Almost Live! was a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle, Washington, USA, produced and broadcast by NBC affiliate KING-TV from 1984 to 1999. A re-packaged version of the show also aired on Comedy Central from 1992 to 1993, and episodes aired on WGRZ-TV and other Gannett-owned stations in the late 1990s. The show was broadcast in Seattle on Saturday nights at 11:30, pushing Saturday Night Live back to midnight, while other Gannett stations aired it after Saturday Night Live. History Original format Almost Live! began as a weekly half-hour talk and comedy sketch show created by then VP of Programming Bob Jones, and hosted by Ross Shafer and closely patterned after Late Night with David Letterman, airing at 6:00 p.m. on Sundays. From the beginning, it featured many spoofs and satires of local and national television, series such as Star Trek, and unique locales in and around the city such as Ballard, Green Lake, Lynnwood, and Kent. The show became so popular that it was expanded from a half hour to one hour and shown twice a week. After four years and nearly 40 local Emmy Awards and several national awards, Shafer left to host the Fox Network's The Late Show. As a follow-up to the local music program Rev which had John Keister as a frequent contributor, Almost Live! featured some of the earliest local musicians in the format that would later be called grunge. John Keister and a change in format Keister became the permanent replacement after Shafer left the program. Keister hosted for one season (1988-89) in the one-hour, 6p.m. Sunday slot (and in the talk show format), but, following the lead of a "Greatest Hits" special that aired at 11:30 p.m. Saturday, the show moved into that slot. From the show's start until he became host in 1989, Keister was a regular supporting performer. Many of the initial award-winning elements of Almost Live! were his efforts, so the program quickly changed formats to feature more of his abilities, as well as other cast members, in video sketches. The guest interviews and live band segments were dropped. The focus changed to sketch comedy and the show was shaved back to a half-hour format. Because of its popularity among the station's staff members, KING-TV asked NBC to broadcast Almost Live at 11:30 p.m. slot, delaying Saturday Night Live locally by a half hour. The station received permission