I never experienced "page rage" (my rage didn't manifest itself until Dick Clark shorted me a few thousand dollars). I also experienced something very different as a page on the west coast. Many of the pages had no genuine interest in television, much less NBC... it was simply a paying gig... an easy gig compared to some. We were paid $8.50 an hour to lead tours, seat audiences, stuff tickets into envelopes, and field phones calls from the looniest viewers (the NBC switchboard had an unofficial policy to transfer the hardcore nutcases directly to the page offices, just to keep us entertained).
And my tours seldom, if ever, glamorized NBC or the industry. I showed reverence for Johnny Carson... and that was just about it. I made fun of everyone and everything I saw, and I expected the same in return. I loved it when the NBC employees heckled my tour. I loved it when Howie Mandel and his team of writers would follow me around with a hidden camera (I'm still expecting to see some of that unused footage on Howie-Did-It one day), giving sh*t to me and my tour groups. Without the jokes and heckling, it would have been a boring tour (when I was there last month, I confirmed I still hold the record for the shortest tour and the longest tour, 13 minutes and over 2 hours, respectively). The Burbank studios did not treat the pages as paid interns the way they do at 30 Rock. If memory serves, there were maybe three or four "assignments" for Burbank pages, one of which was sitting in the Tonight Show hallway for absolutely no reason (a certain female page was requested for that position when it was discovered that she wore nothing underneath her skirt... it was a long hallway... figure it out). And something people forget is that people can only be pages for one year. After that, they turn into pumpkins (I'm not sure how 30 Rock got around that concept with "Kenneth"). I'm still friends with a lot of the pages I knew in Burbank, and most of them are no longer in television. By the time I finally left the page program (after 11 months), I had turned down jobs I had deemed either too low paying or too boring (and wound up working for a company that was actually a front for drug smugglers). And the polyester suit (even the new design by Brooks Brothers) is still a badge of honor for many in the industry. If it isn't leading to industry jobs for as many people, I'd be more inclined to chalk that up to the economy in general before ascribing blame to NBC. On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Karla Robinson <[email protected]> wrote: > http://www.observer.com/2009/media/rage-page > > > > > > > > Karla S. Robinson, Ph.D. > > [email protected] > > > > > > -- Kevin M. (RPCV) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
