“The Secret Origin of the Roundhouse Roulette”
If you’ve made it as far as this blog post, you’re probably wondering how the concept of Roundhouse Roulette came to be. After all, the task of rating and reviewing each and every one of the 200 WTR episodes in random order is probably not something that occurs to someone out of nowhere.
In truth, Bob, Adam and Evan initially came to enjoy watching WTR on television, where we had little control over which episodes we saw. Once we had all of the episodes on DVD, the option for cherry-picking the best episodes for watching was all too easy, but it meant that many episodes (perhaps some absolute classics) got overlooked.
Walker shenanigans are afoot
Prior to an upcoming musical gig, Bob and Evan travelled down to Nashville to rehearse. It was unspoken, but understood that there would be some WTR-viewing in our future as well. Bob arrived a few days before Evan and he and Adam got to work on an epic viewing-party centerpiece; a roulette wheel of selection!
The concept was simple enough: a free-standing spinning wheel of Walker awesomeness. Making this contraption, however, proved to be quite the task. Neither Adam, nor Bob were carpenters, but the internet provided plenty of guidance for best practices in creating a giant spinning wheel. Several trips to Home Depot left the duo searching for one last piece... a fidget spinner.
Not a torture device; the wheel in early development.
a fidget spinner arises!
The finished Wheel of Walker, complete with Chuck Norris kick selector.
It turns out (see what I did there?) that fidget spinners’ central bearings are the perfect connecting point for a larger spinning wheel. If Bob and Adam had been searching in the summer of 2017, it would have been simple finding a fidget spinner at any store or gas station. Unfortunately, they bore witness to the ephemeral nature of cheap fads, as fidget spinners were nowhere to be found in spring 2019.
It took several stops before desperation led Bob to scour the lower reaches of a sale bin in a Dollar General, where he came upon a forgotten fidget spinner. After mounting that onto a drum head they were ready to select the episodes over a beer at Adam’s neighborhood brewery. After episode selection, it was only a matter of designing the face of the wheel and installing a custom Chuck Norris high-kicking pointer. Easy!
showtime!
During this process they had been sending Evan cryptic texts about what they were up to. By the night he arrived in Nashville, the anticipation was at a boiling point. With great fanfare, the wheel was presented and the first episode was selected: “Mean Streets”. Throughout the evening, watched episodes were denoted with a cutout sticker of CD Parker’s head.
It was a blast watching episodes together (something we hadn’t done in forever) and it inspired our unique method of episode selection for the Roundhouse Roulette podcast!
CD is Gimpy’s favorite character.