Wisconsin’s Film Future and Park Passion (Hour 2)

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who likes pina coladas but hates getting caught in the rain, Pete Chwaba.

Let's do it.

LFG baby, let's...

Go.

It is time for nightlight.

It is great to be here.

Great to have you with me.

This is a fun show tonight, folks.

You're here on a gorgeous night.

It's so nice outside.

If you go outside in the nice weather, it's just gonna overwhelm you.

So pull the family around the radio, stay indoors, and listen to the radio.

And let's talk about movies and TV.

And tonight, Parks...

and film incentives and a comedy competition in Oshkosh.

So much fun stuff going on here tonight.

Great to have you.

And yeah, we're gonna do it.

Conrad, how you doing?

I'm doing great.

Do you know who the king of LFG is?

I don't know.

I think it's Tom Brady.

Is it really?

God, I'm stealing Tom Brady's phrases.

Why do you say that?

He started that?

Well, I don't think he actually started, but before every game, he runs to the crowd, screams LFG, fist bumps, and runs back.

He could be saying, let's floss gingerly.

That could be what it, you

know.

No, he doesn't say the acronym.

He says the actual words.

Yeah.

Let's floss gingerly.

Whatever reason, it gets his team wound up.

That intimidates the bonus right

there.

He gets

it done.

That's why

he's the goat.

I don't even know if he's the goat.

You know, I watched a really funny video last night and I don't know what your feelings are on Skip Bayless.

Kind of a tool.

But whatever.

So there's this, uh, there's this YouTube page called Jubilee and they mainly they were doing like they had one politician in the middle and then they surround him by a bunch of regular people.

Okay.

And

us commoners.

And then they set a clock.

and then people have to run to the chair to try to argue with

them.

Oh, so it's like a privilege to see who gets to go head to head with

me?

Yes.

So they did one with Skip Bayless, okay?

Okay.

And he claims that Tom Brady is the goat and Patrick Mahomes is over... He said laughably overrated.

He is such a clown.

You don't know how many people disagreed with him.

They had great points about it.

Like, the only thing you could come back to was Patrick Malone's Super Bowl losses.

Like, yeah.

But Brady's got three of them.

Yeah.

Brady could just, Brady's seven and three, he could

just

as easily be five and five or four and six.

Yeah.

I mean, he's not, and you got to give him credit.

That's like people saying, I'll take Jordan off the bulls.

Well, he's on the bulls.

But it's the same thing with Brady.

And he is great.

The

guy

got the 10 Super Bowls.

You can't argue with

that.

No, you can't.

And I just think it's hilarious if you get to watch that.

You're just gonna be like skip.

Why did you do this to yourself?

I'll tell you why he does it to himself because he's laughing all the way to the bank.

He says crazy crap and people hate him and Stephen A Smith is controversial when they were on the show together.

They both would say stuff.

Although I feel like Stephen A Smith is really speaking what he believes whether you agree with it or not.

Skip Bayless.

I just think he's a clown.

He actually like he says LeBron is his in his top 10 NBA players.

He says LeBron is number nine on his list.

Ooh.

See, again,

hot take

or

something just to rile people up.

The phone lines from Cleveland are lighting up.

Yeah, he's a dope.

But I think let's floss gingerly is a great

way to get a team

riled up, especially in a context.

Combat

sport.

Can you imagine, like Anderson

Silva?

Brian from Green Bay.

I just saw that, yeah.

Have you seen Brady's

teeth?

Definitely a flosser.

Chuck Cecil?

Not so much.

I've never seen Chuck Cecil's teeth.

The way

he played, I'd be surprised if he still has some.

Great text, Brian.

That was awesome.

Yeah, thank you.

We got a couple of texts I got to get to from last night.

Bud texted in at 4.43 in the morning and on godly hour.

But that's when Bud's up.

That's when he does his best work.

What was our, it was Teen Movies last night, right?

It was a question.

So

Bart chimes in overnight.

He listens to the rebroadcast from four to six, which I think is great.

And Bud says, Hey Pete and Conrad with a K. Nicely done, bud.

My wife and I subscribed to a service that would send us movies on VHS tapes.

We still have them.

Oh wow, right now?

That's impressive.

He says we still have them, but we don't have a working VHS player.

Some titles of Teen Movies included the Buttercream Gang.

The Sandlot and my favorite Rigoletto or Rigoletto love the show but from Jamesville.

Thank you, bud.

I've not heard of two of those I have to be honest the Sandlot's an absolute classic and The VHS thing might have been a joke, but there's a store in Madison that rents out VHS tapes this guy's like he has this really cool shop right off State Street and I wonder if that's the place he gets his tapes from but texted again

11 minutes later, he had another thought while he was driving around Madtown.

Yes, he did.

He says, oh, and hey, Pete, I was also a subscriber to Columbia House Music Cassettes, 14 cassettes for one cent, but I should have read the fine print.

He's probably still paying those off now.

He says, still love the show.

11 minutes later, I'm glad Bud still loves the show.

So thank you, Bud.

And he's actually in Jamesville.

Okay, not Madison.

For some reason, I thought Bud was in Madison.

So Brian also says, use the Google.

for to see Cecil's teeth.

I guess.

You're

welcome to Google that if you like.

You can share the post in the stream if you like.

I'm kind of curious to see his teeth.

Great show tonight, folks.

A great night for you to be here.

We're gonna cover a few different topics tonight.

This will be fun.

We've got Cliff Wall will be here at...

in the seven o'clock hour.

He is on the Friends of Wisconsin State Parks Board.

We're going to talk about all the cool things you can do in Wisconsin State Parks this summer.

We have amazing state parks here.

I hope they are not under attack like so much other stuff that we share is.

But Cliff will be here and he can give us kind of the lowdown of what to expect, what's going to happen this summer, some of the cool events, the trails.

That's going to be fun.

Cliff was here a few weeks ago with Sam Venese, trying to get, they're part of that group, trying to get Jack Venese into the Hall of Fame.

The NFL Hall of Fame.

Cliff was a great guest, and I said, you know, it'd be great to come back and talk about the parks.

And he agreed.

So he will be here in the second hour.

I'm working my way back, Conrad.

705, we've got Ko O'Neill.

That is his name.

Ko, CO, how cool is that?

Ko will be here.

Ko is a professor at UW-Stout.

He is actively involved in Action Wisconsin, which is the group trying to bring film incentives to Wisconsin.

And we just found out yesterday, or I just found out yesterday, although I think it was kind of a last minute thing, the House Ways and Means Committee here in Wisconsin is gonna hear, they're gonna have a hearing about the bill.

So we'll know more tomorrow, but Co will be here to kind of fill us in, maybe help us figure out how we can help support them, or just let us know kind of where things are at.

Another cool thing I found out about Co is he used to work for George Lucas.

He worked at Lucas Film Limited, which is really cool.

So I was gonna ask

him about that too, yeah.

But now he's chilling in stout teaching art design and video production and I think screenwriting.

So looking forward to meeting Co at 705 and then at 635.

Ben Giles.

This guy's on the move, man.

He is an Oshkosh.

I think he's an Oshkosh resident.

We didn't cover this yesterday, but he has a comedy competition.

He's trying to find the funniest comedian in Oshkosh.

And they're doing it at the Oshkosh Arena May 10th.

And he is the founder of, I think it's laughable productions.

But Ben will be here at 635 to tell us about this really cool event that you can still go to.

It's at the Oshkosh Arena.

Have you ever been there?

You know where that is?

I have not been there, actually.

It sounds huge, because the word arena

is used.

I mean,

I hope it's not like a 20,000-seater, and they got 80 people in the crowd.

I think that's awesome and

I

love that he's doing this and we'll talk to Ben about that and give you guys some more information about that too.

So that's your lineup on tonight's show.

Parks, film incentives, and comedy competitions should be fun.

Great to have you with me.

Let's get to the question of the night, shall we?

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Questions.

All right, summer is here, or so it would seem.

Maybe we'll get snow this weekend.

I don't know.

I hope not.

But it is gorgeous outside.

Here in Northeast Wisconsin.

I know it's gorgeous where you are in Wisconsin.

The whole state is beautiful today.

Summer's here.

And it's National Beverage Day.

So tonight's question is what is your favorite cool summer drink?

What do you like to, what do you find refreshing on a hot summer day?

Let us know.

You can also share how you like to drink it.

You like to sit on the stoop, on the deck.

or you'd like to drink your summer drink too.

But that's the question.

What is your favorite cool summer drink?

Let us know at 855-752-4842-855-75 Civic.

You can also text us on the Civic Media app, which as you know is very easy to use.

And if you're watching on the stream on YouTube, Facebook, or X, you can text us there too.

Text us on the stream.

So let's do some... Well, I'll read those next.

But I think that's a good question.

What would you...

What

would your

answer be?

You know, I have two.

Like, there's one alcoholic and then one non.

I'm gonna do that too.

And my favorite alcoholic is mojito.

Yeah.

It's so refreshing.

It just tastes, it doesn't taste like super sweet, like those other drinks, I think.

I think you can have more than one and still be like, yeah, I really enjoy this drink.

And then my non-alcoholic, it'd probably be an Arnold Palmer.

Yeah, that's a pretty good one too.

And I'm actually, I'm drinking it right now.

Oh, look at you.

I'm going to say, I'm going to agree with you a half.

I like, I'll do non-alcoholic first.

I like a non-alcoholic beer and I'm not a beer drinker.

It's when I quit booze temporarily.

I've discovered the joy of blue moon non-alcoholic.

So

that would be my summer drink.

It tastes very, it's delicious.

My summer drink, and this is kind of weird.

I'm going to do it, I'm going to over explain this, but it would be probably a margarita, but a double.

Because margaritas, in my opinion, typically are too sweet.

So I like a nice, strong margarita.

You obviously can't drink as many of them, but on a summer day, give me a margarita.

As a refreshing drink, I also like a great martini.

Like, kind of with half dirt.

Some olive juice, but a nice martini with olives shaken.

But I like that.

I like that any time of the year.

I'm gonna say margarita.

and a Blue Moon non-alcoholic.

So you don't have to share non-alcoholic drinks, folks.

I know that's not as fun, but just share whatever it is your favorite cool summer drink is.

We'd love to hear it and we'll read it on the radio.

We have a caller?

Yes, we do.

Cindy from Appleton.

Cindy from Appleton.

It's about time.

How

you

been?

Good.

No, I'm not really so good.

I actually have shingles, which I'm telling you is a pain in the ass.

Oh my God.

Pain everywhere.

I'm sorry to hear that.

That's terrible.

Yeah.

It is terrible, but anyway my two favorite drinks for the summer alcoholic non my alcoholic beverage is a really icy cold Good sangria.

Oh nice choice

Yep, of course my non-alcoholic is water with a lemon or a lime or a cucumber water is always my favorite

And you know what to me Cindy the water the lemon makes it too.

That's a fantastic That makes it refreshing I wouldn't thank you for the call and I would encourage you

to drink as much sangria as you can to get through shingles.

That's terrible.

The only thing is I can't drink alcohol with the medication,

so.

Oh, says who.

Just tell him a guy on the

radio said it was okay.

Okay, doc.

Thank you, Sid.

Have a great night and get better soon.

Okay.

Boy, I had a shingles shot, the vaccine, which to some people basically gives you shingles or

condensed version of it that lasts for like anywhere from 18 to 24 to 30 hours.

And if shingles is worse than how the vaccine made me feel, I feel bad for anybody with shingles.

So I've never had it.

I hope never to get it.

And so far, the vaccine has kept it away from me.

But you do get a little taste of it.

It's not fun.

All right, when we come back, I'm going to read your texts.

And Conrad and I are going to play.

If you guys missed this last Friday.

The big debate on the internet was can 100 men or women defeat a silverback gorilla?

Well Conrad and I took one on.

We're going to replay that next and read your texts.

Fun night here.

Great to have you with me.

It's Peach Wabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back tonight, folks.

I'm Pete Schwabba, your host for this evening's program.

Great to have you with me on this beautiful night here in the state of Wisconsin.

So I just want to say, too, if there are any teachers listening, my wife is a teacher, and I see how hard they work.

It is National Teacher Appreciation Day.

So for all you do...

Thank you, teachers.

They're kind of under attack in a lot of public school districts, but they work so hard.

And I know people say, oh, they get summers off.

They really don't get the whole summer off.

Most of them are in their classroom quite a bit during the summer.

And used to be, if you were a teacher, you got great benefits and all that stuff.

That's gone too.

So these teachers go into the profession knowing that they are never going to be rich from what they do and they do it.

because they love to work with kids.

So tip of my hat to all teachers.

If any of you are listening, thank you for teaching our kids.

National Teacher Appreciation Day.

It's also National Beverage Day.

And the first day of summer, well, kind of.

So our question of the night is, what is your favorite cool summer drink?

And we've got, do we have a call?

Yes, we do.

It's Brian from Milwaukee.

Brian from Milwaukee, get out of town.

Hey, buddy, how are you?

Yeah, I'm out of time.

I'm actually on this side of Milwaukee, and you're in Green Bay But no, I hope you guys are doing well.

We're doing great.

I got a few summer drinks.

Yeah Lay them out.

I'm glad you guys are doing well.

Yeah, please.

Alcoholic drink would be a dirty Shirley.

Oh, yeah.

I always love the I always love the What are they called Shirley?

Yeah, so it's just the alcoholic version which is with the vodka

And then a dirty Harry is actually taking the same thing as a Shirley Temple, except it uses the club soda.

It uses like Coke and I think gin or something like that or whiskey, depending on how you want it.

I also do love a good root beer float.

And then there's also like an orange cream float that I've done before with

vanilla ice cream and orange soda.

That's really good too.

Those are fantastic.

And you know something?

I had one of those probably two years ago and I forgot they existed.

And I'm like, it's almost not better than a root beer float because root beer float has like history on its side.

But yeah, those

are

delicious.

Awesome.

Great

choices.

Absolutely.

Love them.

So

hoist one tonight for me

and stay

in town,

Brian.

Don't get out of town.

Stay in Milwaukee.

Thanks for the call buddy.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Let's go to the, what do we do?

Let's do some texts.

We'll read some texts.

From the social media, we post the question on social media folks on our Facebook page.

You're welcome to check that out during the day.

If you want and chime in on the question throughout the day, Mike on social media says lemonade.

You can't go wrong with lemonade.

I know Mike and I don't think he drinks.

So that's a good, we're getting a lot of non-alcoholic, very responsible.

Daniel Wheeler says, John Daly, it's an Arnold Palmer 50-50 lemonade and iced tea with vodka added.

They really helped my golf game, too.

I bet they do.

Well, you are a crappy golfer if drinking helps.

Oh, helps me.

It makes it more fun.

I'd have to drink to get through a round of golf, I think.

Our pal Emerson Layman from WBAYTV here in Green Bay says, I drink roughly three gallons of Arnold Palmer's a week.

That's a lot.

That's a lot.

He must spend most of his time in the restroom because it's tea.

Yeah, that's a lot.

Ice tea and lemonade.

It's like basically almost a half a gallon a day.

Yeah.

But you could do worse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Emerson, he's got the money.

He can do anything, drink.

Have we ever, have you ever drank with Emerson?

No.

Maybe he doesn't drink because he didn't answer.

He answered a platonic drink, if you will.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you, buddy.

Good to hear from you, Emerson.

Todd Michaels says a rhubarb slush.

Todd,

can you please text what that

is?

I think I know.

It's just a rhubarb flavored like the icy.

Think of like when you go to the movie theater and they have an icy but it's rhubarb flavor and it's not as sweet and they put booze in there.

My mom's family, the Murphy's used to put like, they live in Sussex and they were one of the first people to move to Sussex back in like the early 80s.

You could still see downtown Milwaukee from their hill.

Now it's all built up around there, but we used to sit up there.

We, I didn't do it.

I was a kid, but the adults used to sit up there and drink these like brandy slushies on

a

summer night.

And I remember as a kid going, I cannot wait to drink that

drink.

Like it just looks

so good.

But a rhubarb slushie is probably slush.

It's probably the same thing.

Going to the stream, Dave says gin and tonic.

Great one, Dave.

Very nice, refreshing drink.

And then Dave also chimed in with a non-alcoholic iced tea.

Ice tea is great because it's also healthy.

I cannot just do

ice tea by itself.

Really?

I

need lemonade, I feel like, in it.

I don't know.

It just tastes weird to me without

lemonade.

It's just so good for you.

You drink black tea over ice.

It's delicious.

That's a great choice.

Thanks, Dave.

Chris from Janesville says, please check out Darius Pro Pitman on Facebook.

He has an incredible song for Men's Mental Health Month.

Okay.

We'll have to check that out.

Is this mental?

I guess it's probably mental health month.

Yeah Thank you very much Chris from Jamesville.

Chris also says I'm boring ice cold Miller like that's not boring Chris That's like the the all-american the all-wisconsin drink exactly

The

all-wisconsin drink for guys watching their calorie intake.

That's an excellent choice Chris.

Thank you, buddy We've got Chris Casper our pal Casper from Madison and the 608 he says ain't no laws

when you're drinking claws.

Is that a Casper original?

No, that's a thing.

It's kind of a new drink.

That's why I was thinking maybe he just came up with that.

No, that's a huge thing with white claws.

There's no loss.

But I'll say this, they just started making a non-alcoholic claw, too.

So you could

do

both.

You could two-fist a non-alcoholic and an alcoholic.

That seems to drive with your knee.

That's healthy.

Thank you, Chris.

Great to hear from you, buddy.

Ed from Madison says, non-alcoholic, Arnold Palmer, alcoholic, John Daley.

You could read that even without the question of the night, I think.

And then Anna from Madison says, hi, Pete and Conrad.

My cool summer drink is a pina colada.

Great one.

Great one.

And we get one right here.

Chris also from Jamesville.

Chris Sheridan from the 608 says, as a husband to a teacher, thank you.

We are both husbands of teachers, pal.

You're very welcome, Chris.

All right, fantastic.

We are going to come back and talk about a really cool Oshkosh comedy competition that is coming up next after Nightlight's news team keeps you informed.

It's Peach Wabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

This

is Night Light.

I am Pete Schwabba, your loyal host for this evening's broadcast.

Great to have you with me as we talk about the things in life that make us happy.

Right, Conrad?

I agree.

All right, well done.

So our question of the night, folks, is what is your favorite cool summer drink?

It is National Beverage Day, and it seems like, anyway, summer is here.

So let's celebrate and talk about things we want to drink this summer.

And they don't have to be alcoholic.

We've gotten a lot of suggestions about non-alcoholic drinks.

So you can share those, too.

It could be an ice cold Coca-Cola for all I care.

I just want to hear from you guys.

It's more fun when you are part of the show.

Um, all right, so let's, we've got a lot to get to tonight.

Great guests.

And I'm going to bring the first one on right now.

Uh, this gentleman, I believe it's from Oshkosh.

We had a brief conversation yesterday, but he is the founder of laughable productions and also the Oshkosh funniest comedian competition, which is coming up this weekend.

It is my pleasure to welcome Mr. Ben Giles tonight, buddy.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Hey, the pleasure is all ours.

I, I.

I'm applaud what you're doing because the world needs more laughter.

And I can tell just by looking at you on the stream, you are a happy guy and you like to laugh.

So that's great that that comes across right from the get-go.

Nice to meet you, buddy.

Nice to meet you as well.

And I completely agree.

The world needs laughter more now than ever.

And that was part of the reason why we started Laughful Productions six years ago was because we wanted to bring more laughter to the Fox Valley.

Oshkosh is funny as a comedian is doing that, so we're really, really excited.

So let's

talk about that, but let's also talk about, you said it's six years old.

What do you do?

What is laughable production?

Tell people about your business.

Yeah, so we're a comedy entertainment company.

We produce all sorts of shows, mainly murder mystery dinner theaters and comedy shows.

So we started with murder mystery dinner theater shows, and we started doing improv comedy, stand-up comedy.

We've done all sorts of stuff.

Trivia.

fun racers during COVID.

We did a virtual show over Zoom.

It was called 10 Ways to Survive Life in Quarantine and it was like a little play that a playwright had written two weeks fresh into the pandemic.

So we really just try to do things that we think people will like and that will give people the opportunity to maybe try something a little more unique and in the process laugh a little.

Absolutely.

I love it.

All right, let's do the stand-up thing.

Are you a comedian, Ben?

I think we talked about this

a

little bit.

OK.

How's that going?

I'm a

comedian.

Great.

I like improv.

I'm an improv guy.

I've been recently trying my hand at stand-up.

I've done probably three shows, mainly hosting the shows that we've been producing.

I'll do 10 to 15 minutes at the beginning.

But it's been good.

I think I'm starting to really like stand-up.

But got my start at improv comedy, for sure.

What's harder?

I don't know.

Honestly, if you would have asked me before I did stand up, I would have said improv.

But now that I've tried stand up, standing is actually pretty tough.

They're really different.

In my opinion, improv is you got to be really quick on your feet and you got to.

You really play well with your other players.

But stand up, you know, it's a really great relationship that you have to have between you and the audience, you know, and you can really be up there for a couple of minutes.

And if your jokes aren't hitting, it can be brutal.

Does it help to have people like I've done some improv years and years ago before I did stand up.

And it seems like you can lean on people if it's not going well.

Does that make it a little bit easier?

I mean, you still could get stared at.

I mean, a bad crowd is a bad crowd, but.

Absolutely.

When...

You know, one of the things that we'd always stress, you know, if it's not your show, it's not your show, let your co-stars shine.

There's no shame in that, you know, it being a supporting role in a scene or during a game, you know, because it's really about the audience's experience, right?

So don't make it about you, especially if the audience is gravitating toward your other player, you know, let them shine and tee them up, set them up for some good jokes and, you know, for some good bits and let them.

go but yeah it can be really tough if the key is really finding people that you have good chemistry with right yeah obviously you need to have that good yes and then you got to be able to play off of what the audience has given you and your suggestion in the game but also finding people that you actually have a connection with and you know I like doing improv with people that I know and that I'm friends with because that's the easiest way to make jokes and yeah

That's a great answer.

Okay, so tell us about this great event you have.

It's coming up May 10th at the Oshkosh Arena.

Tell us about this cool competition.

Yeah, so it's called Oshkosh's 20th Comedian, and we're going to have four preliminary rounds with at least 10 comedians at each round, starting in May.

First one is this Saturday, May 10th at the Oshkosh Arena, 7 o'clock.

Tickets are still available.

You can buy them at the door or online, and then...

You know, we have the next preliminary round in June, July, then August.

And the winner of each of those rounds is determined by an audience vote and a panel of judges.

So we're going to have a panel of judges there.

Audience is going to be able to vote for who they think is best as well.

And then the winner of each preliminary round is going to go to the finale in September.

And super excited about this.

So we're bringing in Josh Blue.

He won last comic standing.

Uh, in the 2000s and he was runner up on America's Got Talent in 2022.

And so he's going to headline the finale for us.

Um, and those four finalists, they're going to open for him.

Everyone that comes to the show will have a vote, you know, to see who they want to crown as Oscar's funniest, but then Josh blue is also going to be on the panel judging for the finale as well.

So.

Oshkosh Arena is really trying to bring fun things to the Oshkosh area.

You know, they're under a new group that's operating them, Venue Works, and the Venue Works team has been nothing but amazing.

I mean, they are really trying to bring unique ventures that you may not get in your typical Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and they're doing a great job at doing that.

Boy, I think that's really cool that you're doing it over three or four months because...

It almost sounds like a like an NC double labor.

Do any of the comics get buys like if they're the best comics do they get a

You know, I didn't think about that.

We do have some really good comics coming.

I'm not gonna lie to you to two of the five finalists for the Madison's Funnies comic competition are gonna be competing in Oshkosh Those are some heavy hitters and then there's some guys that have filmed specials, you know, and they're you know, so we we we could have but no

Everyone's at an equal playing field.

All 10 comedians each round are going to be, I mean, you can bring friends.

You can sack the room.

I mean, there's going to be about 50-50 between audience and judges.

It's not the only factor, but the more people you bring, the better you'll do.

And I think the funnier comedians probably have a larger following, so they probably have an advantage in that regard for sure.

OK.

My guest is Ben Giles.

He is the founder of Laughable Productions, and he is putting on a really cool competition at the Oshkosh Arena called Oshkosh's Funniest Comedian.

You mentioned some heavy hitters.

Can you mention names, Ben?

Like who you have?

I

don't want to sound biased.

I can mention some of the folks that we have this coming Saturday because they're all announced.

The one that I specifically had, you know, reference about Madison's Funnest Comic.

Her name is Brienne Wilhite.

She'll be there this Saturday.

We have a local guy.

Josh that's coming in.

His name is Alex Morris.

We got a final act guy coming in Eric weeks.

He's done a lot of shows with us in the past,

but

I don't want to.

I don't want to be too biased because we want to give everybody a fair shot.

But those are some of the names that are probably recognizable that we have coming up this Saturday.

And then in the future, as we announce, I have the slate of comedians for the next three rounds.

Everybody's confirmed.

There will be some heavy hitters.

And I'm really excited to see everyone's reaction, too, when they see who's going to be competing.

Honestly, I think it's anybody's, it's up for grabs.

It's going to be anybody's race because there are some really funny people that we got coming on.

Well, and it's, you know, anybody can, even though you call them heavy hitters and I'm sure they are, someone could have a great show that night.

You don't know, it's not a slam dunk that because crowds can be fickle and can have different reactions to different people.

So it sounds like a blast.

Tell us about the Oshkosh Arena.

What's that venue like?

I've never even heard of the, no, I've never lived in Oshkosh, but I'm not familiar with that.

Yeah, I mean, they've been a great partner to us.

We've done two murder mystery dinner theaters there and now we're kicking off, you know, Oscar's funniest comedian.

They were previously called the Menominee Nation Arena.

And there was a little bit of controversy in the press the last couple of years.

There was some issues with some loans and some bankruptcy.

And so that's why they have that new operating group coming in.

And that's why they're trying to kind of reestablish themselves in the community because

for a while it seemed like it might be going under.

But they originally it was built to kind of host the herd, which is the Milwaukee Bucks G

League.

And so the herd plays all their home games at the Oshkosh Arena.

And now the Oshkosh Arena has done a really great job of trying to bring in other things that are more than just the herd so that people have these entertainment experiences.

But you know, it's a decent size arena can host 4,000 people.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you have it for different venues?

Yeah.

So like for our event this weekend, they have like a VIP lounge that seats like 250.

And so we're probably going to be in that VIP lounge.

But if we're pushing close to 250 by Saturday, you know, we might move to that big main floor.

Wow.

But I've seen black curtains and you know, have seating in the middle kind of the bowl is what they call it.

Um, but yeah, then they have, you know, stadium seating going up and the goal is to sell that puppy out when Josh blue comes through the valley in September.

You should do it.

You should make the comics do like a layup line, you know, like have them go out and make it a real, make it a real event.

Um, three throw a layup and a three pointer if you want to advance.

Um, so.

Are there parameters, Ben, like do the comics have to be clean or can they work blue?

What are the issues there?

Yeah, no, no parameters.

Really the only thing that we've told these comedians is they have eight minutes, so they have eight minutes set and no props.

Okay.

Everything else up to them.

I mean, they can go as dark and dirty as they want and they can take the high road and do some clean comedy.

But it'll be interesting because as you probably know, every audience is different, right?

When you're walking into a room, you're trying to gauge what your jokes are going to land with this crew and what's going to differentiate you between these nine other comedians who are also thinking the same thing you are reading the audience.

And so I'm excited to see what happens.

I know we've hosted a decent amount of shows the last couple of months with Stand Up.

And we've had a wide range of people that have gone really dark, really dirty.

I mean, some people in the audience, you see a little cringe from time to time, but most of our comedians are great at kind of reading the room and knowing what their audience likes and trying to appease everyone.

So they can be dirty or clean, but if Kara Top shows up with his trunk, you're going to send him packing.

Exactly.

That's exactly right.

Let's do you work clean as a comic?

I mean, I know you've only been up a few times, but do you tend to stay clean or you sort of?

No, no, I've

I've gone.

I've gone a little I've gone low.

I mean, I I told myself when I started doing stand up, you know, because I have a day job and, you know, my in the laughable production is kind of like a side gig thing.

And, you know, we do all this entertainment stuff.

But, you know, I've

I've been elected to public office before, you know, I kind of have this persona.

So I told myself when I started stand up that I wasn't necessarily going to go dirty or low, but I found myself on stage the last two times telling some pretty on the line risque content.

So I love it.

Ben

Jaus is here.

We're going to do a very quick break.

We'll come back and have a couple more minutes with him.

This is Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

This is Nightlight.

I am Pete Schwabba.

Our question of the night is, what is your favorite cool summer drink?

My guest right now is Ben Giles.

He is the founder of Laughable Productions and has a really cool comedy contest happening in Oshkosh.

The first round happens May 10th.

That's Saturday, I believe, right, Ben?

Mm-hmm.

Okay, so at the Oshkosh Arena, there's still seats available, I understand?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, how can people get tickets, Ben?

You can go to Oshkosh Arena.com.

Okay.

And you can buy online through Ticketmaster.

If you want to save money on those Ticketmaster fees, you can buy at the Oshkosh Arena box office in person, or you can buy at the door the night of the show.

Very cool.

So this is, that's exciting.

So do you have, who are some of your favorite Wisconsin comedians, aside from ones we've just named Ben?

Do you have favorites here in the

state?

I mean, I love listening to Charlie Barron's.

I think he is he's so funny because he really kind of localized comedy for a lot of people.

You

know, with the man to talk minute, it was, you know, we've seen that kind of news desk format happen before in the past, but to have it be so hyper localized and have it really go viral among the Midwest.

And then, you know, I've had the chance to see him in person a couple of times do stand up.

And, you know, I think he does a really good job of

playing

into the culture.

And so he's one of the guys that I really like.

One of my friends in college is named Jeffrey Asmus.

He got his start in Madison.

He won Madison's Funniest Comic when we were in college in 2015.

And he's been touring all over the country now.

He's super funny.

Um, and he's found some viral success online too, which I think is awesome.

You know, he's, he's got millions of followers between his Instagram and his Tik Tok.

And so it's really

cool

to see someone, you know, that used to do comedy with, you know, it used to go to all these comedy college parties at UW and then all of a sudden he's, you know, sound out comedy clubs across the country.

But yeah, those are probably two that I like to watch the most.

And I'm hoping that maybe we'll find the next big Wisconsin star through our competition here.

Wouldn't that be something?

What about outside of Wisconsin on a more national level?

Is there someone that if you're spinning the dial at night and a comedian's on, you have to sit there and watch him?

Yeah, I like, I really like Burke Kreischer, Tom Spira.

I also like their podcast.

Theo Vaughn, I know he can be a little, some people don't really like Theo.

They think he's a little distasteful at the time, but I think he is so funny.

And he also, he just got to interview Trump, which I think is wild, you know, like mainstream politicians are like now going on podcasts with comedians.

Right.

It's a wild time to be alive.

So those are a couple that I really like.

Some, you know, iconic folks from back in the day.

Chris Rock, I think is super funny.

Very

funny.

Eddie Murphy, you know, some two classics from way back when.

And then one guy that I have kind of

I wasn't really old enough to like him in the moment, but I've really, really loved his Chris Farley.

I mean, if I could just be Chris Farley, man, I would.

That would be a dream for me.

I love watching Chris Farley sketch comedy in his movies.

I think he's just the funniest guy.

Hilarious.

So before we let you go, Ben, tell us about these dinner theater shows you do and where can people find out more information?

Do you do the ones up here in Green Bay or is that a separate outfit?

No, that's a, it's a separate company.

I used to be a detective in those in the Madison area, same company.

And that's kind of what spurred me to start this in final act in 2019.

Um, but yeah, so murder mystery dinner theaters are super fun.

You can find all the info at laughful productions.com or our Facebook or Instagram.

Um, there, one thing that I think we do really well that a lot of other dinner theaters don't do is we have some really cool themed nights.

We just finished a Kentucky Derby themed murder mystery.

And we're doing an 80s prompting murder mystery Friday, May 16th in Oshkosh.

And so all those details are at our website, laughfulproductions.com.

You can buy tickets there.

You get, you know, dinner, entertainment.

Sometimes you get a drink ticket with your ticket as well.

And it's a really

Fun night and it's different.

You know,

it's not your

typical go hang out at the bars.

You can still throw back a couple beers.

If you, you know, you like your old fashions, you know, we'll have a bar for you.

We're funnier when you're drunk, but you can have some really, really great entertainment from a local comedy group.

I am so curious about those because I've been reading about them for years.

So one of these days I'll have to mosey over and check out.

I'll send

you a ticket, Pete.

You pick which

one

works in your schedule and I'll get you a ticket.

Check her out.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Well, listen, buddy, I think it's great.

I love that you're doing this.

I wish you luck.

Break a leg and keep us posted as things progress.

We can have you on before the rounds or whatever and try to get some butts in the seats for you because people need to laugh, like we said.

And I think this sounds like a really cool event.

So break a leg, bud.

I appreciate that, Pete.

And I appreciate you.

Thank you so much for bringing me on.

This was really fun.

Anytime, my pleasure.

All right, that's Ben Giles.

Check out OshkoshArena.com.

I believe is where you can get the tickets or Ticketmaster.

But you can avoid the fees by going to OshkoshArena.com, which is great too.

But check out Laughable Productions and Oshkosh's funniest comedian competition.

I absolutely love that.

Conrad, you should enter that.

I don't think, I don't have a set, you know.

Come on, you got time?

I mean, I could just go out there and just see what happens.

See what happens.

Our question of the night is what is your favorite cool summer drink?

And we've got some really great answers so far.

Annie from Watertown says twice.

Oh, this is in regard to Cindy's shingles.

Annie says twice had shingles age 58 and 63.

Finally got the two dose Vax reaction to the second, but really nothing compared to getting shingles.

Yeah, okay.

I think anything I was kind of being whiny, because I was saying the vaccine kind of gives you shingles for like a few hours.

I literally, my lower back was killing, I was shaking.

So if shingles, obviously shingles is actually worse than that.

So I didn't mean to...

to downplay shingles.

I've heard it's horrible.

And she said that in all caps.

Nothing compared to getting shingles 18 million exclamation points.

And first time felt ill after a vaccine.

Yeah, there you go.

And he says, oh, Cuba Libre.

That's a drink.

Warm or cool summer drink.

I like that.

Sounds good.

Sounds beautiful.

Ross from Crawford County says, April, April spritz, one third April and two thirds sparkling wine.

All right.

Thank you, Ross.

Awesome.

Keep those texts coming, folks.

We will be right back to find out more about the incentives that are up for discussion on the house tomorrow.

We'll do that with Co-O'Neill.

It's coming up next at Sightlight with Pete

Schwabba.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy whose house has an actual wiggle room, Pete Schwabba.

Welcome back to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.

We are about to start act two after a lovely intermission.

Thanks for sticking with us Our question of the night is what is your favorite cool summer drink?

It is national beverage day And finally the weather appears to be heading in the right direction and I think you're right Conrad we need to get Brittany Merleau on the show She is a big-time award winner.

Yeah

swept the WBAs and That is exciting and Brittany works really hard

at Meteorology and she's like a doctor of meteorology.

I think so.

Dr. Merleau.

So enjoy the nice weather and tell us what your favorite cool summer drink is, folks.

Alcoholic, non-alcoholic, whatever your beverage is of choice, let us know.

Cliff Wall will be here in a little while.

We're going to talk about Wisconsin State Parks.

He is on the board of the Friends of the Wisconsin State Parks.

So we'll talk to Cliff about all the fun things you can do this summer, trails, parks.

It's gonna be a lot of fun.

Cliff's been on the show before and he is a swell guy.

That's coming up in a little bit.

Right now, we just learned, I just learned actually a day or two ago, that an incentives bill will be debated tomorrow, having a hearing tomorrow.

I think on the State Senate, we'll get all the details from our next guest, but it's Assembly Bill 231, a film incentive bill, and they're going to give it some attention tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.

And here to help us kind of decipher this and figure out where things are at is a gentleman named Ko O'Neill.

He has spent the last 20 years teaching art and design and video production and screenwriting at UW-Stout, and...

Not only that, he used to work for Lucasfilm Ltd.

That's kind of cool.

We'll talk to him a little bit about that as well.

And it is my pleasure right now to welcome Co.

Tonightlite.

Hey, buddy.

Hello, how are you?

I'm doing very well.

How are you doing tonight?

I'm doing pretty well.

Thanks for the nice intro.

Did I get it right?

Did I miss something?

No, you did.

No, you got it right.

OK.

I've been teaching for the last 20 years or so.

Not always, it's a doubt.

I just started this out in 2020 before that I was Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

OK.

And yeah, before that, I was in the movie business.

Very nice.

Well, we'll get to all of that, I hope.

But right now, this is a big deal tomorrow.

What do you expect to happen?

So it's Assembly Bill 231, the film incentive bill.

What are you hoping happens tomorrow and what will we know?

First of all, tell us a little bit about Co if you would what if the bill does pass?

What does that mean?

So what it means is that the tax incentives Could draw film production tell television production actually any kind of media production including advertising to the state of Wisconsin and You know a lot of other states have it.

I think we're one of only

Three or four states that doesn't have a state film board one only on the only 13 states that doesn't have any kind of incentives And so what will happen is it draws?

It allows any production company that is going to spend a certain amount of money on a production to do it here They spend the money here and then they get the rebate based on the money that they've spent so For example, if you came here to shoot a TV series

and you spent $20 million on that TV series, you could get up to 30% back on that because all of your payroll, all of your rentals, all that stuff that you would normally be paying taxes on goes right to the state of Wisconsin.

And then the state of Wisconsin refund 30% of that.

Six million

bucks.

Yeah, and that's significant, and that makes a big difference.

I mean, when you're choosing where to shoot your film, I shot a film in Wisconsin 20 years ago, and there were no incentives.

And then

I think

they were here briefly, and then they didn't last long, and now there's a new attempt.

What is the difference, Ko, between getting an incentive, and it also says a 30% tax credit?

I know that's what you're referring to, but is there a difference?

I mean, would filmmakers rather have the cash back, right?

Well, that's right.

And that's what the incentive is, is that you do get a tax rebate.

And so it's not a grant.

And I think that's one of the points of confusion is that a lot of people think, oh, the state's just handing out money to people from out of state making shows here.

And that's not the case.

The case is you only get the money back once you've spent a certain amount of your budget here in the state over the course of a year, for example.

So some great examples are New Mexico, where they shot Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, like those shows.

Weren't written to take place in Albuquerque.

They took place in Albuquerque because of Mexico at a 45% tax incentive at the time and Georgia is similar with the things like The Walking Dead or any of the Marvel movies, you know that were shot all in the Atlanta area It's because of the incentive and and you know, Georgia has been doing that for years, which is why they draw so much production.

I know that You know, Minnesota has you can take advantage of two incentives if you shoot in northern Minnesota in the iron range How

Let's say Wisconsin passes this and you get a 30% rebate.

Will that, do they still have to maybe push for even more to be competitive with some of these other states?

Not really because Wisconsin does offer a lot of regional advantages.

I mean, even look at topography.

So the way we have hills and valleys and streams and lakes and all that kind of stuff that you see in other states just not to the.

the look that we have here.

So think about a place like Door County, like you're not going to find a region like that in Minnesota.

It's nice as Minnesota is.

And

I think one of the reasons Minnesota does have it regional is because Minneapolis is such a center of advertising activity that could eat up a ton of incentive.

And so then, you know, if feature films or even car ads want to go to the Duluth area, they have to have a separate incentive.

Otherwise, Minneapolis would just absorb it and it would be gone for the whole state.

Whereas Wisconsin, I think is much more balanced and you won't see people just gravitating to Madison.

They'll be going to places like, you know, Superior, like I said, Door County or even Green Bay because of just how different all of those regions look.

Yeah, absolutely.

So.

What is your gut telling?

What do you think will happen tomorrow?

And what's the best case scenario for a group like Action Wisconsin to come out of the hearing tomorrow?

Well, unfortunately, it's not like a pageant, you know, they don't just hold up the numbers and say, good job, you win, you know, you have to actually kind of, you know, it would be nice if we could just get 10s and move on.

But it's a long process.

But the good news is that it is a very bipartisan.

Bill and it was actually drafted by Republicans and obviously a lot of the arts kind of go to the liberal side.

So both sides are really vying for it because of the economic factors, you know, and advantages it has towards the state.

In other states, I was on the state film board in Oregon for many years back in the early 2000s.

And that was a very balanced thing.

And the original concern was that all the work is going to go right to the cities, but it turned out not to be the case.

Like people were actually looking for

kind of rural communities or smaller communities that have a charm to them, you just can't fake.

And so in terms of what's happening tomorrow, you're probably aware that we've already done some testimony where we went to some of the events like in Hayward or West Alice or.

Wasau and spoke there and said here's our case.

We had like three minutes, right?

So

tomorrow will be a dedicated hearing just to this bill and there is no time limit.

So it's not really a Cory Booker style filibuster, but it is the sort of thing where you can take 10 minutes and really make your case a bunch of people can speak.

So they'll just listen to us for a couple hours.

It'll be the whole, you know, committee will be there.

And so it's really important to kind of be down there and be able to

answer questions.

And I think that's probably the biggest difference.

But yeah, then they'll have to go and vote on it before the full legislature won't be.

They, you know, the committee makes recommendations to the full government.

They don't just decide right there and sign it off.

So when will that happen?

Like, let's say tomorrow goes well, when would the vote take place?