Joker Poker Night

Am feeling surprisingly good today considering I went out last night courtesy of the Wild Turkey people to the final taping of “Joker Poker” and imbibed a great deal of the sponsors product before and after the show.

From 5pm through to about 1am I was rarely left empty handed in regards to a Wild Turkey & Cola and am happy to report that apart from being a bit tired and flat, I am head ache free and not in the least seedy.

The show itself was an interesting experience for me.  Having been warned by Tommy Dean that I would be bored shitless, I went along with no great expectations.  I was happy that the line up for the game of poker were comedians I knew about – Mickey Robbins, Peter Berner, Nick Giannopolous and Julia Zemiro of SBS’s RocKwiz.

After a few Wild Turkeys to lubricate the vocal chords, we were ushered into the set in Fox Studios – err sorry the “Entertainment Quarter” or “EQ” – we were ushered into the set with a few words from the production crew.  “No phones, not even on silent”.  “No moving from your seat”.  “Please feel free to hoot and holler as you like”.  Seemed pretty simple really and the guys I had met up with were well ahead of me in the drinking stakes as they had been bussed in from the Blue Mountains.

Then we realised that the set was a “dry set” and despite the comedians drinking Wild Turkey and the VIP guests in the upstairs bar area allowed to drink, those of us in the bleachers directly in the line of sight of the camera’s were not allowed to have anything to drink – not even water.  Don’t know why.

As the show started taping, there were frequent interruptions due to technical issues and then the killer came from an audience participation perspective – we couldn’t see the cards on a monitor.  We were therefore actually watching 4 comedians with their backs to us playing poker and we were asked to boo when someone folded or cheer for large bets when we didn’t know what was happening.  Odd.

The sound wasn’t too crash hot either.  It ebbed and flowed and half the jokes were lost on the audience but those that were picked up were funny.  In the end though Nick Giannopolous won the day when Peter Berner went all in and he won his charity a cash prize.  Off air, Peter Berner did a funny routine how Nick G’s charity wasn’t a real charity and that his – Kids Without DVD Players – was a much worthier charity than Nick G’s “Kids With Cancer” charity… bad taste, but very funny but of course wont go to air.

From then on, the night became a blur of Wild Turkey, bus rides, late night McDonalds stop, cab to the Lapstone Hotel, more Wild Turkey and I walked home in the pitch dark from the Lapstone Hotel sometime between midnight and 1am.

Not a bad night and I am happy that I am not riding the Porcelain Bus today!