The Colin Quinn Show would have to be the most
daring, yet hilarious new shows of recent time. Hosted by
comedian Colin Quinn, the show's namesake, this production is one of the first of it's kind. It is a LIVE
primetime show that aired on NBC at 9:30 PM on Mondays, since the show was new they had some trouble fitting the whole thing in within their 30 minute
timeslot. NBC recently gave Mr. Quinn the chance at his own show and gave him a three show
contract, which expired on March 25, 2002.
Colin Quinn, a native New Yorker, was born and raised in Brooklyn and has a very classic Irish-New Yorker persona in his comedy and in how he presents himself. Colin first made his television debut on MTV's "Remote Control" and was a regular on the show for about three years. But he is probably most famous for his writing and acting in his five seasons on Saturday Night Live. During this time he became the anchor man for SNL's Weekend Update, and starred in sketches such as "Colin Quinn Explains the New York Times".
In addition to television acting, he is also a fairly active stand-up comic who recently did a comedy tribute for a September 11 benefit. Previous to that he starred in his own one-man show on Broadway, "Colin Quinn: An Irish Wake".
Anyway, back to the show. It has a very free and easy-going feel to it. But there's usually five main parts to the show:
- Colin first comes out and does a little humorous monologue.
- Some talking between real New Yorkers about issues like racial profiling and inequality. For this there's usually Colin, an Italian, a Hispanic, an Arab, two African-Americans and a woman or two. Colin puts them all down while they admit that even though they want their rights, they don't really care about the other races' treatment. It's usually one of the most funny parts.
- A commercial parody.
- Channel Zero News. This is news from around the office, like from "the guy who always needs to touch you while he's talking" and "the two black guys always talking about the new plans against their people".
- Short film. A small giggle-inducing film on a popular topic is shown.
- Sketch.
Episodes:
Episode: Episode 1
Air date: Monday, March 11, 2002
Contents:
•Monologue: Colin Quinn introduces the show to everybody and talks about news, being the 6 month aniversary of 9/11 , and how the show is doomed due to the clever programming time.
•Town chat: seven people of different racial denominations gather to talk about their views on how different races are portrayed on television.
•Channel zero news: top news stories from around the office. Voice over by Colin Quinn.
•American Intellegence: clips of foolish backyard wrestling play while Presidet Bush's recent speech is played over the insanity.
•Sketch: a man and his wife (played by Colin Quinn and Cheri Oteri) invite the delivery boy, an Arab-American, into their home for a drink. Colin, who plays a jingoist American war veteran, and his wife belittle the poor delivery boy, "Muhammad". Colin asks him "Why do your people hate us?" and Cheri makes him feel bad for drinking the rest of their orange juice.
Guest Stars: Cheri Oteri
Episode: Episode 2
Airdate: Monday, March 18, 2002
Contents:
•Monologue: Colin welcomes everybody back and cracks some oneliners.
•Commercial: an ad supporting the "Stop the Stupid Jokes" cause. It warns those who suck energy from and ruin others' lives by making over used jokes like "hey, gimme' some of what he's smoking!" and "yep, it's monday all day long!" Voiced over by Colin Quinn.
•Town chat: seven people of different races, genders, and body types gather to voice their views on discrimination of any kind. Some topics that were addressed were: black rights, gay rights, rights for fat people. Rosie O'Donnell cameoed. This one was long.
•Channel Zero News: top news stories from around the office. Voice over by Colin Quinn.
Guest Stars: Rosie O'Donnell
Episode: Episode 3
Air date: Monday, March 25, 2002
Contents:
•Monologue: Colin comes out and prooves that this is, indeed, a live show by showing of today's edition of the Daily News and the New York Times. He continues to discuss how the Oscars this year were a peaceful multi-racial love fest and how it sickened him. He also speaks of how this has been a really bad year for God.
•Town meeting: the same players. Tonight's topic "How the Country has Since 9/11". Also, some commentary on the Oscars. Featuring a white guy with no chin.
•Channel Zero News: News from the guy who takes the Final Four too seriously, the guy who knows your name but you don't know his, the guilty successful black man who feels like he has to bond with his community, and the guy who gave Muhammad Atta his visa (man talks about what he's doing this weekend while indiscriminately approving visa requests from two world trade center kamikaze pilots, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Husein, and Hitler.)
•Sketch: a man comes home to see his slacker activist son...uh...slacking. The father questions his son about the leaves that he was supposed to rake. Then he asks him about his FREE MUMIA shirt. His son tells him about Mumia and how police are racist and evil. The father advances on his son and starts to choke him. The son says that he doesn't feel important in his father's eyes. The father says he can become important by raking the leaves.
•Commercial: The Ethnic Identifier. A man confronts two of his co-workers and talks to one, assuming he is Pakistani but he turns out to be Bangledeshi. He turns to the other assuming him to be North Korean, but he turns out to be Indonesian. Cut to the next day: man consults his Ethnic Identifier and correctly identifies his co-workers countries of origin. Everybody is happy.
•Epilogue: Colin explains that NBC went all the way with the commitment and this was the last show. They take a bow. Actually, they don't, but you get the point.
Guest stars: I missed who was the guest. /msg me if you know or can contribute to the first two episode summaries.
The Colin Quinn Show is written by Colin Quinn, Tina Fey (SNL), and T. Sean Shannon. It stars George Lopez, Ivan Sergei, Constance Marie, Ed Begley Jr., Melinda McGraw, Sherri Shepherd, James McCauley, Valente Rodriguez, and Belita Moreno. Lorne Michaels, producer of SNL, is the executive producer of the show. The Colin Quinn show is recorded LIVE at NBC’s Studio 8H, Rockefeller Center, New York City.
"Col, do what you want."
NBC programming chief, Jeff Zucker