April 11, 2002
BEST OF NASHVILLE 2002
BEST PUBLIC ACCESS TV SHOW: THE TRAVIS AND JONATHAN SHOW
by Jim Ridley
They've had nibbles from Comedy Central, a writer for The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn loves them, and a fan recently wrote in offering to get hosts Travis Harmon and Jonathan Shockley laid. All this on the strength of about six episodes, which have been repeated so often on Channel 19 you can see the back of the TV through the picture. Call it a homegrown Mr. Show-- a mix of surreal sketch comedy, college town weirdness and ersatz variety-show cheer. As with another onetime regional TV phenomenon, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, the shows are getting taped and traded all over the country. But Travis and Jonathan may have raised their local profile the most at the recent Starvy Awards, where their brief appearance left jaded scenesters agape. Along with guerrilla prankster James Clauer, they're among the few people in Nashville we'd strongly encourage to consider making a feature film. Middle Tennessee needs them like Austin needs Richard Linklater.
-Jim Ridley
Nashville Scene
April 5, 2001
BEST OF NASHVILLE READER'S POLL 2001
WRITER'S CHOICES - MEDIA
BEST NEW PUBLIC ACCESS SHOW: The Travis and Jonathan Show
by Jim Ridley
Forget the public-access tag: This is one of the funniest and most surprising half-hours of television on any channel at the moment. The format imitates a cheesy breakfast-hour chat show, as hosts Travis Harmon and Jonathan Shockley start the day with a little coffee, a little talk, the occasional karaoke performance of "Listen to the Music" in a public Laundromat. From there, the show detours into bizarre music videos, interview segments, and a bogus game show called What's Your Favorite Bird? staffed with members of Jack, the band once banned for life from The Boro. Using a cast of local buddies, most of whom wander through the odd proceedings in a state of deadpan befuddlement, the show turns its Murfreesboro locations into a comic universe. And the technical qualities are outstanding: The "unedited" show filmed in an unbroken 22-minute take- on a single mobile camera, no less- would leave Brian De Palma gnawing the grip on his Steadicam.
-JIM RIDLEY
NASHVILLE SCENE
February 8, 2001
TELEVISION: THE TRAVIS AND JONATHAN SHOW
by Jim Ridley
For several months now, people have been passing around bootleg dupes of this Murfreesboro cable sensation; it now has a home on Nashville's community-access station Channel 19, and it's one of the funniest, best produced cable-access shows we've seen anywhere. Hosted by Travis Harmon and Jonathan Shockley, the half-hour show takes the format of a ditzy morning chat show, replete with an opening karaoke number and a different cinema verite location each time. More consistently funny that Jackass, with an appealingly innocent spirit of mischief and remarkably good low-budget camerawork and production values, this airs 9 p.m. Tuesdays on Channel 19.
-JIM RIDLEY
NASHVILLE SCENE
March 3, 2001
CHARACTERS IN QUESTION
Nothing is certain about local cable access cult figures Travis Harmon and Jonathan Shockley, except comedy
by Danny Solomon
These things are true:
Jonathan Shockley and Travis Harmon are two guys are who co-host The Travis and Jonathan Show. Airing on cable access channel 19 at 9 p.m. every Tuesday, it’s a talk show format set on location from a different place every time and features man-on-the-street interviews, musical guests and a game show called “What’s Your Favorite Bird?”
It is also true that Travis Harmon is from Murfreesboro, Jonathan Shockley is from a small town called Huntland, Tenn., and they wear matching houndstooth jackets with black shirts underneath and tennis shoes on every show.
Everything else should be taken with a grain of salt.
Because Travis Harmon and Jonathan Shockley are either two super sweet, wide-eyed chatterboxes who just think cable access is neat, or Nashville is sitting on two comedic geniuses the size of Andy Kauffman — and we don’t even know it.
Let’s start from the beginning.
After hearing about The Travis and Jonathan Show through friend and Nashville Scene film critic Jim Ridley, I thought they might be interesting to interview. They sent me their tape, consisting of six episodes of their show, so I could do my homework. I watched the tape, giggled myself silly, and set up a noon lunch meeting for Monday.
Most interviews take a natural course of questioning, but I had one specific thing to ask them: How much of this stuff is real? Six episodes later I couldn’t decide if Travis and Jonathan were just truly happy-go-lucky, bumbling Regis and Kathy Lee wannabes or sharp-witted smart guys with award-winning poker faces.
I was still confused 30 minutes into the interview. Seated in a corner table in the bar at Southstreet. Travis and Jonathan, who showed up in their traditional matching houndstooth jacket ensembles, were sipping Dr. Pepper, chatting happily with the waitress and successfully dodging every single one of my questions.
They did allow that they officially met in a karaoke bar in Cornersville:
Jonathan: I just happened to be in Cornersville for some strange reason, and Travis had also driven up to try it out and (turns to Travis) what did you sing?
Travis: “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
Jonathan: That’s right. And the thing was that it wasn’t close to Christmas at all, and I thought, ‘What’s this guy doing?’ But everyone was getting in to it, and I thought, ‘This guy is a showman; I want to hitch my trailer to his star.’”
When asked how much of their characters is act and how much is real, they looked at each other quizzically, shrugged their shoulders and changed the subject two or three different times, making my head spin and my dictophone tired. That’s when the bear showed up.
KoKo Bear is a frequent guest on The Travis and Jonathan Show. Sometimes he plays keyboards in a band with other people in animal suits and other times he just sits around in a group discussion making guttural sounds. On the day of our interview, KoKo Bear walked right into Southstreet and started waving his white-gloved hands excitedly at Travis and Jonathan. Unable to make out what KoKo Bear’s intentions were, they handed him a few dollars, and he made a much-noticed exit.
The event prompted me to ask a couple more questions that didn’t get answered, such as, “What’s going on here? Everyday people don’t just get followed around by guys in a bear suit.” To which their reply was:
Travis: You’d be amazed. Now see, (to Jonathan) how often do we have a bear suit in our lives?
Jonathan: Since I’ve known you? Like every other weekend.
Travis: And that’s not a myth because if you have a bear suit around, you don’t want to leave it in the closet.
Further questioning revealed nothing. When asked point-blank if KoKo Bear was a man in a bear suit or an actual bear, they responded with:
Travis: On the record? It’s a bear.
Jonathan: Off the record? It’s a bear.
Travis: That’s what it looks like to me! I try not to think about it too much.
They play off one another, finish each other’s sentences and are completely incapable of a yes or no answer. I was successful in getting Jonathan to cough up the fact that he works at Dillard’s in Cool Springs “folding shirts and stacking them,” but he later admitted that may or may not be a lie. As far as background, he went to MTSU, minored in theater and majored in television production but thought, “Geez, I’ll never use that!”
Travis stands by his story that he works in a record store and has worked with the Tennessee Repertory Theater and TPAC in the past. He also allowed that he worked on Hunchback: The Musical by Styx’s Dennis DeYoung, which I later confirmed to be true.
When I just couldn’t take the mind games anymore, I ended the interview. They waved goodbye happily, and I had Jim Ridley on the phone before they even got in their cars, looking for a little light in the darkness.
Jim cleared a few things up, not the least being that Jonathan Shockley is a part of a group called the Belcourt Boys. Belcourt Boys actually worked at the Belcourt Theater tearing tickets but were also film scholars who could write, direct, act and edit. He said that Shockley, who attended Watkins Film School, made a breakout short film a couple of years ago called Bittums Bites It, which was one of the highlights of the Sinking Creek Film/Video Festival and put Watkins on the map for credibility.
Two more nuggets came from Ridley: KoKo Bear used to be part of a band called Holdsclaw, of which Travis Harmon was a member; and Andy Van Roon’s phone number.
Andy Van Roon is not only the president of the Nashville Film and Video Association, he’s also possibly the only person with a firm grasp of what Jonathan Shockley and Travis Harmon are doing, besides the two guys themselves.
“I consider those guys at the cutting edge of comedy in the performance art and television/video art medium,” Van Roon said.“ They’re so experimental that their humor requires people to question their intentions.”
“You know a TV show or stand-up comedian is trying to make you laugh, but Travis and Jonathan make you wonder if it’s real or not. Part of the act is that they’re trying to come off as bumbling filmmakers. Imagine super intelligent guys trying to do a Wayne and Garth kind of thing. It’s not slapstick; it’s more of a conceptual humor,” Van Roon continued.
When I related my interview experience, complete with the KoKo Bear cameo, Van Roon laughed, “I pity anyone that would interview those guys because what they’re getting is a performance. That’s their job. My perspective on them is they are doing to you as an interviewer as they do with their humor — they will keep their audience in a zone of uncertainty, which is half the time funny and the other half unnerving.”
Funny or unnerving, silliness or true comedic genius, there’s only two sure things about Travis Harmon and Jonathan Shockley: one, they’re never going to break character and two, cable access is only the beginning.
-Danny Solomon
Nashville City Paper
July 12, 2001
EDITOR'S NOTE
by Kristin Whittlesey
So I got what may be the funniest e-mail I've ever seen this week. Travis Harmon and Jonathan Shockley - coupla guys who have a show on cable's community access Channel 19. They had a bunch of questions, so I thought I'd answer a few of them. I'll even give them a gratuitous plug, though I haven't seen their show yet. It's The Travis and Jonathan Show, and it airs 9 p.m. Tuesdays. Check 'em out. I'm going to.
TRAVIS: We can't tell you how much we love the RAGE! First of all, it's so small!
JONATHAN: It's tiny and oddly shaped! But that's part of the charm!
TRAVIS: Like Herve Villachez!
JONATHAN: Oh, I love him! Whatever happened to him?
TRAVIS: Did he die?
JONATHAN: Oh, no.
TRAVIS: Maybe not.
JONATHAN: Don't scare me like that!
KW: Actually guys, yeah, he did. Sorry.
TRAVIS: What else do we like about the RAGE?
JONATHAN: Well, the name. It's so ANGRY! Full of venom!
TRAVIS: Sometimes I'm scared not to read it!
KW: As you should be...
TRAVIS: Here's what I've always wondered, Ms. Whittlesey: How do you make money if it's free?
JONATHAN: They must do it out of love.
TRAVIS: Or anger! Rrrr, the RAGE!
KW: Our money comes from our fabulous advertisers. If you love The RAGE, be sure to support every blessed one of them.
TRAVIS: Do you thinks she gets paid? Since the RAGE is free?
JONATHAN: I hope so. If not, maybe we could toss her a few bucks.
TRAVIS: Ms. Whittlesey, if you're ever in a tight spot, and need some cash, maybe Jonathan and I could pitch in and help you out.
JONATHAN: It's the least we could do. After all, I mean, the RAGE!
KW: Yes, I do get paid. But hey, if you're writing out checks...
-KRISTIN WHITTLESEY
The RAGE
travisandjonathan.com press