Former Wichita television anchors collaborate on new local sitcom ‘Wichita Madhouse’
Wichita is used to seeing them on television, but not like this.
On Friday, a group of well-known Wichita TV news anchors and several local actors will debut a project they’ve been working on for months — a 25-minute sitcom called “Wichita Madhouse” that will air at 8 p.m. on PBS Kansas, Channel 8.
The sitcom — which may or may not continue beyond its first episode — is the brainchild of former KWCH news reporter and current PBS Kansas executive producer Jim Grawe. And it stars many former television anchors whose names Wichita will recognize, including Susan Peters, Anthony Powell and Sierra Scott.
The Wichita Eagle’s Bonnie Bing even has a role, as does Shawn Rhodes, a Wichita Gridiron star and the producer of the documentary “This is Love” about local musician Rudy Love.
The show, which was filmed over six sessions between February and November of last year, is an “old fashioned” type of sitcom that includes a laugh track, a madcap plot and good, clean humor, Grawe said. It stars Powell and Scott as a husband and wife who are splitting up but who both want to keep the house. Neither will budge, so both stay. Hilarity ensues.
Grawe said he first got the idea to produce a local sitcom in 2017 when talking to his friend, Powell, a former anchor for KSN. Powell grew up in California, and his father, Richard M. Powell, was a writer for sitcoms like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Hogan’s Heroes” and “Happy Days.”
Grawe remembers joking that he and Powell should make their own Wichita sitcom.
“We laughed and talked about how much work that would be and how would you ever do that?” Grawe remembers.
But Grawe couldn’t get it out of his mind. He mentioned the idea to various people over the years, who said they liked the concept, but nothing ever developed. One day, he decided to just sit down and write a script.
He had two of his friends and collaborators at PBS Kansas — Scott and Powell, who both appear on the show “Positively Kansas” — in mind when he wrote his two lead characters. He filled in the rest of the cast with other media celebrities as well as a few seasoned local stage actors.
Bing plays Scott’s mother. Peters, a longtime lead anchor at KAKE news who left the station in 2016, is the meddling neighbor. Rhodes plays Powell’s boss.
Though Wichita is the setting of the show, it’s not a star. Grawe said he didn’t include too many Wichita references because he wanted viewers from outside of the city to be able to get the humor, too. Most of the filming was done at Scott’s Wichita home, though some was done at Riverside Park and the parking lot of Powell’s cleaning business doubled as a used car lot in one scene.
Grawe and his KPTS colleague Ben Laffen ran the cameras, and Grawe was the show’s director and editor. The production was done independently and not as part of their work with PBS Kansas, he said, and he didn’t make it with the intention of actually putting it on television.
But when he finished the episode, he liked it. He found an underwriter to pay for broadcasting the show, and Victor Hogstrom, the CEO of PBS Kansas, agreed to put it on the air.
Grawe said he’s not sure if there will be a second episode of “Wichita Madhouse.” It depends on how it’s received. He does have a second script ready, though, and it’s even funnier than the first.
“We basically did it for fun,” he said. “We thought it would be fun to see if we could pull it off. But even though it was a lot of fun, it was also a lot of work.”
Powell, who’s been trying to build his acting resume in recent years, said it was fun to stretch his acting muscles and practice his craft. And he loved the finished product, which he said has a nostalgic feel.
“I thought the script was really well done by Jim,” he said. “I liked it because it reminded me of an old-time sitcom , the kid of sitcoms my dad wrote for — just wholesome family fun.”
Scott said the process gave her a new appreciation for what actors go through and that she learned so much. She’s performed in Gridiron, the annual Wichita stage show that raises money for journalism scholarships, but “Wichita Madhouse” was nothing like that.
“If he does more, I would be happy to do it again,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, and it takes a lot of talent I’m not sure I possess. But it was a blast doing it.”
The show will air on Friday, Grawe said, and he plans to post it to the YouTube channel Wichita Madhouse! next week.
This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 4:42 PM.
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