jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:

...

The fact that we can say "nn-bio" on someone who was on a well-known television show is scary to me.

Yeah, I know what you mean, I'm practically trembling with fear. I've been on *several* well-known television shows, and nobody thinks I'm notable either! (Admittedly, the shows were news programs getting the reactions of passersby :-) but hey, why should that be an obstacle! I WAS ON TV! ZOMG!!)

Hey, hey, I was on TV, too!

I was an actor in the extremely notable television soap opera "Search For Tomorrow," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_For_Tomorrow.

You see, there was a tradition that the annual Christmas show was kinescoped[1] so that it could be aired on Christmas Day without performers having to work on that day. The storyline took some sort of departure from the main stream of the show; I believe it was set in the homes of various characters, who received Christmas day visits from other characters. The format was designed to allow the creation of numerous one-time-only bit parts, and various people who worked on the show had the opportunity of having their friends or kids get written into the show and play a part.

I had two lines:

a) "Daddy, Daddy, it's _my_ turn to play with the toy train."

b) "Goodbye! Goodbye! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas."

I delivered them superbly.

My dad had to drive me in to New York at 6 a.m. in the morning the day they were kinescoping the show.

The turkey shown in on the dining-room table in the show was not a prop, or at any rate I suppose it _was_ a prop but it what I mean is that it was a real, edible turkey, and I got to eat some of it. I got to watch them using an "RP" (rear projection) setup to film actors apparently driving in a car with filmed moving scenery behind them. I also got to keep the toy train (but I wasn't terribly thrilled with this as it was a spring wound train, not electric).

I was at the set the whole day. I believe I had to be enrolled in a union. I know for sure that I earned something like $80 for the day's work and my parent had to file an income tax return for me, which at the time was unusual for a kid, so that they could get the withholding back. The withholding was substantial, incidentally, because contrary to popular impression the income tax rates then were _vastly_ higher than they are today.

After this stellar success, I took a long break from the acting profession to deepen my knowledge and understanding of my craft, which was to culminate in 2002 when I landed the plum role of Max in a local church production of "The Sound of Music" (and knocked 'em dead with my rendition of "How Can Love Survive?")

So, when do I get my Wikipedia article?

[1] The fact that the show was "kinescoped," rather than "taped," together with the age of my character as deduced from my lines and from my disdain of a spring wound train, should enable a shrewd reader to estimate the year of the show and my age to within a decade or so.