In another world, the intro to Smells Like Yukon segment #04 might have found the frisky Canada Games “spayed and neutered” rather than “gone to Disneyland.” The Whitehorse Airport wouldn’t have been “quiet;” instead, Larry Bagnell would no longer have been “moonlighting as a baggage handler for Air North” (true story.) At the same time, a marginal clip that Mark fought hard to keep in the piece might have wound up on the floor of the Garage. Such is the give-and-take nature of any creative collaboration. Each contributor wins some and loses some, but the finished product is hopefully the better for it.

As the so-called “Season One” of Smells Like Yukon chugs along, the pieces are getting progressively easier and faster to produce. “Games Gypsies” was by far the most painless production effort to date—partly due to the subject material, partly due to the fact that Mark and Jesse, after working for minimum wage on several earlier pieces, have learned a few things about efficiency.

The idea for this piece was hatched in early January 2007 when Mark and Jesse were blocking out the story for “Best in Snow” at Jesse’s dining room table. Mark’s sister and her fiance had rented their Riverdale house out to a couple of Canada Games staff ringers from Australia and, as so often happens, an throwaway comment—in this case, Mark’s description of the tenants as “games gypsies”—was reborn as a story idea. CBC liked the concept, so previous plans to explore the potential for mascot violence were shelved once and for all.

Mark’s interest in this subject also had a personal angle. As marketing manager for the 2000 Arctic Winter Games, he had “seized the spirit” for two years, then retired that slogan for a new one: “Never again!” He has always remained a bit puzzled by former Games employees who don’t feel the same way—or maybe do, but have short memories….

Nothing much happened on the story until the Games were finally over; we figured the staff probably had enough to worry about without indulging our misguided curiosity. While biding our time, the Smells Like Yukon website had been poking some harmless fun at Games-related issues (see Free Store, Poll #3), so Mark wondered what kind of reception he’d get when he finally called Games General Manager Chris Morrissey about participating in the radio piece.

He needn’t have worried.

Obviously, most Canada Games staffers, including Chris, had been too busy with their jobs (and jobs well done, thank you very much) to pay any attention to the mischief Smells Like Yukon had been trying to stir up. The upside to this ego-deflation was that Mark didn’t have to go to any great lengths to convince Chris that this story was on the level. (And, other than the silly central metaphor of “games gypsies”—until now, not a term in the average multi-sport event administrator’s vocabulary—we hope that’s how the piece came across.)

The clips for the segment came courtesy of a one-stop shopping trip to the Canada Games headquarters just after lunch on March 26. Rendered temporarily speechless by the amount of surplus alcohol stockpiled in Chris’ office, Mark and Jesse eventually recovered their composure to put Chris through a rigorous, hard-hitting interview. Without the ready access to Yukon Gold, he may not have made it…. At various points, Chris pulled in fellow gypsy Kim Stanton (all the way from Australia) and gypsy-in-training Andrew Greenlaw to add their comments to the mix. A few more gypsy interview subjects might have been nice, but they were off doing what gypsies do best, so we felt lucky to get the clips we did. Besides, three is always a good number.

Over the next couple days, the usual flurry of e-mails—notes, draft outlines, scripts—began to burn up the ether between Jesse’s Hillcrest Mac and Mark’s Riverdale Dell. By March 31, Mark and Jesse had a pretty tight script in hand. After the extended length of the previous segment, “Being Smokers,” we took considerable pains to reign this sucker into the six-minute range, which involved a strict word limit for the voiceover and some precisely targeted clips.

And still, when Jesse got into the finally stages of mixing the voiceover, clips and music together, as well as inserting the necessary pauses, we were again poking at the seven-minute mark. After listening to the piece, we also had some concerns about the introduction of a new “character,” Andrew Greenlaw, so late in the piece. Fortunately, some quick script doctoring, a re-recorded ending, and a few other minor edits solved all the problems without too much trouble on the Monday before the broadcast. (One mistake we caught too late to fix, with apolgies to Chris and his wife, was the reference to them as "former Newfoundlanders." Undoubtedly, they're still Newfoundlanders and Labradorians at heart, no matter where they go....)

One of the best moments in the piece, in our opinion, was the use of the theme song from The Littlest Hobo TV show as the exit music. You just don’t hear that tune on the radio enough these days, although you can apparently watch the show, or some version of it, if you get up early enough on a Saturday morning.

All in all, it was nice to take a break from Smells Like Yukon’s usual brand of hard-nosed investigative journalism and offer a more heart-warming, feel-good fluff piece. If Terms of Endearment had featured more gypsies, you would have heard that theme song as well.

But, fear not— we’ll be back to our usual tricks soon enough.

Four down, four to go.

(Posted April 04, 2007)