School Year 1991-1992
Terry Jones Interview
As part of my research for my undergraduate honors thesis, I had sent
out letters to comedians on both sides of the Atlantic, who were members
of the two comedy schools I was contrasting, the Oxbridge Mafia (U.K.)
and the Second City Players (U.S.).
Much
to my surprise, I received a letter in February from Terry Jones, agreeing
to an interview. This makes sense when you consider that he's a scholar
himself, having written a book on Chaucer's Knight.
I secured an engineer, Don Klees, a MPS member and WPSU compatriate. I called Terry Jones' office to set up a time, and then all was go.
The interview took place in the old WPSU production studio, in Sparks Building.
Tuesday, February 18, 1992
I was up early and arrived at the station before Don Klees, but I didn't set up anything until he got there. Once we'd set it all up and checked levels, I went over my questions and fought off the pre-interview jitters. At the appointed time, I made the call. A woman answered, and I told her who I was. She got Terry on the phone. But before we could go any further, I found out from Don that I was on the wrong phone line! I told Terry what had happened, and I hung up and called back on the right line. Then I put it on hold while I went into the other room.
Originally, I'd planned on letting him know a little about what I was doing, but he told me he had to leave in 20 minutes and encouraged me to "fire away" with the questions. Once I got rolling with the questions, it went very well. I think my big problem was worrying about how much time we had left and whether I could cover all of the important questions. As such, I'm afraid I didn't listen as well to his responses at the time as I should have.
Well, at about 20 after, with the meat of the questions covered, he excused himself. But remembering my promise to Don, I asked him to say hello to my engineer first. He did so, much to his credit. I suppose he could have been really rude and said he had to rush off. I felt like a cretin asking him to stay on, when he had an appointment and had to be going. But Don only spoke to him for about a minute, so I guess he wouldn't have been too upset with me.
All in all, the interview went very well. In fact, Terry said that if I need anything else, I can just "ring him up."
Like I said, it was a relatively good interview, even including the minor things that I always kick myself about later. I feel very privileged to have spoken to him, as well as elated and proud and relieved that it's over.
