When we started it, I mean, I didn't know anything.

I didn't know anything.

I knew how to put on a show that I'd been putting on for years.

I didn't know how to put on a TV show.

As you know, it's different.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah.

And so I had to-- we just started doing it.

[music playing] Since the rise of radio and television in the 20th century, the Ozarks has maintained a unique place in the history of broadcasting.

From the creation of KWTO radio in the 1930s, which helped popularize country music and usher a plethora of local talent to the national stage, to the Ozark Jubilee, the first nationally broadcast television program to be produced outside of New York or Los Angeles, the citizens of Springfield have often been pioneers in this perhaps unlikely industry.

Our guest today continues this tradition of broadcast innovation with The Mystery Hour, a Late Night-style variety show produced at the historic Gillioz Theater in downtown Springfield and syndicated across the country.

Join me as we talk with host Jeff Houghton about the origins of the show, its continued success, and how he came to call Springfield home.

Stay tuned.

NARRATOR: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present OzarksWatch Video Magazine, a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

Hi.

Welcome to OzarksWatch Video Magazine.

I'm Dale Moore.

Glad you're here.

You will notice that the captain has turned on the fasten your seatbelt sign.

And that's because when you get a couple of guys in the studio, one that is a world-renowned comedian and another that's a wannabe comedian, well, you may have some unexpected turbulence.

So we're glad you're here.

We're going to have a blast.

I want to welcome Jeff Houghton to the program.

Jeff, good to have you here.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

I don't know who told you world-renowned, but I'll take it.

Well, I read it in the notes somewhere.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Yeah.

You got those from me.

I got those notes from you, exactly.

So I want to approach this a little bit differently.

I want to talk about The Mystery Hour.

I want to talk about all the other things that you do and that you've done.

But I think we need to drill down a little bit, and I want to look at what I call pre-Jeff.

JEFF HOUGHTON: OK. Pre-Jeff.

I want to talk about now-Jeff.

Yeah.

DALE MOORE: And I want to talk about Jeff-next.

OK. DALE MOORE: So-- JEFF HOUGHTON: I like that.

Yeah, and I didn't-- this is not rehearsed, so this is-- you know, we're going there.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Pre-Jeff, I might be a little short on knowledge of.

I'm excited about pre-Jeff, because pre-Jeff hails from Iowa City, Iowa.

JEFF HOUGHTON: That's right.

OK. Tell me about your life, and you've only got about 30 seconds-- your life in Iowa City, Iowa.

Iowa City-- I love Iowa City to death.

It's the whole University of Iowa.

I have four siblings.

My dad was the tennis coach at the University of Iowa.

He retired a few years ago.

He was that for all of my childhood.

My mom was a dance teacher for a number of years and stayed home with us quite a bit.

And I come from a great family with great roots in Iowa.

So anyone that knows me here knows that I love Springfield and love Missouri.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

And if you talk to me long enough, you'll find out I'm from Iowa as well.

So all right.

So did you-- I mean, you obviously went to grade school there.

Uh-huh.

DALE MOORE: So talk to me about pre-Jeff.

Talk to me about Career Day at grade school.

Which line did you get in?

Oh, good question.

So I was a really shy kid.

Like, the idea of doing what I'm doing now would have been like a quiet dream of mine or something.

But like, if you talk to people I went to elementary school with, they'd be very surprised that this is what I do.

Because I really was, like, pretty quiet, pretty shy, and not really the sort of kid that would want-- how about this.

I'm the sort of kid that would want to be out in front, but I would never, like, try to shine the spotlight on myself.

DALE MOORE: Right.

So I was happy when those opportunities came, but I was-- DALE MOORE: So you weren't the class clown?

Definitely not, no.

DALE MOORE: Oh, wow.

That surprises me.

Yeah.

You know-- I would have really figured you were the class clown.

I have found a lot-- you know, my background is in improv comedy.

It's a lot of kind of teamwork-based stuff.

And so many improvisers and a lot of comedians I've come to know-- we're more that kid that was kind of quietly snickering about the class clown or something like that, and not so much the class clown-- more observant, I suppose.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah.

So like everybody in my high school wanted to be on the football team.

I wanted to be in the band so I could date the cheerleader.

[laughter] They're busy on the football team.

I know, right?

So I had the right-- I had the right idea.

Smart guy.

So did did you go to college in Iowa, or-- Yeah.

DALE MOORE: I assume you went to the University of Iowa.

I went to the University of Iowa.

I went in my freshman year to Northern Iowa, but then finished at University of Iowa with a degree in communications.

And even though it was my hometown, I lived in the dorms and lived in an apartment and had a good college experience.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah.

That's enough pre-Jeff.

So-- JEFF HOUGHTON: But let me say this.

Also, I have a communications degree, and I could have done all kinds of stuff.

Like at Missouri State here, how they have like a film program and all that stuff-- I didn't do any of it.

Because I wasn't prepared to, like, put myself out there at all.

So in those years, I did communications.

So people were like, oh, that makes sense.

So you do TV stuff, you do comedy.

And I'm like, yeah, but I didn't do any of it in college even.

So you're at graduation, you're walking down the aisle, you're thinking, I've got a degree in communication.

What am I going to do?

[laughter] Yes, absolutely.

Well, one, I almost slept through my graduation.

My roommate came in five minutes before graduation started.

He dropped me off.

My whole family's at graduation.

Anyway-- but yeah, so I interned at Late Show with David Letterman right after college.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

I want to talk about that.

It's remarkable to me now how late in the game-- it was like May.

I applied for that.

And I was graduating in two weeks and had no plan, no plan at all.

So-- So the Letterman thing-- obviously, we've heard this.

But I want to drill down on this.

How in the world-- I mean, on a whim, you said, ah, there's an internship open at the Dave Letterman show.

Right.

Yeah.

So they had, like, a career office.

I'm not sure what the name was.

It was something like that, at Iowa.

And they just had a list on the website of, like-- of ones you could apply for.

And I applied for it, and then I got an interview.

And I was like, I don't know how this happened.

And then, I knew they were interviewing for, like, 16 or 17 spots, and they were interviewing, like, 30-some people.

I was like, OK, I got a shot now.

But how I got through the initial stuff-- DALE MOORE: Did you go to New York to interview?

Yeah.

I flew out to New York, I borrowed someone's suit, and I flew out there and did the interview, and flew back.

Wow.

And how long were you on the Letterman?

So I was there for a semester.

DALE MOORE: OK. Yeah.

DALE MOORE: Great experience?

JEFF HOUGHTON: Yeah.

It was great.

It was, I mean, just eye-opening in so many ways.

But I was in the talent department, and so that's the department I made a lot of copies for and ran errands for, and got to be backstage with guests here and there, and got to be in a few sketches.

But mostly, it was intern work.

Yeah, yeah.

So you did that, and then after that semester ended, what happened to-- we're now in the now-Jeff mode.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Right, right.

What do you do now?

JEFF HOUGHTON: After that was done, I moved back to Iowa, and then I'm working at a camp in Minnesota.

And I meet the woman that would become the love of my life.

And she's from Springfield, Missouri.

So I worked in Iowa for a while.

And then, when I was done with that, I moved down here just to kind of-- we weren't married.

We weren't engaged.

I had to, like, kind of figure-- be like, I don't know.

I got to find out if this is real.

I'm just going for it.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

JEFF HOUGHTON: And it turned out it was, so-- So camp-- was it boot camp?

Was it-- what kind of camp was it?

It was boot camp.

It was like a youth camp.

It was a youth camp.

So we were there for a month, and we were working there and kind of hit it off.

So-- And then, you wound up in LA.

So where are we at in the timeline here?

JEFF HOUGHTON: OK.

So now, you've jumped ahead a few years.

So then I'm here, and I join Skinny Improv, an improv group that-- we had a theater downtown.

It was right before the theater had opened, then I joined, and then we opened that, which was like just a really cool experience.

When I was living in New York, I kind of fell in love with improv, going and watching it.

And then, lo and behold, Springfield, Missouri is this perfect place for me to move to.

I didn't know, had no idea that there's like such a great theater community and arts community here.

And there's an improv theater, and we get good crowds.

And it was like, I'm doing improv every Friday, Saturday night.

I didn't need to move to New York or Chicago or something.

Improv is hard.

Isn't that the hardest form of comedy to do, really?

JEFF HOUGHTON: I find planning to be the hardest form of life, so improv is easier for me.

But yeah, I mean, certainly, you're walking out there with nothing.

Oh, I mean, you watch "What's my line,"-- Whose Line is it Anyway.

--and I mean, they make it look so easy.

Yeah.

And it's like, that's got to be hard.

What helps a lot is, there are principles that you learn.

Like, someone couldn't just walk up.

You couldn't just take a funny person, put them there, and have them shine.

It's really a lot of teamwork.

And it's a lot of, like, kind of building on what the person just said right before you.

So it's a lot of being right there in the moment.

It's all you've got, and you can only rely on the people around you, and it's really fun to see what you can create.

You can't make a lot of money at improv.

So were you, like, sacking groceries on the weekends, too?

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

So I worked at the Community Blood Center of the Ozarks for a number of years as a field representative, where I organized blood drives and worked with volunteers and spoke at things.

And that was a great organization and a great job-- and then, did the improv on the side.

So when you were doing Skinny Improv, you started this thing called The Mystery Hour.

Is that-- am I telling it right?

And that's where this came about as an improv kind of an idea then?

Yeah.

So we had shows.

We had our main stage shows at 7:30 or 8:00 every Friday and Saturday night, which left us a 10:00 slot where we kind of experiment with different types of shows.

And I was like, I want to try doing a late-night talk show.

And so I started in 2006, and it was just in front of a live crowd.

And the very first episode-- we didn't have episodes then-- the very first show was-- I was like, I don't know if anyone's going to show up to this.

Is anyone going to come?

And I was having-- I had on Doug Harpool was a guest, who was running for state Senate at the time.

I think he's a judge now.

DALE MOORE: He is a judge.

Yeah.

Side note, I ran Doug's campaign when he ran for the state Senate.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Is that right?

DALE MOORE: True story.

In 2006?

Small world.

Yeah.

Yes.

So I had him on, and a professor at Missouri State heard about it, and said it was an option for extra credit for-- it must have been a political science professor or something.

You could go get extra credit if you heard him be interviewed.

Because of that, then I had a big crowd for the first one.

And I got done with it, and I was like, oh, this is what I want to do.

I love this.

And oh, there are, like, four of these jobs, and they're in New York and Los Angeles.

I'm just going to keep doing it here.

And there's such a great community of people to help and to perform, and that sort of stuff.

What a-- I mean, doing what we do, this is not for the faint at heart.

There's some work involved.

I mean, to say, I'm going to do a talk show from Springfield, Missouri, and oh, by the way, it's never been done before-- I mean, that's stepping out on a pretty steep cliff.

It's pretty nuts.

I don't know-- I mean, I'm not sure I could start something like that again, if I'd have that same energy and irrational optimism.

You know?

So in the early days, for five years before we were ever on TV, there was never a camera.

And so it started out small, but we had, like, really good crowds, and I was like, this is just the most fun.

I feel like I'm just so in my element-- that I just kept doing it.

And so I didn't have any, like-- I didn't have real delusions of grandeur at that point.

The delusions of grandeur came later.

But at that point, I was like, I just want to keep doing this.

This is fun.

Yeah, yeah.

And then, that's kind of when I then went off to LA.

Yeah.

So let's talk about the-- yeah, so why going to LA?

What was that about?

To test the waters?

Yeah.

What prompted that-- the woman I met at the camp, that I married-- my wife, Michelle-- you know, before you have kids, you kind of have conversations about-- or you just kind of talk about, why don't we have kids or something.

And then, we had, like, the first real conversation, where I was like, we should think about having kids.

It was the first time I was like, oh, there's a deadline to this-- whatever I'm doing-- freewheeling lifestyle.

Right.

There's a deadline, and I was like-- not immediately in that conversation-- I was like, I got to go see about this first.

I got to go out to LA and give it a shot, because I don't think I'll get another chance.

This is the time.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

And she is unbelievably supportive.

And I didn't know if I should be in New York or LA.

I then kind of figured out, it should be LA, and then I started going through the process of dismantling my life.

You know, I quit my job at The Blood Center.

I put The Mystery Hour on hold, quit the Skinny Improv, and just moved out there, with no real connections or anything.

I was like, I'm just going to go for it.

And so I knew I needed to go through that process of going for it.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

And what was the experience like out there?

I mean, you hear the LA stories.

I mean-- Yeah.

So it's like what I had at that point was the experience of the struggling actor.

You know?

So like, there are all kinds of LA that are the successful actor stories.

I don't have any of those.

So I lived with my friends' parents, and eventually, I got a job at an Apple store, selling computers.

DALE MOORE: And became a genius.

Yeah, exactly.

I was by far the dumbest person there.

Like, just my knowledge of Apple products-- anyway.

And then, I took improv classes at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, which is a famous theater out there, which is the same theater I used to watch when I was in New York.

And then, I did stand-up and did a bunch of auditions, and just kind of took every swing I could.

And-- DALE MOORE: Just cattle calls, just one after another.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Yeah.

Just really-- DALE MOORE: Did you get an agent?

Did you work with an agent?

No.

I mean, so it's kind of like when you come out of college and you're like, I need to get a job.

In order to get a job, I have to have experience.

In order to have experience, I have to get a job.

You're like, how do I jump into this cycle?

So it was kind of like that where, I mean, I didn't have any experience to speak of, so then agents weren't so interested.

And it's just kind of a hard game.

And I had people that-- I sought a lot of advice, and people said, you know, you've got to be able to really give it, like, four or five years.

It's about building relationships.

It's like anything else, like having relationships and that sort of stuff.

And so-- It's a grind.

It's a grind.

Yeah, it's a real-- it was a real grind.

When I think back on it, I'm like, man, that was stressful fun, fun stressful.

But it was a grind, for sure, but I really enjoyed it.

Like, I just needed to try it.

So then you made the decision to come back to Springfield-- Yeah.

--and the rest is history?

So I always said-- so my wife stayed here, and I always said-- we'd see each other, like, once a month.

But I said, I'll move back when you tell me to.

Whenever you tell me to, I'll come back, and she said, I think it's time.

And then, I said, OK. She and our bank account got together and said, now's the time.

And then, it was around that time-- KOZL was forming a TV station that used to be KSFX.

They had lost their Fox affiliation.

someone had sent me an email, just saying, like, hey, they're looking for local programming.

And I was like, I got a show.

Hey, guys, I got a show.

I can do The Mystery Hour.

And they took a chance.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

So did you name it The Mystery Hour because you never know what's going to be on?

How did you come up with the name?

I mean, it's the most confusing name.

People call into, like, TV stations and are like, this isn't a mystery show.

DALE MOORE: I was hearing Alfred Hitchcock in my head when I first saw your logo.

Yeah, exactly.

So basically, I'm glad this will be captured on tape for all eternity.

But when I moved to Springfield, I lived with Michelle's parents in their basement, as I was, like, trying to get a job, get some money.

And I was going to move in with a friend in, like, April.

And so he told his friends, there's this guy, Jeff, that was going to move in.

I didn't move in until October, and so they said-- his friends started referring to me as this Mystery Jeff, and so that's how The Mystery Hour name-- also, it's not an hour.

It's a half-hour show.

DALE MOORE: Wow.

So it's an entirely confusing name.

I'd do it all over again, though.

That's a great story.

So the story's kind of Spartan, right?

And then, this thing started to grow on its own.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Yeah.

DALE MOORE: You got bigger and bigger and bigger, and next thing you know, you got a few Emmys in your hip pocket, and-- for crying out loud, this thing got out of hand.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Yeah, exactly.

DALE MOORE: --way out of hand.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Yeah.

I mean, boy.

So when we started it, I mean, I didn't know anything.

I didn't know anything.

I knew how to put on a show that I'd been putting on for years.

I didn't know how to put on a TV show.

As you know, it's different.

And so I had to-- we just started doing it.

And it wasn't great, and we had small crowds.

But then we kind of just kept going.

Hite Media shoots our show, and they're like, so legitimate.

They really legitimized a lot of it for us, just production value-wise and how they approach everything.

And then, I had a great team of writers from the start, but we started gathering all these people that had said, hey, I'd like to help out.

And so like, it's kind of this gathering.

I always call it, like, a community passion project, where different people have said, hey, I like this.

I like doing this thing.

Is there a way I can help?

And I say, yeah, we could totally do it.

And so it's this-- I really love this ragtag team aspect to it.

And so we went from shooting at Randy Bacon to the Gillioz, and then we moved to Fox.

And then, one time, I remember it was in January.

We were getting the set, loading things.

And like, I was getting-- I used to get reservation notices.

We used to do the box office.

Now, the Gillioz does it.

And I get an email every time there is a reservation.

And I was like, this thing is going.

And like, one January, we all of a sudden had 500 people.

So we mostly sustained that through the years, but like, it happened one time, and I was like, I don't know what's happening.

Yeah, yeah.

It is kind of one of those-- well, you know the grind has paid off at that point.

Like, we're getting somewhere.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're getting somewhere.

And we really do try to, like, showcase the community.

And you do.

And what really is tremendous-- I mean, you've got a guest lineup that's pretty impressive.

How do you get these folks?

I can imagine an agent calling, saying, I'm not coming to Springfield or The Simpsons show.

What do you-- JEFF HOUGHTON: Yeah, exactly.

Right?

JEFF HOUGHTON: Yeah.

How do you do it?

Amazing.

So I had this idea a few years ago-- maybe-- Jesus, six years ago?

I was like, what if we could fly-- we tape once a month, three episodes.

What if we could fly one guest in from, like, New York or LA, from a show, a person you might recognize?

I think of them as that-guy-from guests.

You might not know the actor's name.

You're like, oh, it's that guy from The Office.

It's that guy from Parks and Rec.

DALE MOORE: Yeah, yeah.

JEFF HOUGHTON: And so it started out just like friends of friends.

And then, Gig Salad has helped quite a bit.

And it's just these-- then, whenever I have a guest on, I follow up.

Like, would you mind sending me some other people's names and numbers that might have interest in it?

But yeah, and I got some sponsors to help with it.

But it's a tough ask to be like, hey, I want you to be on the show, and you fly to Dallas, fly to Springfield, or whatever to come to this random show you've never heard of, in a place you might not have heard of.

Come be on the show.

And it's a great barrier of entry to make sure that anyone that comes is super cool.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

And you know, you're now in your-- what season are you in now?

JEFF HOUGHTON: We're on the 10th season.

--10th season now.

So how many episodes all in?

We've done 215-ish or so.

Wow.

That's a lot of tape.

JEFF HOUGHTON: It is.

That's a lot of tape.

JEFF HOUGHTON: It's a lot.

And a lot of Tums.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Yeah, exactly.

So you know, the other things that you're notable for-- you're Instagram Husband, which-- did you think, when you did it, this thing's going to turn viral?

I mean, did you have any-- what, 60 million-plus views or downloads, or-- Yeah.

We had-- yeah.

DALE MOORE: Can you monetize that?

You can monetize it a little bit, a little bit.

There are savvier ways to monetize it more, which we did not do.

But yeah, kind of had the idea in, like, August or something, and then we shot it in November.

And I remember thinking, like, this is an idea that could appeal to more people.

So maybe-- but like, I mean, I never would have guessed.

I mean, I say that, but I'm just saying, like, I feel like this is a good one, not like, we'll get 60 million views.

DALE MOORE: Yeah.

What do you enjoy the most?

Do you enjoy the creating part, or do you enjoy the doing, the performing part?

JEFF HOUGHTON: Oh, great question.

So yeah, I'd say there is-- so we have writers' meetings at my house every Tuesday night.

DALE MOORE: Oh, god.

I love those.

They're fun.

Yeah, it's great.

And then, we have the show day.

And like, I'm not a huge detail person.

I don't love the day-to-day sort of stuff of it.

But like, the collaborating and the community involvement and the community of people that help with the show-- the show day is like my reward for doing all the lead-up work.

And to have all these people come out, and to be doing this with friends-- and there's always this moment where the musical guest is performing and the lights are dim.

And I'm like, oh, this is wonderful.

And you've got, I mean, great musical guests.

Man, I mean, they're as good as your guest-guests.

Yeah.

Really, I mean, they're maybe even better sometimes.

Like, I like that music.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Uh-huh.

It's a testament to the music in the Ozarks, right?

Like, there really is such great history with it and such great talent, that we haven't run out of people by any means.

DALE MOORE: We haven't talked about next Jeff.

I want to talk about next Jeff.

JEFF HOUGHTON: Oh, yeah, that guy.

We got to transition to next Jeff real quickly.

So next-level humor-- what I love is getting a bunch of boomers in the room and talking about-- you remember when comedy was funny when you had SNL?

Because have you seen the new SNL?

It's awful.

So what do you think about the way contemporary humor is going now, the direction of contemporary humor?

Oh, interesting.

I've heard it said about Saturday Night Live, that people that say it's no good right now-- that every person's favorite Saturday Night Live era is when they're a certain age.

It's like the age you are.

And so yeah, I mean, for the record, I think SNL is still amazing.

But as far as where it's going, it's really interesting, like with TikTok and stuff.

I don't know how familiar you are with it, but like there are so many funny people out there in so many places.

And I love the accessibility of it.

For so many people to make something and put it out there-- and you might not even have a good camera, you might not have good lighting, but you've got a really good idea.

And I love kind of the-- there's an egalitarian nature of it now, where the opportunity is there for people.

And like, I mean, mine's a different path, but similarly, you don't have to move to New York or LA to kind of pursue the comedy that you want to do.

And so I think there's so much comedy out there now, and the width of it has changed, where it's like, this is what comedy is.

And now, you can have something super out there.

And like, if that's what you like, you can find it now.

If this is what you still like, you can still find it.

So I love it.

It's all out there now.

So you're looking to make the markets bigger?

You're at 18 markets now?

17.

So are you heading that way?

I hope so.

Yeah, it's been-- we're one of the few shows out there that self-indicates, because I didn't know any better.

Like everything we've done, we're just like, we're just going to blindly figure our way out.

And so we just, a few years ago, started calling up stations and trying to get on.

And that's kind of how we got to where we are.

So I think you should do an annual state of the humor address.

I mean, everybody does state of the whatever address.

You need to do an annual state of the humor address.

Because I think right now, we could use something like that.

I like that.

Give that some thought.

Yeah, maybe with a suit, and there are some people flanked behind me, a chamber.

Yeah, a chamber kind of thing.

One last question before we go-- if life could give you a Mulligan, what would it be?

What do-over would you do?

Oh, what do-over?

Wow, what a good question!

We go from pre-Jeff to current Jeff, to next Jeff, to deep Jeff.

DALE MOORE: To deep Jeff.

I mean, this is simple and very true for me.

I would worry less.

Like, I think we always do that.

The things I was worried about five years ago came to pass, and the things I'm worried about now will come to pass.

So I would certainly worry less and enjoy the ride more.

DALE MOORE: Jeff Houghton, keep us laughing.

Appreciate it.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

DALE MOORE: Thank you.

You stay tuned.

I'll be right back.

NARRATOR: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present OzarksWatch Video Magazine, a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

For more information about The Mystery Hour, including broadcast schedules and tickets to future live productions, visit TheMysteryHour.com.

And I want to thank our guest, Jeff Houghton, for joining us today, and we'll see you next time on OzarksWatch Video Magazine.

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