This Week In Joe’s Basement, episode 49a: The Whole Story

Description:

A serendipitous gem, in the true Joe’s Basement tradition.

Joe is trying to write a script on the Fourth of July weekend, 1992.  Dan and Bob, his crew, are bothering him, so he sends them away.  They get into some trouble at a local bar, trying to pick up a naïve young woman, Karen, who has just struck an off-duty police officer in the face.

With Joe’s sober assistance, Bob and Dan convince Karen to come back to the basement after the bar closes, and the four of them each testify about the events of the evening.

The resulting, conflicting stories are often hilarious.  Karen, in particular, is a real find — impulsive, uninhibited, and violence-prone.

Production Notes:

Rather than be interviewed in the usual manner, each subject took turns sitting alone in a closet under the basement stairs and talking to an unmanned camera.

This approach – which the crew called “The Story Closet” – had been used before, in “Episode 16: Joe Eats Real Dog Food” and “Episode 32: Spot the Liar.”  Joe would employ it in his 1998 documentary, Burning Man: Just Add Couches.

The web version of this episode includes music from a 1994 Joe’s Basement live show called Moon Blob: The Motion Picture.