Dan Fisher's (Prop Master s1 & 2) A.V. Club Comments Pt. 3

The following comments about seasons 1 and 2 were made by Dan Fisher (prop master for both seasons) during Marah Eakin’s viewing/column of every episode at A.V. Club in 2011-2012 (http://www.avclub.com/tv/the-adventures-of-pete-and-pete/?season=Pilot). They’re lifted from the comment sections. I’ve trimmed out everything that isn’t related to the show, because it’s a long list of trivia as it is. Everything was merely copied and pasted, so don’t blame me for errors.


(continued from Pt. 2)


"Yellow Fever"

This is in my Top Three of Pete & Petes, the other two being Hard Day's Pete and The Big Quiet.

And not just because I get THE MOST AWESOME PETE & PETE CAMEO EVER! Y'see, that's me in the opening montage, as the Farmer at the Ice Farm, waving at the camera, sprig of straw sticking out of my mouth. But it's pretty damn cool, of course, and one of the reasons that I can rewatch "Yellow Fever" anytime, anywhere.

Other cool cameo: as the hazmat-suited worker at the moth hatchery, that's Mike Spiller, our genius Director of Photography. (Now Emmy Award-winning director of Modern Family.). One of the many joys of working on Pete & Pete was my working relationship with Mike, who was extremely innovative on a tight schedule and low budget (he was Hal Hartley's DP) and helped make ours a really fun set to work on. Man crush? Maybe.

Most memorable thing about filming "Yellow Fever" is that by being stuck on that school bus for five days straight in the midst of a nationwide flu bug, at some point pretty much every person in the cast and crew came down with, ironically, "Yellow Fever". Once, we had to pull the bus over so that our director could vomit. That done, he reboarded, and we continued filming. (Remember, our shooting schedule required a new set-up every fifteen minutes. We had no time to allow for illness.)

The Ear Flick Rig was devised and constructed by my then assistant, Jeff Monte, with the flick effect speeded up, so that when Twib says "Ow ow ow" he actually had to say it a quarter speed.

Krebstar Product Alert: Kreb'n Up!

Homage Alert: the final shot of Pete and Ellen, staring out of the back of the bus as it drives away from camera, was a nod to the final shot of The Graduate.

I don't know why the animated moth/butterfly was added in post as a transitional element. I think it takes us out of the "realism" of the episode. That is its only slight flaw.

But my God, what a hilarious episode.

- Mike Spiller is attacked by bees in the opening montage.


"Sick Day"

This will be my final "behind the scenes" commentary for this column, as it was my final episode of Pete & Pete as Prop Master. I had passed my union test at that point and Pete & Pete was a non-union show, so I went on to higher-paying gigs with health insurance and benefits and so on after that.

Truth is, this episode was kind of a let-down. After the stellar script for "Yellow Fever", I remember being disappointed in this one. I felt and still feel that getting something stuck up his nose was kind of a little-kid thing for LPete to do, something I might have believed two years ago. But not for the kid with his own radio station and an astounding ability to blow up things.

So I don't really remember all that much about "Sick Day". I remember that on set, we were to refer to LL Cool J as "Todd", the same way that we always referred to Iggy Pop as "James". But as I've said before, all of our celebrity guests were always great to work with. We shot fast, cheap, and funny, so everybody had to roll with the punches.

I have worked on, I would guess, between 100 and 200 different productions by now. The Adventures of Pete and Pete will always be in my Top Five Favorite Jobs I've Ever Done. None of us ever made tons of dough from it -- not even the actors, or Chris and Will -- and to this day, I don't believe I've ever worked that hard. I couldn't do it today.

But man, we had some fun times.

Oh! I just thought of a funny story, though....

My assistant for Season Two, (the genius) Jeff Monte, had started dating a girl midway through production. By "dating", I mean, "having sexual intercourse throughout the night, every night". So toward the end of the season, Jeff was so worn-down and sleepy that he started showing up to work late. That is a big no-no -- the one rock solid rule of film production is that you must always be there for call time.

John Yeck, our designer and the resident grown-up amongst us youngsters, decided that every time Jeff overslept, he had to go out and buy an additional alarm clock, and he would not be allowed on set the next day until he showed John the receipt for his new alarm clock. By season's end, I believe that Jeff had been forced to purchase at least a half-dozen new alarm clocks.

And yet, on the very last day of shooting, our final day of the entire season, of the entire series, for all we knew, Jeff did it again. He had sexual intercourse all night long, then overslept. I got the phone call that he would be an hour or so late for call time.

When Jeff showed up on set, the entire crew was waiting for him. We stopped shooting and lined up, every person there, from PA's to Grips to Danny and Michael, with a paddle or whiffle bat or badminton racquet in their hands. Jeff had to travel the gauntlet and receive a paddling from every person there, and at the end of the line, Chris and Will were waiting with a sign that they draped over Jeff's neck and which he had to wear the entire day. The sign read, "I'M WORTHLESS AND WEAK AND I LOVE TO SLEEP".

Jeff Monte has gone on to become a very successful prop master in commercials. He makes tons of money to do so, so I am certain that this incident did not inhibit his professional aspirations in any way.

John Yeck is currently the Production Designer for Real Time with Bill Maher.

I'm still doing what I do, living my life on film sets. I don't know if I'll ever retire. I expect that someday, I'm just gonna keel over on set, for which they will stop production, haul my body away, and resume shooting so that the production does not go into meal penalty.



GENERAL

- Danny would hang out on set just to watch Toby Huss improvise, and he would laugh his ass off, as did the rest of us. Danny and Michael never hung out on set with the other kid actors, they hung out with the crew.” – Dan Fisher

- “Artie always had scripted lines but rarely adhered to them.” – Dan Fisher

- “Danny mentioned how P&P's Art Director gave him his first bass guitar. That was actually me, the prop master for the first two seasons of the show, while we were filming Hard Day's Pete. I used to play in a fairly popular bar band in West Virginia, but after I moved to NY to work on film crews, realized my days of would-be rock stardom were over. So I gave my old Fender Jazzmaster to Danny Tamborelli. I've yet to see his band live, but I definitely would love to.” – Dan Fisher

- “I don't think the "Krebstar makes everything in the world" philosophy really gelled until midway through shooting Season One. I have the feeling that the credit for that concept should go to our genius production designer, John Yeck. In the earlier episodes, Krebstar was certainly present, but not yet omniscient.” – Dan Fisher

- “apoc pete was spun off from a :60 version of the story in which Ellen's dad was not played by Steve B. For those wondering how we got Steve B, Michael Stipe et al in the early days of the show, it mostly had to do with our mainstay director - Katherine Dieckmann. She directed all the :60s and all the specials except for New Year's Pete. She deserves a lot of credit for all the things that defined the show visually. She became part of the P and P story when I bumped into her at the Ithaca High School class of '79, tenth year reunion. She had just finished REM's "Stand" video and seemed like the right choice for our first :60 which we made that summer called "What Would You Do For a Dollar?" Pete and Pete was originally going to be about a boy and his dog and shot in a documentary style to save money. Scott Webb, who was the creative director in the Nickelodeon promo department, saw the potential of making mini-movies and championed a more ambitious approach. He is another hero of the show not too many people know about. When I revisit these episodes that started off as specials I can't help but remember the indie soundtrack we were able to afford before it went to series. We couldn't afford the Pixies (we were dying to get Gigantic) but we did have a lot of Yo La Tengo in this one.” – Will McRobb