My Dudes

Prime Time with Dan & Andrew first aired on public access television in White Plains back in the early part of 1994. Co-starring friends and classmates Daniel Isenberg and Andrew Goldberg, the show was created, written, filmed, edited, and produced by students, with Dan and Andrew at the helm. And it was the first student-run public access television show of its kind in the history of White Plains High School.

The show itself was made up of talk show-style banter and bits, accompanied by comedy and musical skits. Clearly, popular shows of the time like Saturday Night Live and The State were influences, but Dan and Andrew brought their own unique perspective as suburban New York high school students to the small screen.

They created characters, poked fun at popular commercials, and tackled pertinent social issues like STDs and stalking with smart but silly humor, never shying away from what they considered to be funny. And they included their fellow classmates—the “Prime Time Players”—in the entire process, both on and off camera.

30 years later, Dan and Andrew are now family men, both living professional lives as writers. After spending roughly a decade writing for Family Guy, Andrew co-created the critically-acclaimed, coming-of-age animated Netflix series Big Mouth and the spinoff Human Resources. And Dan has spent the last decade as a writer and creative director in the sports and entertainment marketing world, and his new book Do Remember! The Golden Era of NYC Hip-Hop Mixtapes was released last fall via Rizzoli (he’s underground rapper Stan Ipcus, too).

To celebrate the Prime Time 30th anniversary properly, Westcheddar felt it was finally time to get Dan and Andrew to tell the story behind the making of the show. Check out the exclusive interview below.

Do you guys remember how you first met?

Andrew: I came to White Plains High School new in ninth grade, so we definitely met sometime that year, but for the life of me I don’t remember how. Maybe I’ve always known Dan?

Dan: Yeah, I can’t pinpoint the exact moment we met. I kind of remember you and some of the other Solomon Schecter kids being in the North House lunchroom together, and us trying to figure out who you guys were since you were new to our grade.

But I for sure remember getting a ride home from Mike Friedland’s brother Ben one day and we were both sitting in the backseat and you were saying some funny shit, cracking everyone up. I’m pretty sure that car ride was the start of me being like, “Yo, this kid Andrew is hilarious.”

How did the initial idea for you two to have a public access TV show come about?

Andrew: Well, it was the heyday of Wayne’s World, so public access TV shows were all the rage. But when we went to try to sign up for a public access show, it turned out we needed adult supervision and had to pay. Someone, I think it was Dan’s father, suggested checking out the TV studio in the basement at the high school. There was all this equipment just sitting there, and nobody was using it except for a couple of TV production classes.

Dan: I had just gotten cut from the JV basketball team, and for the first time in my life, I had nothing to do all winter. We were really into SNL and Adam Sandler and Chris Farley and late night guys like Letterman at the time, too. The show is really a hybrid of those two things—talk show and skit show.

The TV studio at school was a gem, and this woman Mrs. Strauss who ran it took an instant liking to us. I think with her support we were able to get things rolling.

Your Vice Principal Mr. Woodard was the person who ultimately greenlit the show. Do you remember anything about your pitch to him?

Andrew: I didn’t even remember that we had to meet with Mr. Woodard. But I imagine we must have lied to him. Because if we told him we wanted to make a show where we make fun of STDs and tape our friend repeatedly punching himself in the face on school property, he probably wouldn’t have let us use the equipment.

Dan: I have no memory of meeting with Woodard either, but I know it happened. Who knows why he gave us the green light. I doubt we had anything prepared.

You filmed the first show during lunch, and had a bunch of friends on as guests. Any favorite moments?

Andrew: I think my favorite part of that show is when Mike Friedland walks out, and you go, “Nice blazer.” God bless him for getting dressed up, though.

Dan: There’s no way he was gonna come out with a blazer on and not get a comment. That’s all we did back then, figure out ways to sarcastically make fun of each other. But Friedland pulling the card out of his mouth was definitely an impressive trick. He used to do card tricks for us all the time in class, but I had never seen that one before.

I remember dying laughing when you guys used that trick on the first episode of Big Mouth, when Jay is like, “Is this your card?” I was like, “Oh shit, a Prime Time Easter egg!” I believe he pulled a card out of his fly once, too. That actually would’ve been a good one to recreate for Big Mouth also.

Another classmate you had as a guest on an early episode was Dave Epstein, who was the one you mentioned before that famously punched himself in the face on the show.

Andrew: Dave’s enthusiasm was absolutely through the roof. It was like, “This kid is a maniac. If we can’t figure out something entertaining for him to do then we shouldn’t have our own educational access TV show.”

Dan: Epstein is a legend. Who else would go on public access television and punch themselves in the face or break a sheet of ice over their head? I didn’t know him that well when he first approached us about being on the show because he was a year younger than us. But after that first appearance, we hung out all the time. He was a regular.

Andrew: I think beating himself up was his idea. Truthfully, I think we could’ve gotten him to do anything. We didn’t take advantage of that enough. We should’ve had him jump off the roof of the school in a barrel or smoke his own pubes or something. We really blew it.

Meghan O’Rourke was a friend of yours, but also an active part of the theater program at school, so you recruited her to be on the show. And she really shined, huh?

Dan: Meghan was the only one of us with any legitimate acting experience. She was a star. The rest of us were mediocre actors, at best.

Andrew: God, Meghan was so funny. I especially enjoyed her performance as “E-Claire” the villainess in “The Adventures of Muffin Man and his Sidekick Danish Boy” because she truly did not understand what Dave Epstein and I were doing, but she hung in there like a pro.

You interviewed the principal of White Plains High School on the show, Dr. Tate. How’d you pull that off?

Dan: No clue. It was pretty ballsy of us to even request having him on.

Andrew: I like to think of it like when Wayne and Garth had Noah Vanderhoff on their show. “This man blows goats. I have proof.”

Dan: Classic! But honestly, I think to our credit, we actually played that one fairly straight and respectfully. No way we would’ve pulled off making fun of the principal, especially considering some of the other stuff we got in trouble for.

That’s right, you got in some hot water with the Board of Ed in White Plains for the STD game show, and then also one where Andrew played an old man wearing a diaper?

Andrew: Yeah, on the STD one I was actually kind of surprised. All our information was medically accurate, and the overall message was that STDs are not something you want.

Dan: “Name That STD” is a Top 3 Prime Time skit for me. That was great public access TV content created by a bunch of 10th grade health class students. Perfectly educational, but also stupid and fun. It was a little edgy I guess, but I really didn’t think it warranted any complaints. Meghan and our buddy Matty B killed that.

Andrew: The grandpa pissing his pants one was probably fair. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone might be watching that with an elderly person struggling with incontinence. I was young and thought I’d pee perfectly forever.

Dan: I think we honestly just didn’t realize we would be offending anyone and thought it was harmless potty humor. It was definitely an oversight on our part.

Do you have memories of watching the show at home? Did your parents like it?

Andrew: Oh, it was totally exciting and weird to see yourself on television. And I think my parents loved it. They even encouraged me to send out tapes with clips when I was applying to colleges. I’m not sure it helped.

Dan: My folks were pretty pumped about it, too. My dad told everyone. And my mom, who is a piano teacher, has a famous story she tells about the father of one of her students making the choice to move his family to White Plains after seeing our show because he thought it was so great. I still can’t believe that’s actually true, but the lore is strong.

I think personally I was a little self-conscious about it all, but I also thought it was crazy that we had our own TV show with all our friends, and that people were actually watching. It was dope.

How’d it go over at school?

Andrew: Oh my God, I got so many girls because I was on TV. I was absolutely drowning in women. No, wait, I’m thinking of Ashton Kutcher. Nobody cared.

Dan: My favorite teacher, Mr. Benevento, who sadly passed away a few years back, used to watch. And he would play me so hard in class. I think during the first episode, I kept saying everything was “unbelievable” over and over, and he called me out on that in class constantly.

What was the creative process like for you two?

Andrew: We’d kind of hang out and throw out ideas. Then we’d like something and just start writing on a yellow legal pad. A very low tech and pure version of what I’ve been doing for work every day for years!

Dan: It’s pretty amazing that you were able to turn this all into a career, actually. Yeah, I remember going back to your house after school, playing NHL ’94 or whatever game was hot at the time, and just thinking of ideas for skits.

And we filmed a few things at your house, too, like “Kiki Rachmanah: Private Eye” which was one of my favorite characters of yours. I’m impressed that we had enough motivation and organization to actually make all this stuff.

What about filming and editing?

Dan: We mostly filmed after school, and sometimes during lunch. Our friends would come hang out and watch or be a part of the show, and we would all take turns working the cameras, too. And then Andrew and I would edit everything, with the help of Mrs. Strauss at first.

Andrew: This was back in the day of deck-to-deck editing—I know, I sound like a cranky old guy—so if you wanted to change something, you had to go back and change everything after that point. It was super labor intensive and taught you to be more careful than kids nowadays with their fancy editing software.

Dan: We took a Video Production class together at one point, too, which I think helped us learn how to edit. The fanciest was when we did a remake of “Summer Lovin’” from Grease. We had the split screen effect, and had to figure out how to make the music match up with the lip syncing which was fairly challenging. “Summer Lovin’” was one of my favorites.

What were some other faves of yours?

Andrew: “Name that STD” was great. I liked when our friends Jon and Scott took over the show, mostly because Scott was so profoundly uncomfortable in front of the camera. I liked the parents of mass murderers sketch, with Jeffrey Dahmer’s dad telling him to “stop eating crayons!” And “Stanley the Stalker” was great because it showed the lighter side of stalking.

Dan: Our skit about replacement players during the MLB lockout was always a favorite of mine. I played a blind dude who shows up for tryouts with crutches and a broken arm. My uncle Steve, who is a huge baseball fan, loved that one. And he’s like the funniest guy in the Isenberg family, so getting a laugh and stamp of approval from him meant a lot to me.

What about the music? Beyond “Summer Lovin’,” you guys had a few different musical numbers during the show’s run.

Dan: My all time favorite musical moment was when me and Jon and Matty B rapped Beastie Boys “Sure Shot” live in the studio over a very random Shyheim remix instrumental. I also loved that we had a Cypress Hill beat as our original intro music. I think we switched it up to an instrumental cut off Ill Communication when we made the intro longer and had the whole cast in it, which was also fire.

Andrew: I loved that we actually had a band in there one time. That’s pretty impressive for a bunch of idiot sixteen year olds.

Dan: Oh yeah, that was dope. Big up to the Surf Dudes, and Liz Farrell on the vocals. Oh, and there was an outro we snuck in one episode during the credits with Jon lip syncing Phife Dawg’s verse from “Keep It Rollin’”—that was ill, too.

Remember when you guys hosted a holiday episode on Santa’s lap at the mall?

Dan: That was wacky. We filmed that at The Galleria. RIP.

Andrew: As a Jewish person, that might be the only time I’ve ever sat on Santa’s lap. I don’t know what you gentiles are so worked up about, it wasn’t that great.

Dan: Props to Santa for being a good sport. I think the idea was probably funnier than the execution. We went for it, though.

Looking back on it all, how does it feel to know that you were the first students in the history of White Plains High School to have your own TV show?

Andrew: We are the Rosa Parks of misusing school-owned audio-video equipment.

Dan: I take pride in knowing we were the first. I’m not even sure there was ever a second, to be honest. I kind of wish there were some students that followed in our footsteps, but it just goes to show how much time, effort, and buy-in from the administration it took to make it happen. If it was that easy, I think others would have followed.

But TV has changed a lot since then. I imagine WPHS students are on YouTube or TikTok doing some funny stuff now.

Looking back 30 years later and thinking about where you both ended up career-wise, how do you think “Prime Time” played a role in your success?

Andrew: I think it helped me a lot. It was my first experiment in writing for TV, and I actually got to produce, direct, and edit it. That was an unusual experience at that time before more modern technology.

Dan: It’s crazy to me that you ended up where you did, having your own shows on Netflix. I’m in the creative world too, but not in the same capacity. Still, making commercials and content in the marketing and advertising world, that can all be traced back to this. Also, the “Sure Shot” moment definitely sparked something in me, and made me want to pursue making and performing my own rap music.

And you’ve managed to stay friends through the years, even while living on separate coasts?

Andrew: Though I’ve moved across the country, Dan and I still keep in touch, and I love watching his family grow. The times we’ve gotten to watch our kids play together have been really special. That crew from White Plains will always be my brothers and sisters, they’re special people. Sometimes I get jealous that they get to see each other all the time and their families are growing up together, but then I realize those idiots have to deal with winter.

Dan: We always get together when Andrew comes back east. And we’ve had a couple fun visits in Cali too, though I haven’t been out there in a while. The truth is, at this age with kids and so much going on, I don’t even see the friends of ours that live in the New York area that much anyway, so maybe the cold is all he’s really missing in the end.

I’m really proud of Andrew. To see what him and Nick have done with Big Mouth and everything else is truly incredible. They’re living the Hollywood dream!

What about when you look back and see clips of the show now. How does it make you feel?

Andrew: I was awkward! Clearly I wasn’t meant for a career in front of the camera, and I ended up in the right place. So glad to have my place in show business validated! Also, I was about the hairiest sixteen year old in history.

Dan: As my kids would say, it’s so “cringe.” But it brings back great memories. We were just young kids trying to do something new and creative, and make each other laugh. And it was us and all our best friends doing it together, too. It’s a great portal back to those good old high school days when life was much simpler.