Thankfully, the overall gist of the show and its best moments are preserved through this show with some cute banter in between clips introduced by me in an old robe. Below are the clips from the Best of Marion Tonight show we did that I've saved on YouTube. If you could, drop by and fix the ratings on these sometime. Ron, Andy, and their friends trolled the hell out of my videos and made fake accounts trying to tear me down. Granted I did the same back to them when they tried this idiotic TV22 Stimulus Plan (which was just them begging for "free" government money because no one in town will advertise with them since they're so despised in Marion), so all's far in love and war, I suppose. =P

Also, as a PS, I want to thank Josh Berridge for all the work he did on the show. I feel bad for him because his talents are being wasted having to work for those G.D. morons.

I hope you enjoy my effort at living a lifelong dream of mine: being a host of a late-night talk show!

Part 1 is an interview from show #4 with TV22's Josh Berridge

Part 2 is an interview with comedian Ky Miller from show #5 and a blooper from the first show.

Part 3 is musical guest "InChant" from show #7.

Part 4 is a compilation of all the best monologue jokes from the first 7 shows.

Part 5 is some stand-up from the very funny Patsy B on show #6. Also, there's a blooper where the announcer says we're having Michael Phelps on the show.

Part 6 is what I think was the best rant. After every monologue, I would do a rant on a random topic. This one was about stereotypes.

Part 7 is a great performance by the show's house band, The Sincinnati SInners from the first show. That's Lex Vegas on drums and Mat Franklin on guitar and vocals. Check out their main band at www.lookafraid.com. Also, there's a blooper where the teleprompter was backwards.

Part 8 is an interview I did with TV22's puppet, "RD" from show #4. I had to talk to the stupid puppet since the scheduled guests no-showed on us.

Part 9 is an interview with TV22 anchorman Dave Giles from show #6. Keep watching. There's a surprise at the end!

Marion Tonight is Copyrighted and Trademarked by Spencer Phelps.