Last night on HBO, Bill Maher did an interesting stunt. He did his usual Real Time show live…but from Washington, D.C. At its conclusion, cameras followed him as he ran offstage to his dressing room, closed the door and changed clothes and presumably hit the bathroom and maybe did a few other hits, as well. Then we saw him come out and followed him into a waiting limo outside. The limo — with a police escort or what looked like a police escort — drove him to another theater where another audience was waiting to see him run in and do an hour stand-up special.
(Well, actually, the limo didn't drive him all the way there. A little old lady was being helped across the street by a Boy Scout and this impeded the limo's progress. So Maher hopped out and ran the last three blocks. A very funny idea.)
The getting from one venue to another was covered, play-by-play style, by Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore. What they did was a little awkward because Mr. Moore didn't have any experience in doing that kind of thing. I thought Olbermann, who I bet would have handled it perfectly solo, looked a bit annoyed at Moore at times.
But I thought it was a great idea. The particular episode of Real Time wasn't one of their best. It looked like Maher brought on his last guest, Jerry Seinfeld, earlier than planned because the conversation with the panel wasn't going great. But the stand-up was pretty good and Maher did a good job dealing with audience members yelling out and interrupting his monologue. I wish TV did more things live like this.