TCA Memories
Since there's no summer tour this year (and may never be one again), here are some reminiscences of tours past
When I first started writing for Bullz-Eye.com, a.k.a. The Guys’ Portal to the Web, in 2005, I was mostly doing CD and DVD reviews, but after proving my mettle as a contributor by being the most prolific freelancer working for them, I started doing some interviews for the site. When I became a full-time writer/editor for the site, the number of interviews increased and the number of CD and DVD reviews decreased, which was just fine with me, as I was starting to run out of adjectives anyway. I did, however, start doing more TV reviews, and between those reviews and the interviews, I decided it might be worth my while to apply for membership in the Television Critics Association, henceforth to be referred to as the TCA.
To my surprise, I was accepted, and while I suspect the biggest reason I got in when I did was because I applied just as they were trying to expand their membership to include more online outlets, all that mattered to me was that I got in, which meant that I was able to attend the TCA press tour.
The TCA tour sure sounded cool: you go to the Beverly Hilton, you attend panels featuring the stars and creators of the latest TV series, you get a chance to interview them, and you even get to visit the sets of a few shows. What’s not to like? In retrospect, I had no idea what I was getting into.
First of all, as someone who’s lived in Virginia his entire life and whose catalog of interviews was done almost exclusively over the phone, I was in no way ready for all of the close encounters I was going to have with people I’d previously only ever seen on TV or in the movies. I also really didn’t understand the scope of the thing until I got there. I knew it was going to be long - it started on July 9 and ended July 27 - but I didn’t realize that the days were packed from start to finish with panels, that you had to decide which panels you were willing to miss in order to do one-on-one interviews, and that there were working events just about every night.
And did I mention that the working events invariably featured an open bar? Yeah, that was a bit of a problem for me during that first tour, as I had to learn how many drinks it took me to loosen up around celebrities as well as how many drinks I could handle before being relatively incapable of conducting coherent interviews. (The interviews I did at the ABC party that tour… Well, let’s just say they were not my proudest moments as a journalist. Although I did find out how many drinks it takes to go up to Rebecca Romijn and ask her a few questions…not that I remember how many that was.)
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve told the story about my arrival at the Beverly Hilton for my first TCA tour, but I’ll tell it again: I walked in the door, and the first person I saw was Anthony Stewart Head, who I immediately recognized from playing Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was so unused to seeing celebrities that I actually asked if I could take his picture, and he was kind enough to say, “Of course.”
It never even occurred to me that he was actually there for a TCA panel for a BBC America series. Was it for Merlin? Or was he a guest star on Hotel Babylon? I can no longer remember for sure, but I believe both are accurate credits, so perhaps it was indeed for both of those things. Whatever. I just knew that I’d had a close encounter with Giles, and I immediately called my wife to tell her as much.
As I was doing so, however, I suddenly realized that I was walking directly behind Dick Van Dyke. It was at that moment that I realized that I was going to have to seriously step up my game in terms of not being in awe of famous people, because there were literally famous people at every turn.
By the way, I didn’t say anything to Dick Van Dyke at that moment, but like Anthony Stewart Head, he was there for a TCA panel, one where he was promoting a Hallmark Channel movie called Murder 101: If Wishes Were Horses. Of course I was at the panel, and even though I’d just walked behind him a few hours earlier, I was still giddy at the mere fact that I was in the same room as him. Back in the pre-COVID era, when TCA panels ended, you could go up to the stage for a scrum, which - as you probably know - is when journalists basically surround someone and ask them questions for as long as the person is willing to put up with it. So I went up and stood in the scrum, and I…didn’t ask anything. I literally just stood there and enjoyed the experience of listening to Dick Van Dyke answering questions. And when he was done and just about to leave, I asked him if I could get a picture with him.
Mind you, I didn’t realize at this point that TCA members were absolutely, positively not supposed to ask stars for photos in situations like that. It was less frowned upon if you were doing a one-on-one interview somewhere away from the maddening crowd, but you were supposed to be professional in those post-panel moments. I was roundly chastised about this lapse in decorum afterwards, and I apologized profusely for my error, but by then I’d already taken quite a few photos with folks. Oops.
(One person who was also at the Hallmark Channel panels but with whom I didn’t get a picture, alas, was Ernest Borgnine. I did, however, stand around and listen to him hold court after the panel, and just hearing that cackle of his was pretty awesome.)
The other thing that really stands out about that first day of my first press tour was the evening event, which was held by HBO. We were shuttled over to the site of the gathering - the W Hotel in Westwood - and I remember getting off of the bus and just being kind of overwhelmed at the casualness of it, journalists and talent, all sitting or standing around, eating and drinking and doing interviews. As I wrote at the time, “I’d only just started up the path to the pool area, where the party was being held, when I was greeted by a waiter offering me a glass of champagne, and it only got better from there. The menu consisted of filet mignon and grilled lobster, with gourmet chocolates from Boule flowing left and right for dessert. The décor was reportedly inspired by barbeques in the Hamptons, but I have no frame of reference for such things, so all I did was wander around, feeling totally out of my element.”
I vividly recall standing in line for food and hearing someone complaining about their filet mignon, because I told myself, “If I ever get so jaded that I’m complaining about filet mignon in any capacity, I just need to quit this business.” Mostly, though, I just remember still being in that phase where I couldn’t believe who was there. James Gandolfini! The guys from Flight of the Conchords! The dudes from Entourage! Even Luke Perry was there for John from Cincinnati, although me being me, I just talked to him about playing Sideshow Luke Perry on The Simpsons, which was clearly a career highlight for him.
I snapped a couple of pictures while I was at the party, although I don’t think I was supposed to. (I told you, I didn’t understand the scope of the thing, I didn’t understand all of the rules… The word “overwhelmed” really is appropriate here.)
As I left the function, I was handed a gift bag that included a bottle of champagne and a small box of those gourmet chocolates. Hell of a first day at the TCA tour…
Some other highlights of that first tour…
A live table read of Family Guy’s 100th episode by the whole cast
Meeting Lorne Michaels and chatting with him for a few minutes with Dick Ebersol standing next to him (this was a big deal for an SNL geek like me)
Getting pizza delivered to the TCA by Craig Ferguson from his favorite Chicago-style pizza place in LA because he knew the food at the hotel would get old after awhile
Doing a shot with Judd Hirsch at the CBS party
Meeting Rita Moreno at the TCA party and telling her how much The Electric Company meant to me
Meeting Pauley Perrette for the first time
Attending a BBC America party at the house of Garth Ancier, being stunned at how handsome John Barrowman is in person, listening to James Nesbitt sing a few numbers, and getting a bathrobe as a parting gift.
Visiting the Friars Club for AMC’s Mad Men event that featured a performance by Jeff Goldblum and his jazz group and involved enough Old Fashioneds for me to ask the president of AMC how they could reconcile being American Movie Classics and then showing Catwoman (I don’t remember his answer, but I’m sure it was something about how the letters didn’t really stand for that anymore, as if I hadn’t already figured that out)
Sitting in a restaurant booth and interviewing Drew Carey about his love of bad movies and how it’d take “some Russian billionaire, Chelsea-team-owning money to get me to do another sitcom”
Fox’s party at the Santa Monica Pier
Attending an exhibit at Gallery 1988 and meeting Kevin Smith
My wife and I also attended the TCA Awards, which took place in the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton and was hosted by John Oliver. The TCA Awards are never filmed, but the stars come out for them anyway, and that year was no exception. I had to actually do some Googling to see who’d attended that year, and the list included Alec Baldwin, Brian Baumgartner, Lorraine Bracco, Connie Britton, Kyle Chandler, David Chase, Jack Coleman, Edie Falco, Michael C. Hall, Mindy Kaling, Masi Oka, Adrian Pasdar, Zachary Quinto, and Sendhil Ramamurthy…so, yeah, we gave some awards to 30 Rock, The Office, The Sopranos, Friday Night Lights, Dexter, and Heroes. That list of names was from the official TCA press release about the awards, by the way, but I know Angela Kinsey was there, too, so I guess they just missed her. I mean, I get it. She’s pretty small.
Looking back at some of the blogging I did during the tour, the funniest thing I found was my coverage of the panel for The Bill Engvall Show on TBS, where I quoted a young up-and-coming actress named Jennifer Lawrence.
Anyway, those are some memories from my very first TCA tour. It’s funny, but I can’t remember what set visits we did on that tour. I’m sure we must’ve done some, but I can’t find any reference to what they were. Weird. Well, it hardly matters: everything else was amazing.
It was a heady time, to be sure…
Awwwww. You brought your wife to this industry shin-dig, you asked for photos with the stars, you drank til you could approach Rebecca Romijn (doubtless politely and respectfully, if a little gobsmacked) and the emotional connection to Rita Moreno was her fabulous stint on The Electric Company. We none of us will ever be so young again...