This past Sunday Night while I was performing at Kelsey’s London Hyde Park, a kid at a table asks me if I have ever been on television. I said, “Why yes, many times. I’ve even had my own show.”

In fact I have done 12 television specials, 2 series and hundreds of talk show appearance over my 40 year career.

This morning I got an email from Daytime London asking me to fill-in at the last minute (in 2 hours). Apparently a guest cancelled at the last minute. I said I’d love to but I don’t have a car this morning. They offered to come and get me but I managed to find a ride from a good friend, former Original Kids Theatre Company Artistic Director, Art FIdler

For television appearances like this, I do a lot of pre-planning. I always ask who the hosts will be since I need to plan out what routines I will be doing. Over the years I have been joined by dozens of different hosts and early on I started to keep track of who and when. I’m on Daytime 11 times a year and doing 2-3 routines each time, eats up a lot of material. So I keep track of it in a database. I know which tricks I have done for which hosts so that it’s fresh for everyone.

But this time around I had a bigger concern. My Close-up show was in my car, with my daughter!

In this business, we have a term/show we call the Commando Show. It’s a show that we always take with us, as carry-on so that in the event we lose our luggage, we can still do a show. Luckily I had my Commando Show with me (and only because I hadn’t put it in the car yet).

So, I pulled 3 routines from that show, ready to go, ‘out of the box’. Whew!

Shower, shave, dress and I have time to kill before my ‘handler’ (Art) comes to give me a ride. I think the dog would like to play catch.

After 10 minutes, the dog is tired and we head inside to wait 5 minutes for . . . . wait, what’s that smell?

Yep, you guessed it. I stepped in it outside. Off downstairs to clean off my shoes. Of course now they are wet and I can’t wear them for the show. But this is television and fortunately today they will be shooting from the waist up and the torn, dirty shoes I now have to wear won’t be seen.

So now you know.