Unscrewed with Martin Sargent
Unscrewed with Martin Sargent was a late night American television show focusing on the comedy of technology. It was produced at TechTV (later G4) and aired from May 26, 2003 to December 2004. The show was set as a traditional late night talk show, including a couch for guests to sit during interviews, with subject matter including unusual guests scooped up from the Internet, Sargent's reported binge drinking adventures, and pornography.
| Unscrewed with Martin Sargent | |
|---|---|
 Title | |
| Created by | Martin Sargent |
| Starring | Martin Sargent Laura Swisher |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 215[1] |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Paul Block |
| Producers | Heather Frank (line producer) Daniel Lee (associate producer) Allison Pickard (associate producer) |
| Editor | David S. Rubin |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | TechTV |
| Original release | May 26, 2003 – November 29, 2004 |
Cast and format
Martin Sargent served as the show's always irreverent host. Sargent's sidekick was stand-up comedian Laura Swisher. The mislabeled Joey the Intern rounded out the triumvirate.
Other regular characters featured included former child star Gary Coleman (of Diff'rent Strokes), Big Missy (Martin's alleged girlfriend whom he met online, created and written by show writer and frequent on-air character actor Stewart Engesser), Rael of the Ralien movement who claimed the 1st false prophet under the illuminati God Amon Re. Later, writer Stewart Engesser starred as the funnyman parody of real legendary actor Michael Caine, a role he continues to play occasionally on Martin's podcast, Infected.
In early episodes, the show also highlighted regulars such as Scary Gary, who showed grotesque segments such as a skin-implemented cellphone, and The Porn Mom, a stay-at-home mom character who provided segments dealing with finding quality pornography on the Internet. One of the more famous events on the show was Sargent's interview with George Ouzounian, better known as Maddox, creator of the website The Best Page in the Universe.
Production and broadcast
The show was originally taped in San Francisco, California at the TechTV studios but later transferred to Los Angeles following the sale of the network by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures to the Comcast owned G4, a gaming oriented network. The executive producer of the show was Paul Block. Much like The Screen Savers from 2002–2004, it was taped in front of a live studio audience at TechTV Studio B. However, this show was taped in advance. At TechTV, the show normally taped two episodes on Tuesday and two on Thursday [2] and at G4, the show normally taped one episode a day from Monday-Thursday. Tapings in San Francisco concluded with the September 8, 2004 episode.
The first Los Angeles-based episode of the show was taped on September 7, 2004, and aired 6 days later. Sargent officially dismissed the Unscrewed Army (a term he used in reference of the shows viewers) on the final episode of Unscrewed with Martin Sargent, which was recorded in Studio 3 at the G4techTV studios on November 10, 2004. Fans speculated that this episode would never be televised due to its non-stop explicit bashing of G4 and Comcast. Surprisingly, G4techTV aired the episode twice, although the network reported to the programming guides that it was to air the prior year's Christmas episode instead.
On November 11, 2004, the show was officially cancelled and the majority of its staff was terminated. Reruns were shown on G4techTV until December 2004.
On November 11, 2005, Sargent launched Infected, a podcast hosted by himself and Joey. The podcast focuses on the humorous and weird side of technology and the Internet, making the show somewhat of a successor to Unscrewed.
References
- http://www.tv.com/shows/unscrewed-with-martin-sargent/episodes/
- "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Web.archive.org. 2004-04-02. Archived from the original on April 2, 2004. Retrieved 2012-12-08.