Al Quagliata, Cliff Baum, Steve Childs, James Gerlan
Elaine Quagliata, Joseph Mingoia, Dana Laite, Michael Seguso,
Alicia Serniak, Michael Rossano, Paul Serraino,
Alex Watts, Dominick Santoro, Louis Chiavetta, Chris Cristiano
This is the official web page for the public access comedy show Zodiacs,
Maniacs And Just Plain Yaks. Welcome!
Zodiacs, Maniacs And Just Plain Yaks was a public access sketch
comedy show which was produced in Westchester County, New York, from 1986
through 1990. The show aired there and in New York City as reruns until
1996.
The program was the brainchild of high school friends Al Quagliata, Clifford Baum and Dennis McCarthy. This trio, heavily influenced by the
"seat of the pants" style of comedy popularized by the likes of
Ernie Kovacs
and
Uncle Floyd, approached the local cable company and asked if they could "have a show."
The cable station said if the group took their public access course they
could produce their own show and so they did. Quagliata then met Steve
Childs, an aspiring filmmaker, while working a part time summer job in 1984.
Childs soon become co-producer/director/editor along with Quagliata when
McCarthy decided he wasn't going to continue with the show. Another high
school friend, James "Doc" Gerlan, was added to the cast at this point.
"Yaks" began production in the summer of 1985 and the first episode aired on
January 22, 1986, at midnight (ironically the program aired for the last
time on the same date in 1996).
The show was originally going to be called "Cable 8 Comedy Capers," which
was the channel number of the station where it was produced. When that was
deemed too trite the creators came up with "Social Security And You!," a
joke about the fact that most of the public access shows they had seen were
boring community affairs type programs. "Zodiacs, Maniacs And Just Plain
Yaks" was the title of a collection of comedy sketches on Super 8 film that
a friend had made. While the title had some relevance to characters in the
film it was for the most part an attempt to come up with a name that sounded
like
"Monty Python's Flying Circus."
Quagliata saw the film and asked to use the title for the new
show.
"Yaks" was largely improvised and scripts were rarely used. Although
Quagliata and Childs ran the show whichever cast member came up with a
particular sketch would generally direct and produce it. Most sketches were
shot in the studio although there were also sketches shot on location as the
studio offered very little in the way of sets (this led to many talk show
parodies and fake newscasts). Once enough sketches were collected to make a
half-hour episode Quagliata and Childs would spend several days editing. A
new episode would come every month or so and air until the next one was
ready. When Childs left the program to pursue other projects he was replaced
by Joseph Mingoia who took over technical direction and head camera duties
with Quagliata taking over the show's editing.
The show featured a variety of different cast members through the years. Some popular recurring characters were "Joe The Security Guard," "Maury The Annoying Next Door Neighbor," "Motts, Motts, Motts!," "Bubba Calhoun," "Mert Lichtin," and "Don Frank."