Joe Winston first became known as the producer and host of the TV series This Week in Joe's Basement. He has gone on to produce award-winning documentaries and TV programs.
Joe's Basement, available now for viewing on the web, quickly transcended its venue on Chicago public access cable to become a critical and popular success.
It won two local cable TV awards and was featured in the Chicago Tribune, Reader, New City, NBC's Today, Jenny Jones, MTV's Day in Rock, BBC's World of Wonder, PBS's Image Union, and The 90's. Joe also has a couple of shoe boxes filled with very strange fan mail.
Joe's Basement became so notorious that when Saturday Night Live's "Wayne's World" skit was made into a movie, the Chicago Tribune assigned Joe to interview star Mike Myers. The series aired 60 episodes, until June 1993.
In 1996, Winston produced and directed The Burning Man Festival, which won rave reviews, festival prizes, and sold to European television and domestic home video. In 1998, he produced a sequel, Burning Man: Just Add Couches. Both films are available on DVD.
In 1999, Joe teamed with the Sweat Girls theater troupe to create The Motherlode, an offbeat blend of documentary video and live performance. The show debuted at Lifeline Theatre and the Chicago Shakespeare Studio, and was selected for the 2000 Working Women's Festival in San Francisco.
Later that year, Winston was nominated for an Emmy award for his work on the PBS documentary, Lost in Middle America (and what happened next.)
In the late 90s, Joe performed onstage with an array of bizzare video characters, some live and others pre-recorded, at the Abbie Hoffman Died For Our Sins Theater Festival and Laura Cohen's Vaudeville Nights.
This Week in Joe's Basement was conceived and created by Paul Pomerleau, Mark Audrain and Joe Winston. Daniel Margulies served as Technical Director, and Chris Schiller and Katalina Groh as Directors of Photography.
An homage to the infamous films like **** (24-hours of the exterior of the Empire State Building) and Sleep (eight hours of a man sleeping.)
Joe introduces himself, then sits in his kitchen, drinking a beer and making a snack, while a timer counts down the remaining minutes of the half-hour program.
Joe and Paul and friends wander the streets of Hyde Park with the camera, asking strangers to tell them a joke. The entire episode is devoted to these encounters, as people comply, with varying degrees of success.
In a harbinger of later, much better installments, the focus is not on the jokes...
AIR DATES: September 5, 12, 22, 26, 1989
Description:
Four people address the camera and deliver improvised, personal monologues. No common thread links the content. The revelations are honest, sometimes interesting, and everyone seems to drunk several pots of coffee.
Production Notes:
Once again the boys were off doing unrelated...
AIR DATES: October 2, 10 1989
Description:
An audacious concept, again executed in a single, “uninterrupted” take:
Joe introduces the show as a leisurely walk from his house to the Museum of Science and Industry – threatening another “Structural Cinema”-like exercise in videotaped tedium.
However, though Joe does nothing in particular to engage a viewer, amusing...
Sporting a trim haircut and a new T-shirt, Joe is disillusioned with hosting the show, and threatens to quit. Suddenly, Mark Audrain arrives with a surprise birthday cake. This triggers a retelling of the cake’s creation: Mark cooked it himself, with his assistant, the lovely...
Alone in a Dark Room – an atheist vision of life after death.
Joe turns off the lights, plunging the show into total darkness. In the absence of vision, however, strange sounds emerge. A search for a leaky faucet begets an odyssey of noisy mishaps, progressing to a full-blown Beauty...
Three monologues about encounters with authority figures, delivered in intense close-up. Each of the performers wears headphones and hears his own voice delayed and filtered by a “harmonizer” manipulated by a crew member. The performers occasionally struggle to keep a train of thought, distracted by these...
A version of the children’s game “telephone:” one person tells a story to a second, who retells it to a third, etc. With each retelling, the distortions inevitably arise. Unfortunately, the stories in question are not compelling or revealing, nor are the distortions all that amusing.
A few years before the 1990s anti-smoking crusade, cigarette addiction was still good for a few laughs.
Jengis, last seen in “Enhanced Reality,” returns as The Cigarette Man. He snarls and nic-fits through a picaresque quest for his last pack of smokes. He repeatedly faces down and...
When this episode aired during a set of reruns of the first season, it included several improvements. Instead of Joe stalling for time and whining about lack of viewer mail, some is presented – a baffling missive from the enigmatic “Sir Dada,” the first of several phantasmagorical characters to contribute...
A woman, played by Kate Olsen, recounts an unpleasant incident with a rude convenience store clerk. Her double, also Kate, appears on a TV monitor beside her. The double interrupts Kate to correct her on her version of events. The two argue, and the double produces yet another Kate who has her own...
This version has much more entertainment value than the original. Joe opens by responding to not only viewer mail but some press, a favorable Chicago Tribune review of Episode 9: Sledgehammer Diplomacy.
Four comic sketches follow. “Horror in the Bathroom” and “Love in the Void” are preceded by...
A visit to Kenwood Academy, a Chicago Public high school, for a series of discussions with high school teachers.
The faculty runs the gamut, from enthusiastic young acolytes to droning, burnt-out veterans. A memorable visit to the school’s discipline office reveals a seemingly emotionless...
The show returns to Kenwood Academy, for conversations with students. Predictably, they are livelier than the adults. The camera crew hangs around the discipline office long enough to capture some drama, absurdity and tears.
The students candidly discuss their teachers and each other,...
Finally, the Joe’s Basement post office box turns up something that didn’t come from one of Joe’s friends – a plea from a love-struck fan to meet the lovely Michelle, who was featured in “Feet.”
Michelle appears in the hosting chair to decline the offer, and Joe takes over to munch on some soft, canned...
Early episodes of Joe’s Basement are suffused with a fatalistic sense that the producers are making the show only for themselves. It’s both freeing – who cares if we fail? – yet desperate – is anybody watching?
That era ended abruptly when a deluge of viewers phoned in during the broadcasts...
A few more letters came in – including one with very disturbing artwork, but at this point, the producers had decided to put Joe’s Basement into a couple months of summer reruns.
Inspired by conversations with confused channel-flippers, Joe makes his very first attempt to explain what the show is.
To kick off the second season, Joe’s Basement allowed itself a “greatest hits” show – expanding on Joe’s “recipe” of comic “ingredients” such as “Maniacal laughter” and “A small, burrowing insectivore” – to provoke specific suggestions from viewers.
Phone conversations with viewers of “Episode 19: Democratic Television.” The topic: “What do you want to see on television?”
A caller says his favorite word is “Shmoo” so the camera roams the streets and finds twenty strangers to repeat it. In response to repeated urgings to “get out of...
AIR DATES: November 26, December 3, 1990 Description:
The whole crew needed a week off, so running one of Joe’s student films, “Fear of Failure,” filled an episode.
The movie is a stream-of-consciousness hallucinatory rant by a disaffected student at an Ivy League University. He imagines his fellow students as mute, identically clad,...
Many viewers had written and phoned in to ask for more women to appear on Joe’s Basement. So, the producers obliged, heading out for woman-on-the-street interviews to “audition” new talent.
The women were asked to consider slightly unwashed bare feet, handle a giant wrench, and other tasks,...
Joe’s Basement’s time slot happened to land from 11:30 pm to midnight on December 31, 1990. Clearly, this was an irresistible opportunity to offer a noncommercial count down to the New Year.
Joe fires up the darkroom timer, which Mark then holds as a fig leaf, until he can’t stand it anymore. The...
AIR DATES: December 23, 1990, January 7, 1991 Description:
This entire show is devoted to surreal eye imagery and living televisions.
In “Video Dating,” two TV sets meet for dinner on a blind date. They make small talk while gazing at their – what else? – TV dinners, which they can’t eat since they don’t have hands.
AIR DATES: January 14, 21, 1991
Description: The title derives from a failed children’s toy, which the crew found at a local surplus store. It inspired a song, hallucinogenically rendered by Paul’s heads bouncing around Michelle’s lips.
The episode begins, however, with a second letter from the mysterious King Zeke, who gives more detail about...
AIR DATES: January 28, February 4, 1991
Description:
The crew takes another break from production, offering the second in a series of Joe’s student films on paranoia on an Ivy League college campus.In “Remote Control,” two students suspect a conspiracy on campus to transform students into mindless robots. One by one, their friends disappear, until a mute, video...
As native city dwellers, the producers of Joe’s Basement realized that they really don’t understand why suburban teens spend so much time hanging out in shopping malls.
So the crew visited two suburban malls – one catering to a much wealthier constituency than the other– to quiz kids on their...
Mark Audrain wins a bar bet from Joe and gets to host the show for a week. At his behest, it’s all sketch comedy (he was rarely involved in the man-on-the-street segments.)
The centerpiece is a domestic family sequence, which Joe films, then Mark overdubs to reinterpret as an orgy of...
At the beginning of this episode, Joe opens a letter from a local radio DJ, Ron Britain of WJMK-FM, a Chicago Oldies station at the time. Britain reveals that he has also been receiving fan mail from King Zeke, and has stories to share.
What follows is a show-long meditation on a single topic, beginning...
The Mole responds to a Chicago New City feature story calling him “a lame gross out,” and when Joe opens his mail, trouble ensues.
The Reverend Squirmin’ Herman writes in to correct the tales of abuse purveyed by his son, King Zeke, in a letter read in Episode 27: Mark’s Basement. “Am I being too...
This repeat of Episode 29: Shooting Things condenses the original episode, and precedes it with quit a bit of new viewer mail, some of it romantic, which Joe reads while sitting atop the laundry machine in his underwear.
Interviews with gay men (approached on the street) about their lifestyles and straight women (regular contributors Katalina Groh, Kate Olsen and Michelle Heuer.) The women are lively as always, but neither the interviews nor monologues dig deep enough to be memorable.
Two clowns harass Joe as he reads a letter from “Him” accusing the show of taking itself too seriously. Then, a shameless reworking of two early episodes:
Michelle Heuer’s first appearance (from Episode 12: Feet) is reprised, when she tells of her punk adolescence in London. John Harriman recalls...
King Zeke writes in with warm Christmas wishes, enclosing a photo of a nude female model dressed in Santa Claus red. Zeke’s brother, Hal the Looper, also writes, protesting “FUCKIN YUPPIE MOBILE HE THINKS HIS SHIT SMELLS LIKE LOVE POTION #9!”
In search of further inspiration, the crew instigates...
King Zeke writes in yet again, enclosing a lottery ticket, a religious parable, and a picture of his cat. He responds to his critics on the panel of experts which Joe’s Basement had commissioned to analyze his letters in Episode 29: Shooting Things: “God judges people, not psychiatrists judging...
Designed to be a showcase, this episode revisits and expands upon the “greatest hits” format of Episode 19: Democratic Television. The Mole, Paul’s Butt, the Science Lecture on the brain, Inner Conflict, the Cigarette Man and others are all featured, sometimes in excerpt.
The signature Moon Blob Song is more elaborately visualized, and triggered by a nonsensical set of man-on-the-street interviews instead of a fractured Mark Audrain lecture.
In an additional new monologue, a young man recounts the...
A dull remix of parts of three early episodes, Episode 7: Enhanced Reality, Episode 6: Alone in a Dark Room and Episode 2: People As They Actually Are. Deprived of their original context, the pieces don’t fit.
The Mole and the Construction Worker get together for a series of games – “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” “Guess What Animal I Am” and “Hide and Seek.” Frustratingly for the Mole, the Construction Worker always fights him to a draw by simply doing nothing at all.
The first episode of the third season opens with the usual view of the overstuffed chair in the basement office – but the chair’s empty, Joe’s gone. Series co-creators Mark and Paul arrive and look for him. An imposter emerges to take Joe’s place. The boys aren’t fooled, but are too distracted to...
Air Dates: December 30,1991, January 6, 1992
Description:
The Mole drops into a cocktail party to induce the last remaining guest (Joan Polner) to “take off” in his flying saucer. Then the crew hits the streets to ask the public – “Do you believe in UFOs.”
Patrons at a laundromat and a McDonalds offer various shades of blind credulity, while a wizened UFO expert expounds...
The crew returns to the streets to ask average people to name their heroes. Unfortunately, the answers are not particularly illuminating, nor does much discussion ensue.
Juan Luco opens the show with what would be his final series appearance, playing the piano (badly) and relating his adventures getting fired...
Air Dates: January 27, February 3, 10, 1992
Description:
Joe contemplates a romantic letter from Deb, a [real] female fan. He falls asleep, and a fantasy version of Deb (Joan Polner) appears in his dreams. She starts to seduce him, and then suddenly tries to mutilate him with a pair of scissors. Fortunately, the Dream Police (Kris Hipps) come to the rescue.
Air Dates: February 17, 24, March 2, 1992
Description:
Perhaps rattled by his nocturnal visions, Joe finds suspicious behavior all over the basement. His conversations are being recorded, his movements watched, and ideas stolen. Could there be a spy – a mole – in the organization?
Another panel of experts weighs in: a dermatologist, a...
The crew sensibly heads back out to the streets, to try to expose American attitudes towards social class. Unfortunately, it’s hard to discuss something that people don’t acknowledge the existence of. A few nuggets turn up, mostly from a homeless man who “pities the rich, who are terrified of being poor.”
A sure sign of trouble: a viewer call-in show motivated by nothing at all. The camera holds on Joe, Mark, Paul and technical director Dan Margulies farting around in the basement, presumably trying to come up with an idea for a show. Not surprisingly, callers complained.
The show opens with a tribute to the L.A. (race) riots, as an unruly mob overruns the basement, snatching everything in sight, including the chair and Joe.
Then, phone conversations with viewers. Even with nothing to feed them, callers to This Week in Joe’s Basement were always good for a few...
Joe introduces the show sitting not in a basement, but high up in a tree. The week’s mail includes a pair of paper eyeglasses with three breasts, from “Freedom and Enterprise".
Then, Joe and his friends sit down to watch a movie they made together in high school, starring Joe. It’s a genre satire,...
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...
Fifty episodes is a milestone the Joe’s Basement crew decides to celebrate by throwing a party at a rented Wicker Park space called The Love Loft. In this episode, viewers are invited to attend and given travel directions.
Hugh Moore returns as a mad scientist whose future self tries to warn him against...
AIR DATES: August 24, 31, 1992.
Description:
This is mostly just an advertisement for the Joe’s Basement 50th Episode Party. Joe drains half a bottle of wine while recounting the success of the protest against the cable companies, then introduces what will kick of a set of rereuns, now known as “Vintage Joe’s Basement.”
The rest of the episode is taken...
AIR DATES: November 30, December 7, 1992
Description: Another solicitation for viewer phone calls, with nothing more than a security-camera view of the crew and friends watching an old episode of Joe’s Basement.
Production Notes: Unfortunately, we had learned by now that the simple...
AIR DATES: December 14, 21, 1992
Description:
Viewers phone in with random thoughts and impressions. Joan turns one call into an unsolicited musical number. Michelle answers a science question while sitting in Joe’s lap. At the margins of the screen, a grungy assailant attacks a lost tourist, until his getaway is foiled by his sudden need to sit and watch...
AIR DATES: December 28,1992, January 4 1993
Description:
Joe opens the show dressed in a toga, at the behest of a young female viewer.
One caller from the previous episode, “Sandwich” Dan, offered to jump into a commercial dryer at a laundromat for our amusement. Joe, Bob and Dan drive across town and find Sandwich, who cheerfully complies. ...
A follow-up to the classic “Sledgehammer Diplomacy.” This time the camera crew heads to Chicago’s Union Station, to talk with Amtrak travelers.
Although the choice of location deprives us of the bracing immediacy of visits to poor neighborhoods, we do hear from people who live outside of Chicago.
AIR DATES: January 25, February 1, 1992
Description:
The show receives its first-ever email, then a novelty outside of college campuses, from a fan offering to eat dog manure on camera.
Some of the crew then gather to watch the video footage gathered at the 50th Episode Party, mostly the expected drunken revelry, punctuated by the notorious poet Lee...
Michelle takes the chair to give detailed driving directions to the second Joe’s Basement live event – a performance at the University of Chicago, featuring greatest hits from the series and musical accompaniment from the Joe’s Basement band.
The body of the show is essentially a round table discussion at a...
AIR DATES: April 5, 12, 1993
Description:
For a last hurrah, Joe summarizes the first fifty episodes for viewers to vote on to run eight of them, in a final reprise. The phone calls were not recorded. Watching Joe try to remember and explain all these episodes off the top of his head makes for a surprisingly good time.
AIR DATES: April 19, 26, 1993
Description:
A truly shameless slap-together of previous appearances by the Mole and the Butt Creature.
Production Notes:
At this time, Joe’s Basement was performing its second live show, “Joe’s Basement Returns!” and wanted to stay on the air just long enough to promote it.
AIR DATES: June 28, July 5, 1993
Description:
A fitting epitaph to the series, in three parts.
First, the man of the title: Joe’s father, University of Chicago physics professor Roland Winston, had long tolerated an odd, quiet visitor who pretended to work in his lab. This man, Jim, would arrive promptly each morning, sit at a desk and write...
