Brandmeier gets a test drive

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: For Johnny B., fun is on TV : Brandmeier gets a test drive in local late-night NBC slot : "They gave Conan O'Brien time to practice, time to get it right. They said this guy wasn't going to last. Now he's taking over for Jay Leno," said the Loop's Jonathon Brandmeier, who just wants to do what he always wanted to do on television, which is have fun. : "Jon Stewart's show on MTV and syndication failed. I saw in an Oprah interview he said that after that he decided to surround himself with like-minded people and just do the show he wanted to do. That's what I'm going to do, the show I want to do." : The lack of fun was one of the many disappointments of Brandmeier's brief stint 17 years ago fronting a badly mishandled, best-forgotten TV program in national syndication. : "William Shatner's got a TV show out. He was talking to Tim Allen last night. Shatner!?! They'll put anything on television! So why not me?!?" : Brandmeier's "Almost Live!" is a test, just a test. If it were an actual series, you would have heard more about it by now. The show gets the low-risk, low-traffic 1:05 a.m. Friday night/Saturday morning slot only a DVR could love this week and next on WMAQ-Ch. 5, along with a late Sunday repeat. : "All I'm looking for really is a home," Brandmeier said after wrapping his WLUP-FM 97.9 program Thursday. "The hard part is staying under the radar. I really didn't want to talk about this [TV show], but I have no choice but to talk about it. Someone has to look at it." : Brandmeier rented some studio time over the Labor Day weekend, spent a few hours in front of a virtual set superimposed on a green screen, taping something to show what he could do, what he thought audiences might like, what he would like to do. His old boss, Larry Wert, who now oversees the Central and Western Region for NBC Local Media, liked it enough to give it air time. : "You've got some weird, off bits," Brandmeier said. "It was supposed to be a demo of examples, samples of what could be done by me on television. And the one thing I can say, whether people like it or don't like it, is I like me on it." : Brandmeier's TV show resembles his radio program in its use of phone interviews, off-kilter world view and, sure, occasional unevenness. : Some of the best bits are almost afterthoughts, such as a conversation with a guest that continues after he and the guest are off the set. Others are simply the juxtaposition of expectations against what you get, as in what a certain familiar voice says early in the debut. : The real promise here is that the Brandmeier of "Almost Live!" is the Brandmeier of The Loop, long a Chicago favorite. The only drawback is that what's fine as an early morning jolt may not be what viewers want before bedtime. A quieter, less antic approach might have been better, but he didn't know when, if or for whom what he was taping would air. : "People might look at it and go, that's too much, or he's coming at me too fast," he conceded. "I'm just reacting to the stuff I react to." : It's still not entirely clear where or when a Brandmeier TV show would air, if these half-hours are deemed a success. Is it a local show? Syndicated ? Cable? : Rick Ludwin, one of the execs for Brandmeier's earlier TV effort, recalls him as "a talented guy" who was fun to work with. : "Nobody sleeps when he's on—he's high-energy," said Ludwin, who has made NBC a fortune through his ability to argue strenuously in support of those he believes in, including Leno, O'Brien and a certain sitcom starring Jerry Seinfeld that others at the network wanted to dump. : That's the kind of chance to develop Brandmeier wants and needs if "Almost Live!" is to advance. : He is trying again because he wants to have fun, and trying again, so far, is fun. : "If you're afraid to go forward, if you're afraid to fail, then you're nothing," he said. "What good is that? I'd be sitting on the beach in Malibu sleeping by now. That's just giving up. I like to move. I like to do stuff. I like to go forward." : (Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune)

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