Ep. 11 SMOKE

Play Ep. 11 MY OLDER SON: Let’s sing together!

ME: OK

SINGING “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”

My wife’s birthday means that the summer is coming to a close. The new school year will start in a few weeks. In upcoming podcasts, and in the course I’m taking this fall, I plan to get deeper into the technical aspects of the incursions.

But first, I feel like I need to start wrapping up the case against Robert Smigel.

Not that there is a case.

Welcome back to Boosting the Signal, the reinvestigation of Chicago’s 1987 broadcast television incursions.

I purchased a book online that I was certain could help me: the 972-page “Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation” by Charles E. O’Hara and Gregory L. O’Hara. When I received it, I excitedly began to page through when I noticed a chapter that referenced “The Homosexual Problem,” and I realized that the edition was published 35 years ago.

Still, there were portions regarding the philosophy and approach to criminal investigation that I found enlightening. For example, this quote:

“The investigator, when faced with a complex crime, may be compared to a research scientist, employing the same resources of reason and resorting, where necessary to imagination, ingenuity and even intuition.”

That sounds exactly like what I’m doing.

Using the book as reference, I began to build a model to examine what I have so far. I call my method SMOKE!

SFX: TONES

Let’s start with the letter “S.” Similarities. As I tried to go through extensively in previous episodes, I think the sense of humor is a match.

Because the voice is modulated, I don’t have too much to say about that, other than Smigel has a vocal range that allows him to do impersonations.

I do think his body type, circa 1987, is similar. Obviously, he has filled out.

The shape of the head could also be his, as, to my eye, it works with the shape of the Max mask.

What’s more, Smigel and whoever “Max” was both seem to have no neck.

“M.” Motive. My strongest guess here would be subversion of the medium, a prank because he could.

Smigel was a fan of comedians who had subverted television before him, such as David Letterman and Andy Kaufman, and he has shown over time that he has a keen awareness of offbeat media history.

The inspiration to pull the prank could have been a similar prank, the Vrillon incursion, that happened a decade before. The anniversary was just a few days off.

I suspect the prank could have also been a way to bond with friends, a sort of farewell as he moved on with his career.

I think all that seems to fit Smigel’s personality, but is wanting to pull a prank strong enough to outweigh the potential consequences?

A similar crime by someone called Captain Midnight, who interrupted an HBO broadcast, which I can detail more in the future, resulted in a $5,000 fine and probation.

Smigel, coming from a wealthy family, and possibly only contributing the video component, would have likely fared as well or better in court.

But with Smigel, you would also have to weigh that against the idea that he might be risking not just firing from his job at “Saturday Night Live,” but jeopardizing his entire career. I’m not sure how getting caught would have played with his boss, Lorne Michaels, whose influence reached well beyond just that one show.

“O.” Opportunity. Smigel knew Chicago, liked to return there and was off from his job in New York for a week.

But again, if his part in the whole thing was pre-recorded, he wouldn’t have even had to been there physically. I’m just assuming that if someone were motivated to pull a prank, they would probably want to see the results.

“K.” Knowledge. Smigel might have known what was possible, and he likely knew people who could have pulled the incursions off, given that he worked for a live television show at the time.

It’s unlikely, however, that he had the knowledge to pull off the technical side himself.

And finally… “E” is for Evidence. Here’s the biggest problem not only with my investigation, but with the original one. I really don’t have any strong evidence.

I suppose some FBI profiler would have to look at all these things and come up with a degree of probability that it was him, perhaps assisted by new digital methods of voice and body comparison, then send some men in black to go sweat him or something.

But since time ran out a long time ago to bring federal charges, that’s not going to happen.

So to sum it all up, this presentation in no way 100 percent equals Robert Smigel; in fact, it might be quite the opposite.

And yet it doesn’t rule him out, either.