The TV Wheel
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The TV Wheel is a 1995 television pilot created by and starring Joel Hodgson, of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame. The pilot was funded by cable network HBO, but they ultimately passed on picking up the show. The pilot episode eventually aired once on Comedy Central as a special presentation following the last new episode of MST3K to be broadcast on that network.[1]
The program is a sketch comedy show. A single stationary camera was mounted inside the center of a large rotating platform.[2] As the platform rotated around the camera, a scene would come into view of the camera. The wheel would stop and a sketch would play out in the scene, which was often framed by some piece of appropriate artwork or prop (for the purposes of forced perspective). At the end of the scene, the wheel would rotate, carrying one scene out of the camera's view and bringing another in, and a new sketch would begin in the new scene.[3] Some scenes were self-contained on the platform, while others were open to the studio beyond the platform (and additional action would take place in the background).