*** OFFICIAL *** Master Ken Scalir radio/TV appearance thread

[Dan Druff]

"Singled Out" (1995)

Ken managed to get on popular MTV dating show "Singled Out" three times. The first two were brief, as he was among the crowd of 50 guys vying for the girl. The third appearance was on the "Losers" show, where he got to be the picker! (Note that "Losers" wasn't referring to Ken being a loser of a human being, but rather a loser on past Singled Out episodes -- which comprise 98% of the contestants!)

On the "Losers" episode, Ken came in with a strategy. He wanted to get a girl who was exactly his type -- white, thin, and short. For that reason, he chose categories "Height" (so he could eliminate the tall ones), "Chest" (figuring that the heavier ones would be the ones with big tits, so he could eliminate them that way), and "hair color" (figuring he could eliminate the dark haired girls, thus almost ensuring he would end up with a white girl).

This somewhat backfired, as the girls with the big tits were mostly really hot, and very few of them were fat!

Ken ended up with an average-looking girl anyway, but she gave him a fake phone number, so he never got to date her! He still got the prize, so he went on the "all expense paid" date with another girl he later met.







Ken was 25 at the time of his appearance here -- which was the upper age limit for the show. He could not come back in 1996, because he would be 26. It didn't matter, because Singled Out got cancelled.

[Dan Druff]

Master Scalir also appeared on "Love Connection" in August 1998.

This was shot at KTLA Studio in Hollywood. I know this, because I drove him there, and I appeared in the audience. He entered the studio first, because he was to be on the show. I stood in line to get into the audience, along with my then-girlfriend (nobody anyone here knows).

As I was entering, they asked, "Do you know anyone on the show today?"

I thought this was going to get me some kind of special privileges, so I said, "Yes", and said it was Ken.

They then led us to the very back area of the studio, where we could barely see, and it had no console to vote for the girls he could possibly date. I asked if I could move forward, and they said, "No, we can't let you vote because you know someone here, so we have to place you in the only area with no voting machines!"

DOH!

When nobody was looking, my girlfriend and I snuck up to two empty seats in the regular area, a few rows back. We were able to vote, and nobody caught us.

Most of the others in the audience were high school students from Hesperia, CA (near Victorville, in the desert), who were bused in. The school got some kind of stipend for each student they brought. I got no money.

When the host of the show made a derogatory remark about Ken during the break, a girl behind me was irritated, and said to her friend, "I would totally date him!" She had made other positive comments about Ken during the show. Unfortunately, I turned around to see that she was one of those high school students, so I didn't bother to tell her that I knew him. Otherwise I would have gotten her number, and given it to him. He was 28 at the time, and I believe she was 17, so obviously that wouldn't have been appropriate.





I voted for the first girl (Andrea), who seemed quirky and possibly someone who could like him. She also liked "skinny guys", which Ken was at the time. He chose the second girl (Lauren), who came off to me as a bitchy Jewish American Princess. However, Ken liked her the best, and he chose her. Predictably, the date was a disaster.

However, the audience picked the third girl (Heather), so he got a date with her, as well. Heather was a lot nicer, but she had short hair, which Ken hated, and couldn't keep his mouth shut about that. I still think Andrea was the best choice by far (and the best looking), but we'll never know.

Here's his re-appearance on the show, where he talked about his date with Heather. I was not present for this one. I forgot why I couldn't make it.





Note that Ken seemed to age a lot between his 1995 "Singled Out" appearances and his 1998 Love Connection appearance. Keep in mind he was only 28 in the videos shown above! Fortunately for Ken, the premature aging trend didn't continue, and eventually he aged into what he looked like by around 40. Ken is about to turn 53, and doesn't look old for his age.

[Dan Druff]

Let's step back a year.

Remember Chuck Woolery? You probably recall he was the host of Love Connection, but note that the Love Connection clips above were hosted by a guy named Pat Bullard!

Chuck had been fired from Love Connection by that point, but moved on to a revival of The Dating Game. In 1997, Ken appeared twice on there. I was not present for either of these tapings.

On the first Dating Game episode (February 1997), the host was not yet Chuck. However, Chuck took over by Ken's second appearance in October 1997. Notice that Chuck was having a hard time saying Ken's name, at one point calling him "Sken Skylar".






Ken did not win either of these, so he didn't date either girl. He was not that attracted to either one, so he didn't feel it was a big loss. Some years ago Ken asked me to look up the second girl to see if she ever got married, and she did not.

[Dan Druff]

Like Singled Out, both "The Dating Game" and "Love Connection" got cancelled the season after Ken appeared on them!

Starting to notice a trend?

Between late 1997 and early 1998, Ken appeared twice on "The Keenan Ivory Wayans Show", in a gag big where he performed the song "Macho Man" as part of a talent competition. Ken was paired with two serious competitors, and was the comic relief.

The first appearance was kind of charming:




Unfortunately, given the fairly good reception his first appearance got, the dying show decided to invite him back, but ramp up the outrageousness. Unlike the first episode where Ken wore his normal clothes, they dressed him in the second episode in a bright orange half-shirt and super tight blue spandex pants. The whole thing just came off as over-the-top, contrived, and obnoxious. Ken was a little bit annoyed at how they were presenting him in the second episode, so he decided to drop his pants for the audience. Keenan freaked out, but the actual nudity was not seen, as it was slightly off camera.

The show got cancelled weeks later.

[Dan Druff]

Ken had repeatedly appeared on the popular Los Angeles show "Kevin and Bean", which ran for decades on famous station KROQ.

The referred to him as "Ken Geek of the World", and he had a role similar to the Howard Stern wack-packers.

Ken also obsessively attempted to win entry to the coveted "Kevin and Bean singles party", which would take place on a boat each year. Despite the massive ratings for the show, Ken was still able to manage to win a spot each year, with some kind of phone trick he discovered.

Unfortunately, Ken was eventually banned from the singles parties for something which wasn't even his fault. He and several other Kevin and Bean "characters" were invited to go on a cross-country bus trip to pick up a Christmas tree in Pennsylvania, and then all of them would be on stage for the huge KROQ Acoustic Christmas concert, where the tree would be lit. Ken was very excited to go on this, but needed a ride there. His mom was going to drive him, but when she got wind of the fact that he was going to be a clownish character for the show, she didn't approve, and at the last minute refused to take him. He ended up not making it.

Jimmy Kimmel was there, who was then only known as "Jimmy the Sports Guy". This was before Jimmy's later fame, and even before he was on "The Man Show" with Adam Carolla.

They held an event where everyone would get on the bus and drive off, but Ken wasn't there. When a staffer at KROQ yelled up to the stage, "Ken's mother called and said he can't come", Jimmy Kimmel responded, "What?! Ken's mom called to say he can't cum??"

Kevin and Bean were furious that Ken flaked on them, so they banned him from both the show and the singles parties. Ken did manage to sneak in one year when the singles party was a costume party. He showed up in a Ronald Reagan mask, and nobody realized it was him. The mask also may have helped him get laid. He met a girl onboard named Arlene, a Hispanic girl with a Betty Page haircut. Ken was with Arlene for a month or two, but she eventually left him for a guy Ken knew from a party line, and she had met at a party held at Ken's apartment. Easy come, easy go.

In 2005, Kevin and Bean rescinded the ban, as they were willing to let him come on to talk about his 5-night appearance on the show "Blind Date" which was coming up. I'll post about that later.

[Dan Druff]

Let's go back to Ken's earliest appearance.

Ken was a 19-year-old college student in January 1990, when he saw Ronald Reagan was appearing on Larry King Live. By this point Reagan was clearly in mental decline, and the CNN staffers were protective not to bring anyone on with particularly tough questions.

Knowing this, Ken told the screeners that he was a college student who always idolized Reagan, and stated some kind of softball question which would be super easy for Reagan to answer.

They put Ken on the show, only for Ken to blindside him with a tough question about Willie Horton and negative campaigning, which had been a big controversy during the Bush/Dukakis election of 1988.

Reagan said his trademark "Well...", and then his brain went off into the weeds. Because the subject involved Dukakis' policy to give weekend furloughs to violent criminals in prison while he was governor in Massachusetts, Reagan's brain short-circuited, and he went into a non-sequitur talking about about high taxes in Massachusetts! Larry King got him back on track, at which point Reagan answered the question semi-coherently.

It was very challenging to get a copy of this video. It did not exist anywhere, and one of Ken's former acquaintances destroyed the original video tape when the guy got mad at him. Finally, in 2018 I went to the Reagan Library and asked if they had a copy of the episode. It took awhile, but they finally found it. They allowed me to make a phone video of the television playing it, so that's what is posted on YouTube. Ken was very happy that I found it after all these years.

[Starbucks Spunk Bucket]

Ken is God.

Have you got any footage from Starbucks??

[BCR]

Obviously he’s the comic fodder on all these appearances.

Did it concern you as his friend? Does he get sad?

Maybe he just has the thickest of skin, and he’s clearly built different, but I would have been scared for him had the girl chose him and then recoiled when he walked around the curtain.

He seems to not care, but then I recall like a Chris Farley dancing next to Patrick Swayze on SNL and thinking how comfortable he was in his skin, only later to find out he was privately tortured by it. That’s happened so frequently with comics, where they seem comfortable only to realize they were tortured souls.

I always cringed at those shows as they seemed to always set up one guy to be a big disappointment if the girl chose him. If someone was my friend, I’d be a little concerned if they were mentally built for the reaction if it went sideways. Is Ken simply immune to that? I was watching it relieved that brunette who was very into herself didn’t choose him as she might have put her hand up in his face and been like hell no.

[Dan Druff]

Obviously he’s the comic fodder on all these appearances.

Did it concern you as his friend? Does he get sad?

Maybe he just has the thickest of skin, and he’s clearly built different, but I would have been scared for him had the girl chose him and then recoiled when he walked around the curtain.

He seems to not care, but then I recall like a Chris Farley dancing next to Patrick Swayze on SNL and thinking how comfortable he was in his skin, only later to find out he was privately tortured by it. That’s happened so frequently with comics, where they seem comfortable only to realize they were tortured souls.

I always cringed at those shows as they seemed to always set up one guy to be a big disappointment if the girl chose him. If someone was my friend, I’d be a little concerned if they were mentally built for the reaction if it went sideways. Is Ken simply immune to that? I was watching it relieved that brunette who was very into herself didn’t choose him as she might have put her hand up in his face and been like hell no.

He doesn't care. I try to explain this to people who feel bad for Ken in these spots. He likes the attention. He doesn't get insulted when people laugh at him or his antics. When Ken used to come on PFA Radio a lot, some people would criticize me for using his follies as comic relief. I would tell them that he doesn't mind at all, and then would point out all the nice things I do for him behind the scenes.

Ken would love to be on TV again, but unfortunately there's much less of a market for him because he's older now. It's fun to laugh at the young quirky guy, but once he's older, people start to just feel bad, so that doesn't make good TV. Additionally, many of these dating themed shows have an age limit, and he's way over it in most cases. The entire entertainment world revolves around youth.

[Sanlmar]

Obviously he’s the comic fodder on all these appearances.

Did it concern you as his friend? Does he get sad?

Maybe he just has the thickest of skin, and he’s clearly built different, but I would have been scared for him had the girl chose him and then recoiled when he walked around the curtain.

He seems to not care, but then I recall like a Chris Farley dancing next to Patrick Swayze on SNL and thinking how comfortable he was in his skin, only later to find out he was privately tortured by it. That’s happened so frequently with comics, where they seem comfortable only to realize they were tortured souls.

I always cringed at those shows as they seemed to always set up one guy to be a big disappointment if the girl chose him. If someone was my friend, I’d be a little concerned if they were mentally built for the reaction if it went sideways. Is Ken simply immune to that? I was watching it relieved that brunette who was very into herself didn’t choose him as she might have put her hand up in his face and been like hell no.

I’m quite sure Ken is on the spectrum. I say this not to disparage him. Loved the old PFA shows with Ken. But he processes the world around him differently than you might. Truth be told none of us process people and the world quite the same.

I am quite sure Ken is the exact opposite of a tortured soul.

[Dan Druff]

Obviously he’s the comic fodder on all these appearances.

Did it concern you as his friend? Does he get sad?

Maybe he just has the thickest of skin, and he’s clearly built different, but I would have been scared for him had the girl chose him and then recoiled when he walked around the curtain.

He seems to not care, but then I recall like a Chris Farley dancing next to Patrick Swayze on SNL and thinking how comfortable he was in his skin, only later to find out he was privately tortured by it. That’s happened so frequently with comics, where they seem comfortable only to realize they were tortured souls.

I always cringed at those shows as they seemed to always set up one guy to be a big disappointment if the girl chose him. If someone was my friend, I’d be a little concerned if they were mentally built for the reaction if it went sideways. Is Ken simply immune to that? I was watching it relieved that brunette who was very into herself didn’t choose him as she might have put her hand up in his face and been like hell no.

I’m quite sure Ken is on the spectrum. I say this not to disparage him. Loved the old PFA shows with Ken. But he processes the world around him differently than you might. Truth be told none of us process people and the world quite the same.

I am quite sure Ken is the exact opposite of a tortured soul.

Correct. When he grew up, there was no such thing as Aspergers, and autism was rarely discussed except in severe cases where the person was basically nonfunctional.

Interestingly, despite Aspergers not being a diagnosed condition in the '70s, sometimes you would see characters with Aspergers in popular film and TV, such as Les Nessman on WKRP in Cincinnati.

About 10 years ago, Ken went to a psychologist who diagnosed him with Aspergers, though it was pretty obvious he had it. Ken himself has stated for a long time that he had it, even before the diagnosis.

[BCR]

Obviously he’s the comic fodder on all these appearances.

Did it concern you as his friend? Does he get sad?

Maybe he just has the thickest of skin, and he’s clearly built different, but I would have been scared for him had the girl chose him and then recoiled when he walked around the curtain.

He seems to not care, but then I recall like a Chris Farley dancing next to Patrick Swayze on SNL and thinking how comfortable he was in his skin, only later to find out he was privately tortured by it. That’s happened so frequently with comics, where they seem comfortable only to realize they were tortured souls.

I always cringed at those shows as they seemed to always set up one guy to be a big disappointment if the girl chose him. If someone was my friend, I’d be a little concerned if they were mentally built for the reaction if it went sideways. Is Ken simply immune to that? I was watching it relieved that brunette who was very into herself didn’t choose him as she might have put her hand up in his face and been like hell no.

I’m quite sure Ken is on the spectrum. I say this not to disparage him. Loved the old PFA shows with Ken. But he processes the world around him differently than you might. Truth be told none of us process people and the world quite the same.

I am quite sure Ken is the exact opposite of a tortured soul.

Yeah obviously that’s what I meant by built different, but he’s unique for that malady. Most of those people are bad in social situations and barely make eye contact. He’s not at all inhibited, which strikes me as strange even on the spectrum. That said, I knew Druff genuinely cares for him and just wondered if he ever initially had hesitance.

[Dan Druff]

Back to some more videos. Unfortunately this series is the last I have, even though there are several more which either were never recorded or have been lost somehow. His most recent appearance was on Judge Judy, which I'll post about later. Unfortunately, Judge Judy's production team is very aggressive about taking episode videos down from Youtube, so it's not available anymore.

Ken's most notable TV appearances involve the show Blind Date.

I forgot how he managed this, but somehow he was able to not only get on the show, but get an entire week's worth of episodes dedicated to him.

Blind Date was a TV show which aired for seven seasons, starting in 1999. The host was Roger Lodge, a sports fanatic who preferred to have a career doing sportstalk or something else related to sports, but had to settle for the gig of hosting Blind Date.

As Ken mentioned in his Kevin and Bean Show appearance promoting the Blind Date episodes, he never actually met nor interacted Lodge. He went on the dates and met a lot of the show's staff, but Lodge was only brought in during post-production to introduce the segments and comment on them.

It is unclear whether they set up all 5 dates knowing that Ken was likely to brick all of them, or if they did it on the fly when each date didn't work out. Regardless, they ended up with 5 episodes, where Ken ran into various degrees of failure -- some of it his fault, some of it not.

He wasn't exactly set up with great catches, either. The first girl was bizarre, with a nasally voice, receding hairline, and generally standoffish demeanor. The third girl appeared nice on the surface, but seemed to be a manipulator and a user (more on her later). The fourth girl was 48 years old (Ken was mid-30s at the time), and while attractive for her age, clearly not compatible with Ken. The second and fifth girls were fairly normal, but they both seemed somewhat bitchy and unlikely to find Ken's shenanigans amusing.

In the first episode, you get to see Ken's apartment. Ken attempted to get a haircut before the episode was filmed, but it backfired when the stylist did a bad job, and Ken said that he "looked like George Washington" (he wasn't wrong).

Ken is still in that apartment. He's had it since 1995. He survived two eviction attempts (both for bogus reasons, in attempt to get rid of him because he's on rent control). Both times I gave him substantial assistance and he beat them. He also has had some terrible "roommates" over the years, usually shady characters he'd meet at work, who would just use him for free rent.

One of them was a violent guy who refused to pay rent and would punch Ken whenever he got slightly annoyed with him. Due to shitty California and Los Angeles city laws, the guy actually had the right to stay there for months while Ken would be going through an eviction process, and would probably be even more violent with Ken in the meantime. This was a challenging one to solve, as clearly the law wasn't going to me of much help. I then came up with the perfect idea. I asked Ken if he minded having all of the furniture removed and put in storage, if it helped get rid of the guy, and he said yes.

I called up the dude and told him that, due to his failure to pay rent and violent behavior towards Ken, I was having all of the furniture moved out. The guy then threatened he was going to kick my ass and stab me if I attempted to come down and move it out.

I responded, "Oh, you must think I'm coming down there to do it personally. No, I live in Las Vegas. I'm sending some of my buddies down to remove the furniture. Ken owns all of it, and he already signed the order to do it. It's happening whether you like it or not."

He then told me that he would stab any of the guys who came down to do that. I responded by telling him that these guys are "ex cons who love to fight", and that they always have weapons on them. "They're fully ready for you to try to get violent with them, so they can hurt you and legitimately claim self defense. So go ahead.. try to stop them and see what happens. That's what they're hoping you'll do."

His girlfriend was over there and panicked, because she was sure he'd lose his temper and get himself killed. At first he argued with her, but then reluctantly agreed that she was probably right, and quietly packed all of his shit up and left that same day. This was like 15 years ago. It wasn't a complete bluff because I actually knew a guy who probably would have been willing to do this if it came down to it, but in reality I hadn't approached him with it yet.

Anyway, I digress. The five Blind Date episodes aired in 2005, when Ken was 35. Here's episode #1:

[Dan Druff]

The girl in the second date was probably the best catch of the five. She had bright red dyed hair and was a bit on the bitchy side, but overall she was fairly normal. She and Ken simply weren't compatible, and she wasn't very amused by him.

[Dan Druff]

The third girl, "Jenna Dean" appeared on the surface like she could be Ken's dream girl. Not only was she a self-described "former Playboy model", but she claimed to like "quirky guys" and seemed somewhat warm to Ken.

Unlike the first two girls who were clearly disgusted/bothered by Ken's weirdness, Jenna appeared to embrace and appreciate it.

Unfortunately, as is common on reality TV shows, there's often a hidden agenda. In Jenna's case, she was looking to become famous, so she was feigning interest and friendliness in order to get exposure for herself on national TV. In short, Jenna was a big phony, and eventually that became quite clear. At least the first two girls were honest from the start regarding their lack of interest in the Kenster. She also exaggerated her Playboy appearance. In reality, she was just one of several girls who appeared nude in a group shot on one page, and wasn't a centerfold or anything like that.





Unfortunately, something happened later which was quite sad. Back then, it was possible to e-mail the owner of YouTube channels, even if they didn't make their e-mail address public. I assigned some secondary e-mail I rarely checked to the "neverinwpoker2" channel, which I ran but didn't use except to post Ken videos. One day I checked it and found a heartbreaking e-mail from a 13-year-old boy. He claimed that Jenna was his mom, and was incredibly abusive to him, both physically and emotionally. He wrote that she had manipulated the court system by lying and claiming that his dad had abused him, when he actually hadn't, and got full custody. The boy said he was about to run away from home, but was very scared. He wrote, "I don't know you, but maybe you can tell the way my mom is from this video, and you can help me."

Being an uninvolved third party, there probably wasn't much I could do, but I figured I would respond to the boy and hear him out. I was going to see if I could direct him to child protective services, or perhaps law enforcement, to tell his story. I really wanted to help this kid, as he seemed very sincere in his desperate e-mails. He said that his mom manipulates everyone into thinking she's a friendly and nice person, and nobody realizes what she's like behind closed doors. This really checked out in my mind, recalling how manipulative Jenna was with Ken on this "date".

I responded to the boy, but he never answered. It had been many months since he wrote to me. I wish I knew what happened to him.

[Dan Druff]

I'll get to the 4th and 5th episodes later.

After that, I will re-discuss the Judge Judy appearance, as well as talk about various radio appearances he had which are unfortunately lost. A few of them involved me. One of them actually had an effect on the then-LA mayor, and made front page news in the LA Times.

Finally, I will discuss a few TV appearances Ken almost had but didn't, where I was slated to appear as well.