"It felt weird but I was pleased to have been a prop in a Joel Hodgson show."

by Chuck in Minneapolis

Apparently {Joel's} disappeared again. He does that. Some years ago I'd heard he was still in LA. I was dealing blackjack at local casino and sometimes, if I was lucky, Scott Hanson would come to my table with some comics after his club closed. It was great. I got a free, private show. Hanson told me then that Joel was out west working on some TV or movie project with his brother.

Hanson's a wonderful guy. I wish I'd been at the show you saw. I'd heard he was seriously ill a year or so ago. But I never heard he died. So I can only assume he got better. He needs to lose some weight -- a lot of it. I've been a Hodgson fan since I first saw him on TV almost 20 years ago. There were a lot of people then pushing the limits of comedy -- breaking rules and doing things that hadn't been done before. It wasn't cool anymore just to have angry social commentary or raw, gritty language in their acts. People were getting conceptual. New Age comedy, as some critics called it at the time, involved turning YOURSELF into the joke. Guys like Andy Kaufman or Paul Ruebens would engage in ridiculous behavior and dare us to take it seriously.

And with Scott Hanson's club around, we got to see much of this on stage in our own town.

Hodgson's act was that he had no act at all: Just an endless series of props. Even his famous character, Agent J., was only a series of props with a theme. He came across as a kid who'd spent waaaaay too much time in front of the TV. He was brilliant.

I remember he resurfaced after supposedly quitting show business in the early eighties. It was something like 1985. A bill at the Comedy Cabaret up the street from my then girlfriend's apartment announced a performance by the first graduating class of Joel Hodgeson's comedy workshop. Apparently he had been spending his time attempting to teach people how to be comics. Amazing.

The place was packed. The acts were okay -- some better than others -- but we were all there to see the last act: Joel's first public show since his retirement. He was great...again. The show was a hit and received a lot of attention in the papers.

A few month's later he did it again with a new set of students. (I may be wrong but it seems to me that the co-stars of MST3K came from these workshops.) This one was on Halloween. Everyone in the crowd was in costume. Everyone except me. I'd had a job interview at Charles Schwab that day and was still wearing my suit. My girlfriend and I grabbed a couple seats up front and waited for Joel to come out. He was hysterical yet again. But for his final gag, the climax to the whole evening, he needed a volunteer from the audience.

He picked me.

There I was standing on stage next to Joel Hodgeson wearing a grey tweed jacket, red tie and grey wide-wale cords. I looked like a dork, which is probably why he picked me. My knees were literally knocking as he put his arm around my shoulders and interviewed me for the crowd. He asked my name and where I was from.

"Elk River," I said.

"Home of the fighting...." he said.

"Elks."

This got a laugh. I still don't know why. He continued by announcing he was going to place the "Bag of Truth" over my head. With this, he said, they would be able to tell if I was answering truthfully any question he asked. Then his students, now functioning as assistants, placed a black sack over my head. There was something in the bag. Whatever it was, it covered my face.

With great flourish he said, "Do you like macaroni?"

I could tell there was no getting out of this. Whatever I said, he controlled the outcome. So I just answered yes. He yanked the bag off and the crowd went wild. Covering my head was a rubber pig face. His assistants lead me behind a curtain while Joel announced to the crowd that it was plain to see I was lying and would be punished for my deception.

Behind the curtain I was placed in a kind of stockade with my arms and legs hanging out front. Also in front was a small protrusion between my legs. The device was built to make it appear as though it secured EVERY appendage on my body. All except my head, which I was told to keep back.

The curtain was raised and the crowd went into hysterics. I looked like the village idiot strapped into this thing with a pig face on my head. Looking up I saw two rails on either side of the stockade extending to the ceiling. Between them was a mirror shaped like a guillotine blade.

At Joel's command, the blade dropped appearing to sever my arms, legs and masculinity. I came down off the stage and the crowd was still laughing and applauding -- no one laughing louder than my girlfriend. It felt weird but I was pleased to have been a prop in a Joel Hodgson show.

Incidentally, Charles Schwab said they'd call me back in three weeks after that interview. I'm still waiting to hear from them.