John Meyer Books
Changes…Great and Small
It certainly was worth celebrating. Of the forty-six current staff members, fifteen of us were there from the very beginning when the show was simply described as the “Global Entertainment Show.”
“Congratulations, you got the job. By the way, the name of the show is actually Entertainment Tonight Canada.”
Now while we were fortunate enough to team up with the big and mighty Entertainment Tonight, our glamourous Canadian edition still grew from humble beginnings.
Most of the staff had to work inside two trailers stationed inside the Global Television parking lot. And not the nice one surrounded by grass and trees. The uninspiring parking lot unceremoniously dumped on the side of the building.
And nobody seemed to have the keys to these trailers. The first one to arrive in the morning had to ask the security guard to unlock all the doors.
Now while we had electricity, we didn’t have any heat. So just like any September day, we were too cold in the morning and too warm in the afternoon. The only relief from the afternoon sun was to slide open the small windows. But the last one to leave had to remember to close them… or the local raccoons would climb in and have a late-night party.
And it was claustrophobic. With the desks lined up against the two trailer walls, there was very little room to maneuver. You and the person sitting behind you couldn’t just slide back your chairs and stand up at the same time. One person had to have the right-of-way and go first. Desk chair whiplash was a common injury.
Now despite the extreme temperatures, desk chair derbies and raccoon attacks, we launched our show with impressive stars that first night on September 12, 2005.
Sure, the Toronto International Film Festival helped. But our show opened with plenty of bigtime stars like Kate Hudson (still married to Chris Robinson) and Madonna (still married to Guy Ritchie) and Bono promoting the relief efforts for the recent victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Then there was Jake Gyllenhaal hoping fans would support his new cowboy drama, Brokeback Mountain. And Viggo Mortensen praising his new director partnership with David Cronenberg in A History of Violence.
And there was Robert Downey Jr., clean and sober, soaking up the Hollywood spotlight after several lost years in the rehab wilderness.
So today, while RDJ’s celebrates his latest film, Iron Man 3, approaching the one billion dollar box office milestone, we here at ET Canada will soak up the spotlight of approaching our own milestone.
Now we’re the big and mighty entertainment program of 2000 episodes representing 50,000 minutes of celebrity news with 376 hours of footage fed into our station every week!
And we have offices… with room… and heat! The raccoons even leave us alone and party somewhere else. Security even trusts us with our very own keys. And that’s worth celebrating.
For more posts about the day in the life of a writer, check out:
https://www.johnmeyerbooks.com/a-day-in-the-life/
https://www.johnmeyerbooks.com/small-announcements/
https://www.johnmeyerbooks.com/golden-globe-envy/