Night Stand with Dick Dietrick

Night Stand with Dick Dietrick is an American television comedy show that satirized American tabloid talk shows. The series was originally broadcast in first-run syndication from 1995 to 1997, as well as on the E! Entertainment Television network. Night Stand was co-created by Paul Abeyta, Peter Kaikko and actor/writer Timothy Stack, who also starred as the show's host Dick Dietrick. The show benefited from contributions by writer/friends of the creators, namely co-exec producer Larry Strawther (the first season show-runner) and the long-time comedy writing team of Bob Iles and Jim Stein.

Night Stand with Dick Dietrick
Also known as	Night Stand
Created by	Paul Abeyta Peter Kaikko Timothy Stack
Presented by	Timothy Stack (as Dick Dietrick)
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	96 (divided into 2 shows per episode)
Production
Executive producers	Larry Strawther season one; Timothy Stack season two
Production locations	Sunset Gower Studios, Hollywood
Running time	60 minutes
Production companies	RC Entertainment Big Ticket Television
Original release
Network	First-run syndication E!
Release	September 16, 1995 (1995-09-16) – 1997 (1997)

History

Night Stand premiered September 16, 1995 in syndication, running in over 87% of the US markets, mainly as a Saturday evening program airing against, or if carried by an NBC station, after Saturday Night Live. It also aired on E! Monday-Thursday at 10:30 p.m. (between Talk Soup and the Howard Stern) and was distributed internationally. The partnership with E! led to a follow-up second season.

Unlike other shows, each hour-long syndicated episode was actually divided into two separate half-hour programs which yielded 96 episodes for E! reruns. (E! kept the show for several years but only in reruns.)

Much of the Night Stand production team went on to work with Howard Stern on Son of the Beach, with some of their "guests" also making appearances.

A well-received parody of tabloid talk shows, Night Stand had plenty of funny scenes, but one scene unexpectedly went too far when Dietrick (Timothy Stack) tore the clothes off a male model named Kal (played by Kevin Light) to see if he could impress a seemingly uninterested young woman guest, Gloria Holt (played by Beth Tegarden) looking for dates in the episode "Love on the Internet," produced in 1995.^[1] After ripping off his shirt, the model's trousers were next, but Stack accidentally pulled Kal's underwear down as well; as a result, there was a brief, unscripted showing of Light's genitals, much to the shared shock of the audience and the performers. This scene has sometimes turned up on outtake and blooper programs such as It'll be Alright on the Night.

Night Stand was the first production from Big Ticket Productions, the company formed by former Warner Bros. development executive Larry Lyttle. Strawther had worked with Abeyta and Kaikko at Merv Griffin Productions and later worked with Lyttle on the shows My Sister Sam and Night Court. Strawther brought on Night Court director Jim Drake and they developed the tape-four-shows-a-week format that made the show financially practical. Strawther did not return as showrunner for the second season after he and Stack differed on when silliness went "over the top."

The show's original slogan "If you don't have Night Stand, you don't have Dick" and The Comedy That Makes Up Talk was later changed to The Comedy That Makes Fun of Talk.

Night Stand helped Big Ticket Productions get started. They did even better on its next project, Judge Judy. The show's original publicist was Howard Bragman, who is now considered one of Hollywood's top publicists.

Produced: 1995–1999 (96 episodes, 2 shows per syndicated episode)

Cast

Main

• Timothy Stack as Dick Dietrick, the show's host and namesake
• Peter Siragusa as Miller, Dick's long-suffering assistant on the show.^[2] Beginning midway through the first season, the role was taken over by Robert Alan Beuth and the character renamed "Mueller".
• Lynne Marie Stewart as a character who's variously referred to as "Audience Member", "Lady in Audience", and so forth along those lines. As her name indicates, she's part of the studio audience in almost all episodes and often asks inane questions of the show's main guests. However, in one second-season episode she is invited onto the panel, where she identifies herself as the president of Dietrick's fan club and then goes on to discuss her pen-pal romance with an incarcerated murderer.
• Judy Toll was the female announcer who introduced Dietrick at the beginning of each episode and narrated most of the interstitial bumpers (including the ubiquitous "you can get Dick on the World Wide Web" promos advertising the show's website), and was also on the writing staff.^[3]

Recurring panelists

• Dwayne Barnes as gangsta rapper MC Carjak
• Jordana Capra as Dr. Susan Sonspeen, feminist lecturer, author, and "Professor of Lesbian Studies at Lily Tomlin Women's College"
• Steven Cragg as Peter Mithelmet, a snooty, pretentious, and possibly gay European fashion designer
• Christopher Darga as Bob, a frequent guest involved in various exploitative and depraved endeavors. When confronted by Dietrick, he would inevitably offer the unconvincing excuse, "I'm sick. I need help." Darga and Vic Wilson (who also auditioned for the role of Bob) were well-remembered by Abeyta, Kaikko and Strawther who cast them as announcers Vic Romano and Kenny Blankenship a few years later on their cult hit, "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC)."
• Vinny Montello as Vinny, a belligerent man with a Brooklyn accent who frequently appears in the studio audience, often making crass comments or threatening to beat up panelists he doesn't like. However, in one episode he is invited on the panel, where he discusses his plight as a struggling drag queen who's hoping to get breast augmentation surgery from Dr. Hamilton George.
• John Paragon as "Bachelor #3", a laryngectomy patient who speaks (and sings karaoke) through an electronic voice prosthesis. Paragon's character first appeared in one of the show's earliest episodes as the unlikely winner of a Dating Game-style contest, hence his name. Subsequently, he revisited the show twice more along with his newfound beau, though his real name was never revealed.
• Shirley Prestia as Dr. Mattie Gelman, unlicensed therapist and self-help book author
• Andrew Prine as Dr. Hamilton George, a world-renowned plastic surgeon who's considered the "Father of Nipple Replacement". Dr. George's skin is deeply tanned (like his name, this is a reference to actor George Hamilton) and he moves his body slowly and stiffly like a robot, presumably from having performed numerous cosmetic procedures on himself.
• Tim Silva as Dr. Lonnie Lanier, psychologist and expert. Like Stack himself, Silva was one of the many Groundlings graduates who appeared on the show.
• Steve Valentine as "The Astounding Andy", hypnotist and magician
• Steve White as Tupac Zemeckis, acclaimed African-American director of films about gritty urban street life, along the lines of Spike Lee or John Singleton. (Appropriately enough, White's best-known roles as an actor were in Spike Lee's films Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, and Malcolm X.)

Celebrity guest spots

• Anthony Anderson as Mickey Williams, a former sitcom actor turned resident of "Brady House", where Florence Henderson works to reacclimate ex-celebrities to life in a world without laugh tracks and studio audiences. This was one of Anderson's earliest television roles, nearly two decades before achieving critical acclaim as star of Black-ish.
• Harry Anderson as himself
• Ant as Jonathon Felcher; a flamboyantly gay fitness guru, parodying Richard Simmons
• Christine Cavanaugh as Kathy, a flight attendant who appeared on a "One-Night Stand Reunions" show hoping to reconnect with a pair of brothers she'd met at a hotel bar
• Rodney Dangerfield as himself, promoting his movie Meet Wally Sparks of which a clip is shown
• Morgan Fairchild appears in one second-season episode playing two roles: both as herself and "Clarice", a grifter who makes a less-than-honest living as a Morgan Fairchild impersonator
• Estelle Harris as Mary Dietrick, Dick's estranged mother
• Phil Hartman as Gunther Johann, a German-speaking stand-up comedian who was co-winner of the show's "Illegal Alien Star Search"
• Florence Henderson as herself
• Sean Kanan as himself
• Garry Marshall as himself, trying to promote his memoir Wake Me When It's Funny while simultaneously fending off Dick's unsolicited pitch for a tacky action-adventure series dubbed Arctic Heat
• Edie McClurg as Mabel Ann Davenport, the long-lost birth mother of a fellow Night Stand panelist who was adopted as a child
• Dennis Miller as himself
• Mancow Muller appeared in a second-season episode as an outspoken member of the studio audience who squared off against Peter Mithelmet in support of American-owned businesses
• Peter Noone as himself
• Rosie O'Donnell as herself
• Hal Sparks as Father Chip, a hip young Catholic priest who goes on the show to tout some of his innovative ideas for modernizing the church for a new generation. Like Anthony Anderson as mentioned above, this was one of Sparks' earliest television roles, before he went on to wider fame.
• Jerry Springer as himself in two episodes. According to Stack, while most real-life talk show hosts tended not to appreciate being lampooned, Springer was an avid Night Stand fan who approached the show's producers requesting to be written into an episode.^[3] The show portrays Dick as being intensely jealous of Springer, whom he considers to be his bitterest rival; meanwhile, Springer seems only vaguely aware of who Dick is.
• Charlene Tilton as herself
• Jimmie Walker as himself; in one episode he becomes the new host of "Night Stand Lite!", a Letterman-esque talk show parody that "replaces" Dick's show
• Cindy Williams as herself