| The pilot episode took considerable preparation. We had a crucial puppet to construct, a significant set to build, a number of location shoots to arrange.
For the puppet (cowboy "Smilin' Tom") we stole a head and hands from an existing doll and had a custom clothing shop build him an outfit. I hired a sign painter to do some basic graphics, and a carpenter to do some woodwork for our "corral" set.
We recruited a cameraman from the station with ENG (electronic news gathering) gear to shoot our location bits (for fake ads).
The theme song was recorded by Rob, the core script written by Mike, and I did all the extra sound editing and the computer animation that becomes the show’s new intro. We recruited an old guy from the station to play the crucial part of Cowboy Pat (who appears only in the first five minutes) and gathered a few key costumes.
| "I've often wondered if any of the station's management ever actually watched the show... somehow I can't imagine that they did or the people making it never would have gotten away with half of what they did!" reviewer on Amazon.com |
Then we booked a day in the studio, had the day before to set the set, shot the studio material, and then started editing. For this first experience I had to let the TV crew do the majority of the cutting on the pilot, which took two days. It was shot entirely on ¾" Umatic tape, which will give video aficionados out there some idea of both the era and budget level of this production.
It didn’t happen right away, but within a few months we had been approved for a series, our pilot episode having proven considerably more entertaining than they had expected it to be, and within a month of that decision we were heavily into pre-production.
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