2011 was a big year for Freaky Deeky. We changed studios, which has brought with it some big changes to the show and some technical difficulties, and we thank you for being patient with us. We also performed at several huge shows this year, the biggest being in between the two headlining DJs in the main room of First Avenue at Bassgasm 3 back in February, we also put on our own show in the main room later in the year along with MPLS.TV and Bomp. We also performed at the Zombie Pub Crawl, and perhaps the most fun show of the year was the 25 year anniversary of Patrick’s Cabaret, which featured a 60+ minute naked time!
We developed our website (with a huge amount of help from The D-Rector David Rector), and all 36 episodes from 2011 are up on the site, with both streaming and download options available. We also welcomed a very diverse group of musical guests this year, from electronic producers to DJs to pubecore rockers to dream poppers, along with a healthy serving of our musical foundations Micah Buckley-Farlee and Brent Koenig. We have recently put up an MP3 file for all of the musical performances on the website. See the best musical guest list below for recommended listening!
We had some great moments on the show in 2011, here are some Best Of lists for 2011, as determined solely by Bobby Kahn aka The Mouth aka Lloyd Of The Dance. Click the links to watch the video or listen to the audio.
Best Episodes
This episode had it all – a beautiful marriage of great music, great freaks, great story lines, and great guests. It was apparent right from the get go that this was an ICE – Instant Classic Episode. The soundtrack provided by local DJ and producer Steve Centrific was perfectly dark and Halloween-y, TJ Richter AND Mark Mallman dropped in to tell us scary stories, and the background design was top notch.
For this episode, which came only 1 week after our #3 best episode of the year, our producer Hamil aka Dear Leader came up with an idea that would bring caller interaction to a new level. He wrote a script and fed the lines to our callers, who in turn spoke the lines while a freak mouthed the lines on screen. It was a harrowing tale of the Straw King Of Pennsylvania, as we saw him rise to the top of the straw industry, and die tragically at the end of the episode just as he reached the peak of his success. Add in a soundtrack by Grant Cutler and the most interactive calls ever from frequent caller Ray McParlin, and you have got yourself the #2 best episode of 2011!
We pulled out all the stops for this one. Slapping Purses came down to give us some siqq e-beats, and we had three, count em T H R E E stand up comedians, as well as the well known 1920s comic Silent Film Guy. In addition to all that, we also played pin the ass on the ass with the caller, letting them give directions to the blindfolded ass-pinner. Tomahawk Tassels edged out Vanessa Milano in the Million Dollar Ass competition, and what an ass it was! Did we mention Robin Williams also made an appearance on this show? No? Cause he did.
We took off on an airborne excursion on this episode, reliving the entire air travel experience for our viewers so they didn’t have to. We dealt with x-ray body scanners, irresponsible baggage handlers, and a drunk pilot. Long story short, plane crashed, we all died.
5) Dawn Of The Freak – October 2
We had just come back off a month long break, and despite some major technical difficulties, this episode turned out being great. Our old host Rock N Roll Ray was back and took some calls and gave us a Naked Time in a way that only Ray can deliver. This completed the October trifecta. All 3 episodes from October made this list!
Best Music
1) Jazari – Artificial Intelligence – November 27
Patrick Flanagan aka Jazari marches to the beat of a different drummer. A robot drummer to be exact. Not only was the music exceptional, his robots looked amazing, easily our most photogenic musical act to ever play on the show. You can listen to the MP3 link above, and you won’t be disappointed, but you should probably watch the full episode here.
2) Steve Centrific – Haunted House – October 30
Steve’s chops as a DJ and music fan were shown off on this soundtrack. He didn’t play Halloween songs, but his songs reminded us of Halloween, and were perfectly dark and spooky. Steve is known for being a techno DJ, but his “set” on this episode was anything but.
3) Mux Mool – Physical Education – January 16
We were lucky to catch Mux Mool while he was still at home from NYC in the Twin Cities, and he rewarded us with a great DJ set that was just what we needed to sweat off some holiday weight in our physical education episode. If you like to dance, this one is for you. This episode as a whole was very good and only narrowly missed the Best Episode list.
4) Grant Cutler – YourTube – April 10 AND Relax – August 21
Grant pulled double duty for us in 2011, providing a great soundtrack to one of our best episodes of the year and a chilled-out soundscape for our Relax episode. Take a load off, put on your slippers, turn the lights down, light a few candles, and listen to his Relax set. We dare you not to.
5) Micah Buckley-Farlee and Brent Koenig
No specific episode of note, but these two have been our “OG” musicians since the inception of the show, and they combined to do music on approximately half of our 36 episodes in 2011. On top of that, they gave us soundtracks to our live events, and in some cases played live with us at those events. These two are a huge part of the show!
Best Appearances
1) Ashley Sierra and Eric Zuelke – Holiday Party – December 11
For our final episode of the season, the cast and crew were surprised to be joined by former freaks and current superstar callers Ashley Sierra and Eric Zuelke, who had not been on the show in over a year. They came out into the studio with a giant bag on top of them, and not even Hamil knew that Bobby had made a secret deal with them to host the show. There is no clip to watch, just watch the whole episode here.
2) Leslie and The LYs – Lord Of The Freaks – March 20
We were joined by internet superstars Leslie and her fabulous LYs back up singers/dancers/awesome technicians, and they lived up to the hype and then some. We shot two music videos for them in the middle of the episode, Power Cuddle (linked above) and She’s Got Pants.
3) Mo Donahue as Cher – The Mind – February 27
Mo’s impersonation of Cher was downright amazing, and we even had a talking, life sized Academy Award statue to give her, not to mention an in studio appearance by Charlie Sheen. As our superstar caller Tecon Johnson said immediately after this performance – “my mind was just blown on liquid television”. Nothing else needs to be said about this clip.
4) Mark Mallman’s Scary Story – Haunted House – October 30
As we mentioned above, the Haunted House episode had it all, and it is the only episode to show up on all three of these lists. Mark told a tale so frightening that it brings me pain to even think about it now. The Presidents Of The United States Of America were actually elected to be the President of our great nation, and from then on all Presidents also had to be a band. This was just one of the passages Mark read from the Bible 3, the new religious text available at your local Wal-Mart parking lot.
5) Silent Film Guy – Huge Ass Show
We dialed our time period back several decades as we were joined by the famous 1920s comedian Silent Film Guy. He comes from a simpler time, when jokes were delivered via text cards. There were also some other great comedic performances on the show by Dan Mogol, Sam Spadino, and Ben Kronberg.
Well, there you have it. The Best Of 2011! Thanks for sticking with us and we look forward to seeing you again in 2012! Stay tuned to our facebook page and twitter feed as we are not yet set on what day we will come back, but you can be pretty sure that it will not be on January 1.
Happy new year, and see you in 2012!
