Short Stands Tall: A Long Look at Kim Adelman's Pride and Joy

by Robert Mandel

Quickband Networks has been bought out by On2, but from day one they have helped push the DVD format, and proven their unflinching, unconditional love for short films and their wish to share them with the public. Kim Adelman, who founded fXM Shorts, the short film division of the Fox Movie Channel, produced 19 short films which played in over 150 film festivals worldwide that won more than 30 awards. She became editor of the Short series at Short 7, and was also involved with the reissues of Short 2 and 3. Prior to fXM Shorts, she produced the independent feature film Just Friends. Most recently, she has taught a class at AFI on "Producing for DVD," and has written several articles for IFILM on DV filmmaking for the internet. I found Kim to be funny and straight forward, but most of all passionate about her love for short cinema...

dOc: What IS the official name of the series: Short or Short Cinema Journal? A lot of us are confused out here.

Kim: As well many people should be! It was originally Short Cinema Journal when it was first released under Polygram. Those were the first three issues. Then the series got picked up by Warner Bros., and the name changed to Short. Quickband has another DVD series called Circuit, which is the music DVD, so having another one-name title seemed the right thing to do. But internally, everyone at Quickband kept on calling it Short Cinema Journal, and in stores you¹d see the full name on the section dividers. Many people know it as Short Cinema Journal, so acknowledging that, we¹re re-launching the whole series with Short 10—which will be in stores October 3rd—and we¹re now going to call it Short Cinema.

dOc: (laughing) That¹s hilarious!

Kim: Yes, it is...Just to confuse everyone more.

dOc: Are you going to go back and redo the first nine?

Kim: No, because they¹re already out. Short Cinema should hopefully balance it out. The single word ³short² was too confusing; it was Short Cinema Journal and people still know it that way. We also like the word ³cinema² because what we feel we¹re really doing is showing pieces of cinema. We¹re trying to expand what ³short cinema² means to more than just short films, like showcasing trailers, or more pieces about the cinematic experience. We are going to lose the ³Journal² part of it, which is from when the original founders conceived it as more of a magazineŠwhen there were ads, and we are NEVER going back to ads.

dOc: Was the magazine created specifically for DVD, or had the idea been kicking around before the digital era dawned?

Kim: That¹s the lovely thing about Quickband and Short, it has always been a DVD product. The original founders believed in DVD and realized it¹s the perfect format for short entertainment. They were out there proselytizing DVD really before anyone knew about it, and that¹s why we keep thinking there¹s going to be a growing audience for this because more and more people are getting DVD players. So, yes, it¹s always been DVD.

dOc: My dentist just put in DVD players at his office, but of course he doesn¹t have it in the drilling station where you need it! They were asking me to suggest some DVDs, and I thought about Short and Circuit...that they¹d be perfect for the shorter visits to the dentist.

Kim: That¹s the beautiful thing about DVD: you can choose chapters. When you go to short film compilations and festivals, and if they¹re showing six films and you hate one you have to leave the theater, or if you see it on a VHS compilation you have to fast-forward or go back. DVD really is a perfect medium for a compilation of shorts, because you can try what you like. That¹s why I always feel bad for reviewers, because they have to watch every one of these films, and we never designed this disc so that you HAD to watch every one of these films. It¹s always more, ³Taste this! If you don¹t like that, then try documentariesŠ²

dOc: I just put Billy¹s Balloon on repeat! Over and over and overŠ

Kim: Isn¹t that a great film?

dOc: So, are films gathered mostly from submissions, or does your editorial staff actively "haunt the festivals?" How¹s that happen?

Kim: Several ways. We have an extensive catalogue of films that Quickband has acquired over the years, and because there is a limit to how many films should go on a disc we have a backlog to choose from. For instance, Tag Der Freiheit, Leni Riefenstahl's historic film, was supposed to go on Short 4, we just recently put it on Short 8. There was another short film that had been in the catalogue forever, Agnes Varda's Du Cote de la Cote, which is going to go on 11 when it was supposed to go on 4. We have a back catalogue of films because we only issue four DVDs a year. So, if you average 10 films per disc, that¹s only 40 films per year. We have an acquisitions staff, headed by our Director of Acquisitions, Craig Wells, and they go to SO many festivals, and travel all around the world looking for great films. We do however, rely heavily on submissions, and we also get a lot of recommendations by viewers who¹ve seen the disc and say, ³Hey, you should really check out this film,² and then we try to track it down.

Plus we have themes for the discs. Like right now we are working on ³chaos² for Short 10, and we¹re really trying to find a great short film that works on that theme. I recently called about the Zapruder film, because I was thinking that, hey, that¹s a short filmŠ(I laugh) It is! You never think of it as a short film, but it really is! It's the world's most known short film! I had a really nice conversation with the lawyer who represents the film—and it is out on a special DVD just for the film—but he had received $500,000 for it, and even before he told me the figure he was telling me I didn¹t know how out of my budget it was!

dOc: That leads right into the next question, which is do you choose the themes first and select shorts based on themes, or vice versa? What's the decision process?

Kim: It¹s kind of "anything goes." Quite often we¹re in meetings—and we¹re always looking for a theme—and someone says somethingŠfor instance, we were in a meeting and our COO, Jan Cox, mentioned something about ³ecstasy,² and she realized, ³Hey! That would be a great theme for Short,² and we¹re like, ³Yeah, that would!² So, Short 11¹s theme is going to be Ecstasy. That¹s when we pulled out Cote de le Cote, which is perfect for that theme, and we started looking through other films we had already acquired. 12 is going to be ³compulsion.² Ecstasy is going to be released in January of 2001, but we¹re already working on that one. Or, sometimes we get a film that sparks a theme. But anybody in the company can suggest a theme, as can viewers. As you know we have one-word themes and they have to be ³big² enough that they can encompass a lot of things. For Ecstasy we don¹t want it all to be about sexual ecstasy—there are all kinds of ecstasy.

dOc: Well, while we¹re in the throes of Ecstasy, do you guys do all of the production in-house, including menus?

Kim: Yes, we do. We have a creative director, Napoleon Hambrick, who supervises a staff of designers, editors and animators who produce all the non-film stuff. Internally we also produce all the alternate and additional tracks—the DVD extras. And separately from all that, we have our own in-house director/producer/editor, Jonathan Stearns, who makes original films that we include in the compilation. And Quickband recently signed a deal with a Hollywood producer named Rick Bieber, who used to be Michael Douglas' producing partner, to make 12 original shorts for us.

dOc: I was going to ask about how you guys deal with the deadlines, but you seem to be forward thinking. As I¹m sure you know the VOB or DVD4U or InsideDVD—or whatever it was called last—seemed to fail miserably on this point.

Kim: (laughing) Well, that¹s the nice thing about this Warner Bros. distribution deal is that Quickband is releasing a DVD a month. We release a disc the first Tuesday of every month, either a Short or a Circuit, or a special one-off like the upcoming Afrocentricity. And now that we¹ve re-released all the old editions as Short—so all of the issues are available now. If you want to know the schedule, Short gets released in January, April, July and October.

dOc: How big is your backlog of films?

Kim: I don't know the exact number offhand, but I'd say the number of unreleased films we have is less than 50—excluding films that are already penciled in for Short 10, 11 or 12.

dOc: In the past you've included some classic shorts like Renais' Night and Fog. Do you have any plans to include classic films from the experimental or avant-garde genre? There's a wealth of work out there from the 40's through today that might make an interesting and challenging addition to your compilations. Some of these filmmakers are purist and would never consider it, but given the paucity of distribution avenues for these filmmakers (many living and still active), some may jump at the chance. For instance, Eric Rohmer, who's made a couple of shorts in the last few years that will never see the light of a projector in America.

Kim: I would really, really like to stress that we are VERY open to receiving requests from our viewers, and that they can send those to Craig Wells at craig@quickband.com.

We are actually going to institute a ³classic² section with Short 10, because people—including me—love the classic films. So we¹re trying very hard to find them. They¹re great, and people love them, and they¹ll look great on DVD. And with the films of the 40¹s and 50¹s, because of their experimental nature they aren¹t trapped in the conventions of their era, and they seem timeless. Another new section is ³student²—we¹ve always included student films—but now we¹re going to label them as ³student,² and showcase the best we find.

dOc: Our prolific writer, Mark Zimmer, who wrote a nice review of Short 9, wanted to know about the experimental film you did include, Vertical Air: "What¹s up with that???!!!"

Kim: (laughing) Is that a bad or a good thing?!

dOc: Well, Mark says that even the included commentary doesn¹t quite fill it all in. Something about the subject of the film, Ishmael Waddada Leo Smith, saying that he knows what the film is about but never letting on to the audience.

Kim: Vertical Air was one of the films from the catalogue that didn¹t get issued previously, mostly because it¹s so long—it¹s a half-hour long film. Short 9 is actually one of our longest discs ever, as Mark pointed out, it took him nearly 10 hours to get through it. And because there is that time limit on how long the disc can be, usually it¹s very hard for me to put on a half-hour long film. So, Vertical Air has been waiting for forever. We were like, ³Hey, guess what? We can finally put Vertical Air on!² It's whatever it means to him!

dOc: Have you considered going to dual layer discs to fit more on each disc?

Kim: We try to keep them at DVD-5s. Short 9 IS a DVD-9. But it¹s like Mark said, there¹s an awful lot of material—nearly 10 hours—and you just don¹t want to force someone to have to watch that much! We don¹t want it to overwhelm you. Like with the screenings of short films, if there¹s too many of them you just want to die! It¹s just too much information to take in. Of course, if you¹re at home you can watch a little and stop, watch a little and stop.

dOc: What about student films (or films in general) that are originally in mono. What is the procedure for remixing to 5.1? Are the creators involved in this process?

Kim: Actually Laser Pacific does that for us. Hopefully there aren¹t too many of them that are just in mono. But everyone acknowledges that sound for Short is dependant on what the original master was. There are some—more expensive films—that have great sound from the beginning. With others the sound is just going to be what the sound is. We acquire films that already exist. It could be just a kid in his basement doing it, it could be a kid from NYU shooting on 16mm, it could be a classic film from the 40¹s—it¹s just what master the filmmakers hand to us Laser Pacific does their best to turn it into great sound, but ultimately whatever your master source is whatever your master source is.

dOc: Do you find the independent filmmakers excited about the prospect of recording commentary tracks, or helping create other supplemental material?

Kim: Yes. Everybody is always like, ³Oh, we¹re being treated like real filmmakers!² They¹re always a little nervous about what to say on their audio track, and often it¹s been years since they made the film. For instance, we have Chris Marker's film, La Jete, and Chris was so sweet. He was saying, "I made that film so long agoŠI can¹t remember what I was thinking back then!² Most of the filmmakers love to do it, though, and we actually record them twice. They go through it once, and we often end up using the second take.

dOc: I know you interviewed Michael Apted on Short 7, and Michael Bay was part of Frankie Goes To Hollywood on Short 6. Do you ever hear from any other Hollywood directors about what you¹re doing? Is there anybody asking to participate in upcoming shorts?

Kim: With our new emphasis on short cinema we¹re definitely going to go after that more. We were recently talking to Dennis Hopper about doing an interview piece with us, and we are definitely going after more Hollywood filmmakers. On the other hand, this is a showcase for all sorts of talent, and we don¹t want to change that.

dOc: Oh, I agree. I was thinking of their participation as more of a booster for what you are trying to accomplish.

Kim: We really want this to be about cinema, so we¹re not limiting it to just people who make short films. So, yes.

dOc: What are some of the technical and logistical challenges in mastering from diverse sources (16mm, 35mm, videotape, digital...)?

Kim: That¹s why we do our mastering now at Laser Pacific, who, as you know of course, have done many, many DVDs. That was part of the Warner Bros. deal, and it has made a world of difference. I guess the answer is that we have the BEST people ever doing it—so it¹s not as difficult as if we were doing it with popsicle sticks and glue.

dOc: Speaking of Warner Bros., can you talk about the issue of advertising being forced versus selected. I think on Short 9 it¹s selected now.

Kim: Right now we only have trailers for Warner Bros., but we¹re actually going to go after MORE trailers, because we hear that people really enjoy them, and we believe it is part of cinema, too.

dOc: Absolutely, but I know that on Short 5 Mark Zimmer wasn¹t happy with the forced style ads on that one!

Kim: Previously you¹d pick the menu and you choose the film—let's say Blue City (on Short 6)—and you push Blue City and all of sudden this thing comes up and it¹s not Blue City, and you¹re like, ³What the hell is this?!!² It was a trailer or a commercial and THEN the film would come on. In the old days it was mastered so you couldn¹t even fast forward, so you¹d just be stuck watching it. So, we acknowledge that people were fed up with that—as were we.

dOc: But you are pursuing more trailersŠor is that just part of your Warner Bros. contract?

Kim: Well, part of the contract is to put Warner Bros. trailers on, but viewer feedback has been that they like owning the cool Warner Brother trailers like the one for Matrix, so we are going to increase the number and go after some classic trailers, too. In fact, we now have a section that is just for trailers, so they¹re separated out if you choose to watch it—and no longer forced.

dOc: Speaking about trailers, WHAT is with those Timex commercials?!

Kim: Oh, I know! (laughing) They went away after Short 7, but at least they were fun...well at least the first time you watched them. After the twentieth time you want to kill yourself!

dOc: One of our reviewers, Jeff, is Mac-only, and is fighting mad that he can't access any of the PC Friendly stuff on thereŠas the discs are not Mac friendly.

Kim: Me, too. I have an iMac at home, and it pisses me off! In fact, in our entire company only the editor of Circuit has a PC, so we all have to go to use her PC to go watch the interactive files. It¹s just a matter that PC Friendly is all they do now, but we¹ll be first in line for when they can do Mac. I love all that stuff, and I¹m the one who makes all those links. We¹re starting to include filmmaker and other sites that apply, like for Clown Car, we researched and found a site about the cars that Clown Car used! Or, one of the films was about poker playing and that filmmaker didn¹t have a site, so we linked to a site that taught you rules of poker. So, yeah, well include them so we Mac users don¹t feel so ripped off!

dOc: What ever happened to the architectural and international DVDs you were originally planning?

Kim: That was way before my time, but they are part of our backlog. For instance, an excerpt from an I.M. Pei documentary is going to be on Ecstasy. I looked at some of the stuff they had done with Frank Gehry—because I LOVE Frank Gehry as an architect—but they didn¹t put the piece together before they left and it¹s just in shambles. I don¹t want to do something for Frank Gehry that isn¹t great. Anything that¹s decent we¹re trying to use, so the ³people² won¹t be denied! As for international titles, a lot of the films earmarked for that release (and still in the catalogue) have been showing up on the Short series instead.

dOc: This is one of the hot questions. What is the deal with the mains and surrounds of the audio transfer being reversed on Short 7 and, I'm told, on Short 8? At what stage of preparations did the reversal come? Will there be a reissue, repressing, or refunds planned?

Kim: No to the refunds! (laughing) Refunds? No refunds! Frankly, I¹ll have to look into that, generally we don¹t sell out of Short. So, we don¹t have to repress. When the day comes that we sell out, we¹ll repress and at that point we¹ll try to correct anything. Obviously we wouldn¹t want this to be a continual issue, and I don¹t believe it was an issue on Short 9, was it?

dOc: I don¹t believe so, no.

Kim: We are trying our best to make things as good as they can be. Our whole policy as a company is that ³DVD is forever,² so we always try to do it as well as we possibly can. Sometimes it¹s that magazine or T.V. show theory of ²Let¹s just get it out the door,² but here it¹s ³DVD is forever.² So, we are putting out four DVDs a year, and we are learning and growing, as is the whole DVD format. I think in five years time we are all going to look back at the original DVDs and think how limited they were and just laugh. It¹s an evolving technology, and people are making mistakes, and we certainly have made mistakes. The only thing we can say to defend ourselves is that we continue to issue more and more discs, and we don¹t want to move forward but make the same mistakes. But NO REFUNDS!! (laughing). It¹s funny because, for instance, this guy called us and told us that we had cut off Night and Fog, and we were like, ²What?!. Since we were redoing Short 3 we wanted to fix it, but it turned out that¹s the way it was on the master that Argos in France gave to us. But we ALWAYS listen to our viewers, and if we are repressing—as we just did with Short 1 through Short 3—we try to correct things if we can.

dOc: Why don't you feature more 'works in progress' as you did with Big Brass Ring on Short 2?

Kim: George Hickenlooper went on to make a feature version of Big Brass Ring, and when we reissued 2 we had clips from the feature version, so you could flip back and forth to see our short and the excerpted feature version of it. The back history of that is that when this company first started they were paying a hell of a lot of money to make a lot of great pieces, but there was no way we could afford to spend that kind of money. So they gave George Hickenlooper an awful lot of money to make the short of Big Brass Ring, who then used the short to raise money for the feature. It was good in that sense, that a short can inspire a feature, but financially it wasn¹t a wise decision. On the other hand, the feature got made and we got to use clips of it on Short 2, which is one of the more fascinating things to see the exact same scene being played by Malcolm McDowell in our short, and then be played by Nigel Hawthorne in the feature.

dOc: Like with Billy Bob Thorton¹s short They Call It A Slingblade.

Kim: Yes. It¹s fun to see the original and the new one. We didn¹t finance that one, but we LOVE shorts that get turned into feature films. It¹s fascinating to see how filmmakers have worked things out.

dOc: Has this venture been financially successful? Are sales meeting or exceeding the publisher's initial expectations?

Kim: Our new phrase is ²Christmas is going to belong to DVD.² This Christmas I believe that more people will be getting more players—and we¹re really excited about Playstation 2, which will be DVD-ROM—IMACs and more people are getting PCs with DVD. We really always knew that. At first it was like three people had DVD players, and the next week there were four people who owned DVD playersŠbut now it¹s just exponentially growing, and ³DVD is forever!² All of our titles constantly exist, and when you go to the stores you can see that all the Shorts are being carried. So, as more people grow into the world of DVD we are making product we hope that everyone really enjoys and will want to buy back issues for. We are building a catalogue and it can only continue to grow, but obviously we are NOT selling Matrix numbers!!

dOc: What is your biggest seller to date?

Kim: Well, that is a bit weird, because the earlier volumes have been out so long that we argue about this, but Short 4 is our best seller.

dOc: Who's in charge of the Junk Drawer?! Has anyone missed the Junk Drawer in recent issues?

Kim: Junk Drawer no longer exists just because we're 'remodeling,' so we¹re going to continue the concept in a different way. We are now going to be using the word ³cinema² starting with Short 10, as I¹ve said, and when you push on each letter of ³Cinema² on the menu you¹ll see different things. When you push on the ŒC¹ you¹ll see credits. When you push on the Œi¹ you¹ll see intermission Œstuff¹—we¹re going after one of those kinds of things. When you push on the Œm¹ you¹ll see movie trailers. And when you push on the Œn¹ that¹s when you¹ll see the Junk Drawer-type stuff. We love it, too—it¹s just being renamed and retooled.

dOc: What's happening in the Woodshed, really?

Kim: I know! People love the Woodshed and so do we! Our Creatives are just goofy people, that¹s all I can tell you. It makes them laugh.

dOc: So, you¹re not going to tell us, are you? I guess it¹s better that it means whatever it does to each person.

Kim: Exactly! You bring your own associations to it.

dOc: Does Short—or Short Cinema—intend to expand its own production of content?

Kim: Yes and no. We are interested in including the film of the filmmaker¹s talking, and some short films that we produce ourselves. What I¹m also pushing for is more interactive material—things that are made specifically for DVD. For instance, we did Why Liberace? on Short 8, which was our first attempt but we didn¹t go far enough. We¹d like to really explore what DVD can do in stuff that we¹re doing ourselves. Like maybe doing multiple takes. For instance, and this wouldn¹t be for Short, shooting Kung Fu from four different angles; doing a little action sequence from four angles because on DVD you can flip around and see it from all four angles.

dOc: You could probably do some kind of film school thing like on El Mariachi.

Kim: Isn¹t that great? I was actually putting that on my list of things that maybe we could go after. I think that is the most fascinating thing ever, and that is a perfect example of short cinema. Yeah, things like that...behind-the-scenes-ey. Or, we happen to be in a building with a green screen and we were thinking about doing something with that to show people how that works.

dOc: Since you try to stay with films that are twenty minutes or less, did you ever consider gathering longer films and compiling them as, um, Medium?

Kim:(laughing) That amuses us! That would be a great idea to have a shorter disc that just contains the longer films. That¹s a funny idea! I¹m going to steal it. Can I officially steal it from you?

dOc: (Bob, about to make the costliest mistake in his lifeŠ) Sure, as long as I get credit.

Kim: SureŠspecial thanks toŠ

dOc: Do you have plans to branch out to other areas?

Kim: Yes. Actually, we were discussing doing a disc on Texas filmmakers, which is one of the reasons we were discussing trying to get Robert Rodriguez. And then there¹s Afrocentricity, which is the first disc up in that way, and that¹s African American filmmakers—many who have gone on to make features—collected on one disc. We will still include those films on Short as well over the next several years. They¹ll all become Spike Lees or John Singletons, and those films will become more and more valuable, and more and more people will be interested in seeing them. They are really right now at the ground-breaking stage. The big film we are including is True, which is also on Short 8, the short film that inspired the whole Whatzzup?!² thing. It just won a whole bunch of Cleos [the advertising world¹s version of the Oscars®], which we were very, very excited about. Lee Davis, who did Gut Feeling which Spike Lee executive produced, he¹s doing a feature for Spike that¹s a Œgo.¹ Then there¹s Breakdown, another solid film that stars Vanessa Williams, by a filmmaker named Jeff Byrd. There are also a lot of female African American filmmakers on this, who I think are really going to go far.

dOc: That¹s great. We really think that¹s important. Despite being one myself, our slogan is ³That DVD is no longer a thirty-five year-old white man¹s hobby,² that it has gone mass and there is a diverse, eclectic group of people out there who are interested in product that isn¹t as mainstream. That¹s who we are trying to speak to as well.

Kim: Right. It¹s going to explode with the Playstation DVD and computer DVD. It¹s like with CDs—in the beginning most people were sticking to vinyl and only a few people had CDs, but now it just exists. That¹s why we¹re putting out Afrocentricity, and we think it's going to be embraced. Of course, as a credit to Short, it has always been very diverse. I mean, if you ask what the target audience for Short is, it¹s really from 9 to 90. It¹s for whomever has interest in short films. We¹re so enthusiastic about Afrocentricity, and of course soon those filmmakers will be so huge they won¹t want to even talk to us!

dOc: What's the most personally rewarding aspect of producing Short on a regular basis?

Kim: I think it¹s that there¹s all these great films, and we¹re lucky here because we get to see all of them, so we just assume that everybody else has, too. For instance, Craig Wells just saw More at an animation festival, and he said to me, ³Don¹t you think everyone in the world has seen More by now?² But it¹s just because we¹ve seen it so many times, and we forget that not everyone in the world gets to see these films. You can stop twenty people on the street and ask them if they know Don Hertzfeld, and they wouldn¹t know who he was (director of Billy's Balloon). Those of us that are lucky enough to see Short get to see these amazing things you don;t get to see often with Hollywood features. I was talking with a friend of mine, that last year was a great year for film—there were lots of films that I just adored—like Fight Club and Run, Lola, Run, but it¹s very rare to be able to say that. Like Mission: Impossible—II, wanted to see it—didn¹t love it! But with short films there are so many that I could list for you that I adore, and they are just so fabulous. It¹s terrific that they are being put on DVD forever, so that people can walk into Tower Records and buy them. That¹s what I feel is really, really rewarding. Before I had this job I produced short films, but in that case I was lucky because they were for cable and people could see them. But for a long time people couldn¹t see short films other than being at a university or going to film festivals. With the internet it¹s opened it up a little more, but who wants to see crappy old small screen things when DVD is so beautiful?

dOc Profile: Kim Adelman

The dOc, as is its ignominous tradition, asked Kim to reveal her inner self to our readers. She refused. We thank her for taking a few minutes to answer some stupid questions for us instead. Thanks, Kim!



Nickname: Call me Ishmael

Vocation: Helping make the world a better place by editing compilations of short films on DVD.

Avocation: Solving world hunger in my spare time

Residence: El Pueblo de la Reyna de Los Angeles

Marital Status: Let's just say I'll take the 5th on this on the grounds that it may incriminate me.

Favorite Movies: Short films: More (dir. Mark Osbourne); Breathing Lessons (dir. Jessica Yu), Herd (dir. Mike Mitchell), Fishbelly White (dir. Michael Burke), Straight to One (dir. Ethan Hawke), Pig! (dir. Francine McDougall), Bulldozer (Dir. David Birdsell)—P.S. Only More has been on Short.

Favorite DVDs: Short 1 through 9 (did you expect me to answer differently?)

Favorite Books: Catch 22

Personal Heroes: Heather French, Nicole Johnson, Katie Shindle, Tara Dawn Holland, Shawntell Smith, Heather Whitestone, Kimberly Aiken, Leanza Cornett, Carolyn Sapp, Marjorie Vincent, Debbye Turner, Gretchen Carlson, Kaye Lani Rae Rafko, Kellye Cash, Susan Aikin, Sharlene Wells, Suzette Charles, Vanessa Williams, Debra Maffett, Elizabeth Ward, Susan Powell, Cheryl Prewitt, Kylene Barker, Susan Perkins, Dorothy Benham, Tawny Godin, Shirley Cothran, Rebba King, Terry Meeuwsen, Laura Schaefer, Phyllis George, Pam Eldred, Judith Ford, Debra Barnes, Jane Jayne, Deborah Bryant, Vonda Van Dyke, Donna Axum, Jacquelyn Mayer, Maria Fletcher, Nancy Fleming, Lynda Mead, Mary Ann Mobley, Marilyn Van Derbur, Marian McKnight, Sharon Ritchie, Lee Meriwether, Evelyn Ay, Neva Langley, Colleen Hutchins, Yolande Betbeze, Jaque Mercer, Bebe Shopp, Barbara Walker, Marilyn Buferd, Bess Myserson, Venus Ramsey, Jean Bartel, Jo-Carroll Dennison, Rosemary LaPlanche, Frances Burke, Patricia Donnelly, Marily Meseke, Bette Cooper, Rose Coyle, Henriete Leaver, Marian Bergeron, Lois Delander, Normal Smallwood, Fay Lanphier, Ruth Malcomson, Mary Campbell and Margaret Gorman.

Most treasured possession: Let's just say I'll take the 5th on this on the grounds that it may incriminate me.

I secretly dream I am (comic book character or superhero) and why: I don't.

Which family would you want to live with, the Partridges or the Bradys? I think a better question would be which family would you want to live with, the Manson family or the Hansen family.

If you were a nut, what nut would you be? Why? I'd rather be a pepper, and wouldn't you want to be a pepper too?

Favorite childhood toy or manufactured game? Pogo stick.

Mac or PC? Mac.

Professor, Skipper, Mr. Howell or Gilligan? Ringo.