Good Morning Robinson!
During my senior year of high school, the morning announcements were switched over from just reading notes over the intercom to a 10-minute TV program. For the most part, it was boring. Different anchorpeople simply read pages of announcements every week while whoever was behind the camera used a million fade out / transition effects. So I was surprised when my Calculus teacher, Mrs. Jurinski, thought I should try being the producer for one week. I had just done another Mario Paint animated cartoon video project. I talked to the afterschool sponsor, a guy named Mr. Plath (see Eugene, I remembered), and stayed after one day to watch how it was done. Basically, the drama kids were in charge of things. If the drama kids at your high school were anything like mine, they were always showing off and treated each other like a class of celebrities. I watched as one guy, Shaun, brought down a new video camera and the drama techies drooled over it, treating this boy like Kubrick.
Suffice to say, we changed all the rules. Don and Eugene were my anchormen. Andrew usually had pole vaulting practice but he often stuck around for a while. First, I made an introductory cartoon on Mario Paint with They Might Be Giant's SenSurround rocking in the background. Every day, something new exploded in the cartoon, including a scene where a tank blew up the rival school, Lake Braddock. Then Don and Eugene would start the announcements, but add sarcastic comments after every other one. We also changed camera angles often, and even used some footage we filmed at home. Don came out of a sewer, Eugene lost in Connect Four and threw the pieces in the air, and I'm pretty sure we used the trampoline for something too. Then I made special advertisement cartoons, like when the school policeman, Officer Boffi, talked about the fabulous 3-for-$1 Otis Spunkmeyer cookie deal at lunch. We broke the anchor table when Eugene jumped across it for some unknown reason, but instead of trying to cover up the evidence, we aired the clip. We had Jeff Chin fill in for Eugene one day, and then Eugene came out unexpectedly in the middle of the announcements and punched him in the face before reclaiming his seat. Probably my favorite clip was promoting the annual "Ram Jam" concert by doing a voice-over for a video of Carson Daly talking to Matt Pinfield. Don Simpson's "Sports Machine" wasn't that bad either.
The drama techies were none too happy. We completely revolutionized the morning announcements, and some of the things we did (like camera angles, music and home video clips) were emulated for the rest of the year. I produced the show for two separate weeks, and during the second time, we got an absolute flood of announcements from organizations by Tuesday, because they knew people were paying attention to Good Morning Robinson for the first time. I almost got in a heated argument once with Mr. Plath over having to cut some of the crappy announcments to fit our 10-minute limit. But it was great to be behind the camera, putting everything together into an entertaining package while only my friends really knew I was in charge of everything. Somehow, I have a feeling I'll step back behind the camera someday, but we'll see. Okay Samurai, if you remember anything about the announcements that I forgot, go ahead and post it.
Sunday, June 1 at 5:18 PM
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