Sound Effect is your weekly tour of ideas, inspired by the place we live. The show is hosted by KNKX's Gabriel Spitzer. Each week's show explores a different theme, and this week our radio team tackles, As Seen On TV.
Were you a Patches Pal? Those of you who know what that is just got excited and the rest of you are in for a taste of Northwest nostalgia as we recollect the pleasures of beloved television clown, J.P. Patches, and consider why he means so much to generations of Northwesterners.
While on a trip to Japan, Matt Chan saw a segment on television where a man was forced to clean his squalid house. Even though the home was full of trash and rats, the man fought against the people trying to help him tidy up. Upon returning to Seattle, Matt Chan researched, plotted and pitched the now wildly successful show Hoarders. Chan talks with Gabriel Spitzer about the common thread that binds the viewer and the viewed.
What would you do if a stranger tried to throw a party at your house? What if you lived in the apartment building where the movie Singles was filmed? Senior Producer Arwen Nicks lays out the tale of a prankster, a TV and a Facebook event that went very wrong -- or very right, depending on who you ask.
Being a nerd may be in vogue these days, but in the early 1980s "nerd" had very different associations. One of the first recognizable nerds on TV was played by actor Thom Bray, who's a bit of a nerd off-screen, too. Now Bray is also a television studies professor. He and Gabriel Spitzer talk about the evolution of nerd-dom and the legacy of 1980s TV.
Cats. They're full of mystery and intrigue. Wouldn't you like to know what your cat is doing when you're not around to watch? A Wallingford resident decided to set up a series of surveillance cameras to keep an eye on her cats, but what those cameras captured was all too human. She talked with KNKX's Ed Ronco about the capers she witnessed on her TVs.
