Mason was hired as a musical director for The Second City Touring Company in the spring of 1981, and he worked as a musician for almost a year at the theater, learning improvisational comedy and theater, while helping to open the "Second City - Etc." room.
Mason was admitted to The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in the fall of 1982, where he spent the year in graduate school, earning a Master's Degree in Advertising in June 1983 [REF].