"The fact that we somewhat resemble the original cast is only due to the impact this show had on our lives"
The Time Freeze Fan Club is a collection of enthusiasts that hold biannual theatrical conventions to spread the love and joy of the 1984 TV series Time Freeze. The series was about the adventures of Dirk Hardwave (a janitor and struggling musician) and his best friend Wheels (a scientist).
By accident, they discovered they could travel through time and space using a special silver cassette tape in Dirk’s personal stereo. All that exists of the show now is a few poor-quality videos on YouTube, a bunch of scripts, and some rather nice merchandise. The fact that we somewhat resemble the original cast is only due to the impact this show had on our lives.
It really all started as a joke we used to play eight or so years ago; you’d overhear someone in a bar talking about Star Wars, Knight Rider, Monkey or Quantum Leap and we’d say; “Do you remember Time Freeze?” We’d give them all the information you could need to make it ‘real’. Although at that point the show actually only existed in our minds. We wanted to push the envelope, to make it sound as real as possible, so we wrote the theme songs, created title cards, and built props. We created so much back-story on everything - from the fictional producer, ‘Archie J Reubens’, to the franchise spin off series Time Bike. We even wrote the final credit music, Love Reign, to have as little to do with the show as possible - a nod towards The Racoons having that amazing theme, which had absolutely no connection with their show whatsoever.
The idea was to make the feature length pilot and leave it in charity shops on VHS, occasionally with sections taped over. We wanted to produce a Time Freeze annual with all the word searches filled in, even antique Walkman headphones and a seven-inch single of Love Reign. We’re trying to create a cult appreciation of a show that never existed. We encourage the audience to help us create episodes, the idea that it could be anything you want it to be. There are ground rules like Fight Club, except the first rule is you can talk about it, you’re just not allowed to tell anyone it wasn’t real. So anyone that reads this is in now in on our ruse.
The whole point of our show is to create a guerrilla form of media under the radar and eventually for it to have its own life. It can never be remade, rehashed and no one can touch up the legendary special effects to make a fast (Canadian) dollar from a re-release. Parts of Time Freeze are exactly how the audience remembers, or rather how the audience would like to remember their favourite childhood show. It’s almost as if the audience is helping us make this up…almost.
We’d still love to make the feature-length pilot, and even the spin off series Time Bike. We’ve actually just finished storyboarding some live action shorts - which will be filmed in the lowest quality possible – that are based on some of the ideas we fielded from the audience at our talk at GameCity. Hot Japanese Girl are massive Freezers, so I’d imagine their new EP would feature a Time Freeze video. There’s also the idea of an animated mini-show where the characters are stuck in high school, much like the Muppet Babies’ take on the original Muppets. Our main focus at the moment is to launch the website so that our ideas, and those of the fans, will feed into our next live performance and the ever-expanding Time Freeze universe. The big dream is to take it to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012. 2012 still sounds like the future to us.
Time Freeze Fan Club website
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