Nashville has been incubating a 2-person musical comedy show called The Doyle and Debbie Show that's threatening to become something much bigger soon. It's the brainchild of Bruce Arntson, a great musician and songwriter, screenplay and TV writer, film scorer (along with his cohort Kirby Shelstad) of the Ernest movies and the Emmy Award winning TV show that also featured the late Jim Varney, Hey Vern, It's Ernest.

The Doyle and Debbie Show ran solid for over a year at The Bongo Theater Upstairs, a small black box theater above a popular coffee house. Now it's moved for the last few months to the legendary Station Inn, Nashville's classic Bluegrass room, where they will soon move from one to two nights a week. Hey, this just isn't that big a town, so this revue is really popular to still be packing them in, when it will be two years in June.

The show concerns a fading Country star, somewhere between a has been and a nearly was. He's trying to stage a comeback, and has found his latest and third Debbie at a VFW hall, singing her heart out. The songs are sheer comic genius, the acting spot on. They just tore it up on Conan, and are headed for HBO, with a little luck. The writer's strike is over, D&D are a new hot ticket, and they got a show to pitch to cable that goes beyond but includes the genius of this long running show in Nashville.

Arntson is a fascinating character who's done a long list of musical and film oriented works, and is headed for a long-deserved stardom. The way he plays Doyle Mayfield is insanely good. His partner Jenny Littleton has been a major player in the theater scene here and is a breakaway singer to boot, having grown up Country and steeped in all the female greats. Her deadpan delivery is side-splitting funny, and her body language has 'em hollering in the aisles. This is a hit that's just now beginning to spread, and one that will be around for years to come. You must buy the CD, there's not a bad song on it, and check out their website so you can catch up on videos (go to youtube, too) and the rest of the story. But now, here's a scintillating conversation with one of Nashville's hippest hottest properties of the moment, Bruce Arntson.    continue to interview