Long before Portlandia captured the quirkiness of Portland, there was Austin Stories. It captured the Gen X weirdness of Austin during the post Slacker age. They filmed 12 episodes back in 1997 and I was lucky enough to be an extra on episode 11.

My episode was called the "Story of Cereal" and came out on MTV on November 26, 1997. See that stylish and skinny dude entering the restaurant in the GIF above? YEP, that's me.

Interesting fact is the Hernandez Cafe interior was on a sound stage. The lighting looked so natural and I always thought it was a real location they filmed from, but instead it was a set and they worked throughout the night.

Here are some YouTube links to my episodes and many others. Sadly the resolution on these is like 240p. Maybe they'll publish a full downloadable someday. I see you can buy a DVD online from Howard (one of the writers and actors from the show), but I haven't had a DVD player for a decade. This show seems to be lost to time and media format relevance. YouTube wasn't launched for another 8 years. And it was a full decade before the iPhone showed up. I think what we have is what we'll have forever.

Episode 11 Part 1

00:06 - 00:42 Seated at table

08:35 - 08:40 Enters restaurant through door

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCEw6cp3ouk

Episode 11 Part 2

05:11 - 05:12 Walking camera right (back facing)

05:23 - 05:25 Over the shoulder working on copier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6aR0WzGuf4

From Wikipedia about the show:

Austin Stories is an American sitcom that aired on MTV from September 10, 1997 until January 7, 1998. It aired Wednesday nights at 10:30 pm. The show aired twelve episodes filmed on location in Austin, Texas.

An MTV search brought executives James Jones and Lisa Berger to Austin in 1994. Jones had previously produced The Ben Stiller Show and Berger was vice-president and director of development at the network. MTV scouts were drawn to the city's emerging comedy scene and noticed Laura House, Howard Kremer and Brad "Chip" Pope. They were all discovered at a showcase for MTV at the Laff Stop for professional comics. All three had to pull strings to get on the showcase as none of them had been paid for their comedy. House was a junior high journalism teacher when she was cast on the show.Both she and Brad "Chip" Pope were University of Texas graduates.[citation needed] Originally, the show was only guaranteed 13 episodes on the channel. In March 1997, MTV flew House, Kremer and Pope to Los Angeles to write two scripts in three days. Austin Stories was green-lighted on March 20, 1997, and they often spent 16-hour days working on the show with taping wrapping in November.

Monteiro Time

Monteiro Time

JULY 24, 2020

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