River Morning Show Gives 'Star Wars' The Helium Theater Treatment

We do a segment on The River Morning Show called 'Helium Theater.' It is one of my favorite things to do on the show. I've never put this amount of production into a previous 'HT' as I did on this one.

For Wednesday morning, I thought we should do Star Wars: A New Hope. First, because it was "Star Wars Day" on Monday, and second, Abbey and Jim have never seen ANY Star Wars movie. "WHAT?!" you say? That was my thought as well.

I decided to go with the very first Star Wars and chose a classic scene that involved three characters. Abbey played Princess Leah, Jim played Luke Skywalker, and I took the Han Solo part because, well, it's Han Solo. Here was Wednesday's 'Helium Theater.'

If you've never heard of this bit before, it's a segment we do every Wednesday at 7:45 am. We take a scene from a movie and act it out (badly). I then put a small amount of production on it, including a 'helium' effect, and then we have listeners guess what movie it is. The first person to give us the correct answer wins $20 to Pizza Depot.

We do a lot of bits like this on the River Morning Show throughout the week, but "Helium Theater" is probably the most difficult and requires the most work, but it is also the most enjoyable and satisfying.

It takes time to try to find the right movie, the right scene, and the right length. But the work that goes into it is so worth it. At least I hope it's worth it -- because if you don't enjoy it -- I'm wasting my time.

When I asked my wife what she thought of Helium Theater, she said: