MARK RUSSELL'S GREAT ALASKAN TREK (TV)
Summary
One in this series of comedy/musical specials featuring political satirist Mark Russell. In this program, Russell brings his act to Alaska, where he entertains the locals with his witty observations, song parodies, and tongue-in-cheek interviews. Highlights include the following: Russell enters Alaska via Siberia, following the route discovered by the original American settlers 40,000 years ago -- and later carved out by explorer Vitus Bering; in Fairbanks, Russell recalls a cherished poem by Robert W. Service, who wrote reverently of the Alaskan wilderness; Russell examines the life of the ubiquitous bush pilot, whose planes provide lifelines to communities all over Alaska; scientist Nils I. Johansen takes Russell on a tour of a perma-frost tunnel, the only one of its kind in the western hemisphere; Russell plays both parts in a mock debate between a developer and an environmentalist; Russell profiles comedian Mr. White Keys, known locally as "The Bard of the Spenard"; Russell travels to Homer, the "Halibut Fishing Capital of the World," where he visits storyteller and Motel 6 spokesman Tom Bodett; in Nome, he chats with several gold prospectors and interviews a veteran musher, who talks at length of the Iditarod Dog Race; three hundred miles above the Arctic Circle, in Barrow, the northernmost town in the United States, Russell pays tribute to an earlier political humorist, Will Rogers, who was killed there in a plane crash in 1936; Russell considers the controversy surrounding the Trans-Alaska Pipeline; in Skagway, once a notoriously decadent boomtown, Russell stops by the House of Negotiable Affection and pokes fun at the opening sequence to television's "Northern Exposure"; and the show culminates with an ice-inspired medley Russell performs on the piano from the vast Mendenhall Glacier. Interspersed throughout the program are snippets of Russell's shows before live audiences in Anchorage and Juneau.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS WNED-TV
- DATE: February 4, 1994 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:56:47
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:34170
- GENRE: Comedy; Music
- SUBJECT HEADING: Alaska; Alaska - Travel; Comedy; Iditarod
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1975-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Tony Buttino … Executive Producer
- Wiley F. Hance … Producer
- Allen Williams … Director
- Dan Ruskin … Writer
- Mark Russell … Writer, Performer, Host
- James V. Calabrese … Music by
- Vitus Bering
- Tom Bodett
- Nils I. Johansen
- Mr. White Keys
- Will Rogers
- Robert W. Service