Shortly after we moved here in 1991 so your editor could start work at a local TV station, we happened onto a local comedy show on a different station – and for most of the rest of that decade, it was a regular part of our Saturday nights, as it was for so many people back then.

(September 1994 TV Guide page kept by Tracey Conway, used with Now & Then permission)

The show, “Almost Live!“, was almost midway through its 15-year-run on KING TV by the time we first watched, a half-hour that made fun of current events as well as specific Seattle-and-vicinity neighborhoods – with sketches like “Ballard Driving Academy,” “Cops in Wallingford,” “East Side Story,” even “The Making of Studs of South King County,” as well as lampooning life in the Northwest – the timeless tale of “Seattle Summer”, for example.

We’d heard The Seattle Times was looking back this weekend on “Almost Live!” to mark 40 years since the show’s debut, synergizing with a Museum of History and Industry exhibit that opens next weekend. What we didn’t know was that a West Seattle journalist/historian wrote the stories comprising a package that figures prominently in today’s print edition of The Times, especially its Pacific Magazine, until that writer, Clay Eals, mentioned it while visiting our booth at Saturday’s Admiral Funktion street festival.

The “Almost Live!” exploration is in the spirit of the “Now & Then” columns that Clay co-produces for the newspaper’s weekly magazine, but much more in-depth. And you don’t have to be a Times subscriber to see the results of the three months Clay spent diving into “Almost Live!” – the Now & Then website has even more. And Clay mentioned two West Seattleites who factor into it – more on that in a moment. First, some links: The main Times story is here; as Clay writes, the show “proved that a major city could laugh at itself with universal appeal.” Even if you were an “Almost Live!” superfan, his story will likely tell you a lot you didn’t know about its history and origins. And if you’ve ever wondered what happened to the performers – who were among the 30+ people Clay interviewed – here’s that story. Then there’s the story about the MOHAI exhibit’s champion, and a related Now & Then column. Oh, plus “Where to find more ‘Almost Live!‘,” including YouTube.

If that sounds like a lot, consider that Clay says it’s only a fraction of what you’ll find on the Now & Then website – start here and wander at will. (If you can’t see the Times stories because of the paywall, Clay’s site has free-to-view versions of them all.)

Now, as for the West Seattleites who factor into this: First, one of the regular performers on “Almost Live!”, Tracey Conway, is a WS resident. Here’s a video she produced with some of her favorite characters:

And here she is in a recent photo by Clay:

He notes, “She’s quoted in the cover story and shown in 14 photos therein. But she also is part of the sketches sidebar” – best and most-overlooked sketches – and the material on Now & Then includes excerpts from his interview with her.

A West Seattleite playing a smaller but memorable role, Clay points out, is Aurora Bennett, who runs John Bennett Properties. “At age 8, she stars in one of what I say in the sketches sidebar is an ‘overlooked’ sketch, ‘Totally Realistic Barbi’ (no typo), just 1:40 long, from 1994. Quite timely given last year’s Barbie movie phenomenon. Tracey Conway plays her mom.” You can see it here.

If you get the print edition of The Times, Clay says “Almost Live!” stories and photos comprise 18 of the magazine’s 26 pages, as well as “a significant chunk of The Mix,” the arts-and-entertainment section of the paper itself. Meantime, the MOHAI exhibit opens August 31st and is expected to be on display for six months – here’s more about it.