I have a confession to make: I'd never listened to the Newbridge Mayubernatorial debate. That was broadcast about six months before I started listening regularly, and I haven't actually gone back to listen to huge numbers of early shows, but Austin from Chicago's post inspired me to finally do so. This episode is completely amazing and hilarious. The canned audience applause makes me laugh every time, and I think maybe my single favorite thing is how the one candidate who actually has some substantive ideas for things that could benefit the people of Newbridge--Pudge--never stands half a chance because he lacks self-confidence (which in this context is to say he lacks overwhelming, completely unjustified egomania).
If you ever want to read this debate, you can do so here:
http://www.recidivism.org/2008/08/balance_buddies.html
VON TRIMBLE: Little guys need pleasure, too!
Aside from the stunning performances involved in the debate itself, what I really love about that episode is where it places Tom in the context of Newbridge, that he's evidently the most respected broadcast journalist in the city and is hosting the debates. And accordingly, he's instantly ready to blow off radio for TV. Just one of those hilarious Newbridge-Tom show-within-the-Show character details that I don't thing ever gets enough credit, that Tom is simultaneously playing a character and hosting a live, unscripted radio show.
The Mayubernatorial Debate era is also the source of one of my biggest Newbridge mysteries, the brief and terrible rise to power of Tor Halversom and what happened to cause his ever faster fall. I always got the sense that there was a storyline brewing there that ended up changing course.
Another great thing about Tom playing a character while simultaneously hosting a "real" show is that never once has Tom ever broken character and said, "By the way, this is a fictional thing I'm doing, and
let's have a big hand for Jon Wurster," nor has he ever even acknowledged that Jon Wurster plays all the different characters on the air. After 13 years, Wurster calls are still framed as "just another call," even though it's become clearer that there's a collision of fictional and non-fictional worlds. The first Wurster call I ever heard didn't seem like a "fake" call to me at first, because in the context of the show, when the callers and Tom can both be so combative, having Jon call up as some weird, uber-confident guy just seemed like business as usual. When I first heard the Best Show, I had to go online and research who it was who was playing the characters on the show - listenership/fandom requires actual work because Tom doesn't give away the secrets to the show
on the show. I can't imagine how weird that must have been for listeners in the early days when the show was local and there was far less information about TBSOWFMU online. Even now, with a wealth of info about Tom and Jon out there in the media, Tom still has to shore up the mystery about the process of the show's production in order for it to work as well as it does. When you think about it, Tom's absolute, steadfast refusal to acknowledge the separate worlds of "the show" and "Newbridge" is really bizarre and brave - instead of breaking down the Fourth Wall, Tom is constantly
reinforcing the Fourth Wall. That trick neatly reverses the gains of post-modernism (in a way). With everything being so "meta" these days, it's almost reverse-meta.
