"shiny turbulence"

Wednesday night was Entertainment Night here at school. The UCLA Alumni Association invited alumni with careers in the entertainment industry to sit at tables and field questions from students making the rounds. The event wasn't particularly life-changing, but I did get to harass some cool people. For example…

I met Samwise Gamgee! Apparently, Sean Astin and his wife are UCLA alumni. I got to sit at a table, shake hands with, and talk to a Hobbit (and Goonie) for a good half-hour. How cool is that? He even showed me his Fellowship of the Ring tattoo.

I also talked to Bob Bodon, the senior vice president of programming for the Game Show Network. This guy has worked on every game show imaginable. He knows the exact date when Gene Rayburn died! I asked him about the infamous ice cream man episode of Press Your Luck and he said that yes, the Game Show Network has the rights to air that episode and will do so in the coming months, possibly in conjunction with the Bill Murray movie about that episode. Whoo. Oh and I chewed him out for co-creating that lame Fox game show Greed.

Finally, I talked to (get this) the executive director of broadcast standards at Fox. She's the Fox censor, if that's not a redundant title. The question "what were you thinking?" popped up many times during our conversation. Among the things I learned from this really cool lady: Amy Fisher was replaced with Paula Jones on the upcoming Celebrity Boxing special because Fisher's parole board wouldn't let her fight, Greg the Bunny will rock my sitcom world, and Fox plans to air a special best described as a kids version of Candid Camera. Gotta love Fox.

That is all.