{"id":51300,"date":"2015-05-13T13:56:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T17:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=51300"},"modified":"2015-05-13T14:24:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T18:24:12","slug":"the-ttc-is-the-set-of-a-late-night-talk-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/05\/13\/the-ttc-is-the-set-of-a-late-night-talk-show\/","title":{"rendered":"The TTC is the set of a late night talk show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Toronto comedian is using the TTC subway as the studio for his makeshift late night talk show. Host Matt O\u2019Brien interviews guests on the TTC\u2019s iconic red velour seats as the train whizzes beneath Toronto during three-minute segments called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLMmDGdPTWbkeGZKKnNB5SxvqyHPGVBBO3\">Late Night Talk Show on a Subway<\/a>. His guests are actors, musicians and fellow comedians. We talked to him about what inspired the unconventional show.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0CWYkWozVDs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>How did Late Night Talk Show on a subway come to be?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nI did a bunch of pilots for Much Music and MTV and the executives there asked me what [shows] I wanted to do. We filmed 10 or 12 pilots of different shows. I kept saying I wanted to do a late night talk show. They kept saying there\u2019s no budget for that type of thing in Canada. It doesn\u2019t exist because there\u2019s not enough money to fund something like that in Canada. So I thought all right, I\u2019ll just do it myself. I didn\u2019t have a studio or anything and I was like, well, the lighting in the TTC is pretty good. There\u2019s always a live studio audience, even if they don\u2019t want to be there. I just did it as kind of a goof, the first one, and then people really liked it, even though the questions aren\u2019t real. I\u2019m not doing any hard-hitting journalism or anything but it\u2019s fun. People have a good time with it, so I just kept doing it.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Why the TTC?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nI only did it because me and my friend were on our way to a show once. We were looking at the seats and there were two seats and three seats and I was like, wouldn\u2019t it be funny if somebody was sitting in those two seats, interviewing people in the three-seater. That kind of angle, I was like it kind of looks like a talk show and we joked about it. This was five years ago. I quit my day job to do comedy full time and I was like, you know what? I have time so let\u2019s just do it. I don\u2019t have a studio or anything so that\u2019s why I picked the TTC and I thought it would be funny.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>How long does it take to film an episode?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nNot too long. I usually get my guests to meet at Bathurst station because I feel like it\u2019s pretty central. Maybe an hour? Because the questions are pretty quick and I try to keep each episode to three or four minutes. It\u2019s inconvenient when \u2026 the interview\u2019s over but then we just have to ride the subway more together because we\u2019ll be at Kipling. I haven\u2019t explored different subway lines; I usually just go east or west. But maybe in future seasons I\u2019ll go north and south. Who knows?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Ride the union loop? That could shake things up.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em>That could be a real hot season finale, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>So it\u2019s just you sitting on the subway across from a guy with a camera?<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em>I can\u2019t stress how low budget this is. My camera-guy, Dave Dunville, he even puts the camera under a scarf just to not freak people out. Even though it\u2019s pretty obvious he\u2019s filming; there\u2019s a giant lens coming out of a scarf. The hardest part is waiting for seats to become available because I have to have the three seats and then the two seats as well. So I\u2019ll look like kind of a dick. I\u2019ll have my jacket on one seat. \u201cOh I\u2019m saving this for my show. Trust me! I need this for my show.\u201d I try to ride at times that it\u2019s less inconvenient for people. It\u2019ll be like at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. on a Thursday, not during rush hour or anything. And people are usually really cool with it. They see that I\u2019m filming and they\u2019ll give up their seats so I can film a show there. I think I could only film this in Canada. I feel like that\u2019s a Canadian politeness thing.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Any freak outs from fellow passengers?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nThere\u2019s a lot of crazies on the subway but nothing yet. I almost want to end an episode with a crazy thing. But everyone wants to be filmed, that\u2019s the thing. I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll happen the more I do it but people are usually cool. They\u2019re like as long as you put me in the credits. And I\u2019ll put them in the credits if they\u2019re sitting beside the guest with their groceries or something. There was this woman, Jackie, who was on her way back from the grocery store and I was like, I\u2019ll put you in the credits and she was like, that\u2019s all I want.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Do you have permission from the TTC?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nYou know how some subway cars have the rules of the TTC? I read through those and I didn\u2019t seem to be breaking any rules. I called the TTC and the woman I talked to initially just laughed at me. I think she thought I was joking. I was like, I\u2019m serious, I want to film this. She was like, as long as you don\u2019t set up a tripod and use it for commercial use. I was like no, I\u2019m just a goof, really. She was like as long as you\u2019re not really disruptive, it\u2019s fine. I\u2019ve had TTC workers come on while we\u2019re filming and they just laugh at it too. So I think they think it\u2019s funny. I would think that\u2019s something they don\u2019t see everyday. They seem really cool with it. I don\u2019t try to be disruptive or anything. If they have any problems I\u2019m more than glad to pay a permit fee or something. They said it\u2019s not necessary, so I\u2019m going to keep riding that wave.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>What has the response to the show been?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nEverybody seems to like it. I posted it on Reddit the other day and some people were confused. They were like why aren&#8217;t you asking real questions, because the questions are stupid. I want the questions to match how stupid the location is. So I\u2019m not asking about where they grew up or anything. Other people are like why don\u2019t you just interview random people on the subway? I attempted that once and the average person doesn\u2019t really have anything to say. So it just got really awkward and weird quickly so that\u2019s why I kind of stick to actors and comedians and musicians and stuff like that.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Is the show scripted?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nI write the questions on cue cards and the rest is all improved. I try to script the endings. When I interviewed Dylan Gott, I made it look like I stole his backpack and ran off the subway. That was obviously scripted. But then he started freaking out. He really got into it! He was screaming and yelling and I saw [some] people on the subway\u2026almost touched that emergency strip that you\u2019re never supposed to touch and I was like \u201cno no no, this is all just a thing, relax!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>That could\u2019ve gone really wrong. You would\u2019ve been the most hated person on that train.<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nIt could\u2019ve been terrible. But I would\u2019ve kept filming. I tell my camera guy to never stop filming. It still would\u2019ve made it into the episode.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>What\u2019s the future of the show? Are you going to make more episodes?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nWe\u2019re filming more next week. I didn\u2019t think of this being a real, legitimate show. I just did this as a demo, just to show networks that I can host a talk show. But people are really into it. I\u2019ve been brainstorming other places I could do it. Like, Late Night Talk Show on a ferry or on the streetcar or like a paddleboat. Anything! Late night talk show on a tandem bike. We\u2019d have to do more intros and everything. If we had more funding, we\u2019d do a late night talk show on everything. I\u2019d love to do a tour of subways around the world. Like, go to New York or go to London and just do that. I think there are a lot of options out there for it. Right now it\u2019s just me and a camera guy and some microphones I rent from Long and McQuade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Toronto comedian is using the TTC subway as the studio for his makeshift late night talk show. Host Matt O\u2019Brien interviews guests on the TTC\u2019s iconic red velour seats as the train whizzes beneath Toronto during three-minute segments called Late Night Talk Show on a Subway. His guests are actors, musicians and fellow comedians.<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/05\/13\/the-ttc-is-the-set-of-a-late-night-talk-show\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;The TTC is the set of a late night talk show&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8260,"featured_media":51866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-transit"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The TTC is the set of a late night talk show - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/05\/13\/the-ttc-is-the-set-of-a-late-night-talk-show\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The TTC is the set of a late night talk show - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Toronto comedian is using the TTC subway as the studio for his makeshift late night talk show. Host Matt O\u2019Brien interviews guests on the TTC\u2019s iconic red velour seats as the train whizzes beneath Toronto during three-minute segments called Late Night Talk Show on a Subway. 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