It's really about realizing we can own a piece of each other's successes, and in so doing, learn to become successful ourselves.

Lois Shelton,
Foxglove Films		  
   
  NEW SERIES TO COME TO THE PACIFIC NW?
“The Cody Rivers Show,”

The Cody Rivers Show Standing on the stage of the Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, Goodwin and Cody Rivers Show creators and performers Andrew Connor and Mike Mathieu rehearse for the filming of the television pilot they hope will lead to a full-length series.

For their part, Connor and Mathieu didn’t know what to make of Goodwin’s idea when first approached. “We wouldn’t really believe he was saying, ‘I’m thinking of filming you for a television show,’” Mathieu said. “That kind of opportunity isn’t something that we wanted to assume would happen.”

Mathieu and Connor created the Cody Rivers Show three years ago and have been performing it in theater venues up and down the I-5 corridor, including Mount Baker Theatre and the iDiOM Theater in Bellingham, and in Canada and Chicago. Their unique blend of improvisation, Monty Python-esque humor and slapstick has earned them critical acclaim and sold-out performances.

The Cody Rivers Show Crew Translating a comedy/variety show, that depends on interaction with the audience, to the television screen has been a challenge, even for the man who produced a long list of television shows, series and films, including the 1989 hit “Life Goes On,&lrdquo; “The X-Files,” “The Fugitive” and the police drama “Third Watch.” The series’ plot revolves around country western star Cody Rivers (played by Mathieu), who comes up to a small town in the Pacific Northwest and buys an old theater where he plans to perform his own show. Rivers convinces his brother Mitch (played by Connor) to move from California to help with the show. Five highly dysfunctional characters pitch in. From there, the series will focus on the behind-the-scenes antics of the crew, the Cody Rivers duo, and the theater skits that have been staples of the real Cody Rivers Show.

“It’s going to be off-the-wall goofy, visual, and fast-paced, and just like their show,” Goodwin said, who has yet to try to sell the idea to anyone in Los Angeles. “You can’t describe them,” Goodwin said of Connor and Mathieu. “You have to kind of show these guys to people.”

WIF member Melanie Melanie had the pleasure of providing key hair and makeup on a TV pilot, the “Cody Rivers Show,” with an exceptional cast and crew. Melanie will be heading the hair and makeup department when the series gets picked up (the overwhelming consensus is that it will!)

Excepts from Skagit Valley Herald, January 3, 2008 - Bev Crichfield edited by V. Bogert:

When television and film producer Bob Goodwin saw the off-the-wall “Cody Rivers Show” two years ago at the Mount Baker Theatre in Bellingham, he laughed really hard and noticed others around him laughing hard too. If it was such a hit on the stage, why couldn’t it be turned into a hit television series?
Two-and-a-half years later the co-executive producer of the “X-Files” and executive producer of “The Fugitive” TV series, along with his small television crew are preparing to bring the Cody Rivers Show to thousands of American homes.
If the pilot leads to a series, Mount Vernon could get plenty of exposure (Northern? Yes, pun intended here, and we all remember that series putting food on our tables - vbb).
It’s all part of Goodwin’s plan to help bolster the entertainment industry in the Pacific Northwest and spotlight the potential for successful filming with local talent.