Some of you might remember Kabin Thomas from his stint teaching the “Music Lecture” course for several years at the UA.
He’s apparently going to be on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight (May 27th), pitching his idea for “Symphony Sam”.
A bit of a Kabin update:
While in LA, I learned about and attended an event in late January called the National Association of Television Programmers and Executives (NATPE) convention in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Resort. (www.natpe.org/) It is HUGE! All the heavy TV and movie network players were
there…Universal, CBS, Turner Broadcasting, Fox, Paramount, Oprah, everybody! 10,000 people in all! I went to pitch Sam to the networks and was as nervous
as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs to be at such a giant event.On the day of the convention, I walked from my room at the Motel 6 to the Mandalay Bay to begin my adventure. BAD MOVE as I am fat and the Mandalay Bay
was 2 miles away from the Motel 6 and it was HOT! I looked like a total sweaty goober by the time I got to the convention center! Here’s where things got
fun….Within 3 minutes of walking thru the door into the convention hall, a gent Ernie Banks grabs me up and asks me why I’m there. I tell him to sell my
kid’s show. He tells me I would be PERFECT to do the segment called Pitch to America (PTA) for Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.” (www.nbc.com/nbc/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/highlights/highlights_page3.shtml) We literally RUN to the booth where this pitchfest was taking
place. So…Within 5 minutes of arriving at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, I have a mike in my hand, I’m covered in SWEAT and I have a camera looking me in the
face. Plus I had to pee real bad! UNBELIEVEABLE!!!! But I sucked it up and gave my pitch. It was MY VERY FIRST PITCH EVER and I’m sure I looked like a
snark, but at least I tried!Well…I got a call about 8 weeks ago from Jay’s assistant for PTA named Justin and he said I was going to be the PTA segment of the Tonight Show in
late March. Well, it turned out the bastards didn’t use my pitch! I was devastated as I told about 500 people I was going to do a pitch on the Leno show and people were watching!!As it turns out, my producer just got a call from Justin Wednesday telling us we are definitely going to be on the next segment of PTA on the Tonight Show on Friday, 27 May. Justin said we are going to be the first pitch in a line of 8 pitches and they are showing the Carmen Miranda segment from Symphony Sam! The Carmen Miranda segment is the part on Sam where I am dressed up like a woman doing a Latin dance. It’s towards the end of the pilot show. It’s what I consider the funniest part of the pilot!
Anyway, Sam on PTA will air Friday, May 27 on the Tonight show. I hope you can watch it!
