Michael Moore’s ‘The Awful Truth’ to be aired

UW–Madison students and others who took part in the filming of a segment for documentary maker and satirist Michael Moore’s new TV show last fall will get to see the final product when it debuts in the United States this Sunday, April 11, at 8 p.m. Madison time.

“The Awful Truth” will be shown on a big screen in the Memorial Union Rathskeller, courtesy of Moore. Bravo, the Film and Arts Network, is carrying the series, but because Bravo isn’t offered on Madison cable, Moore promised participants last fall that he would make other arrangements so they could see the inaugural show in which they “starred.” The show began airing in Britain last month.

“The Madison scene is in the very first episode – a piece about showing Ken Starr and Congress how to conduct a cheaper witch hunt,” says Moore.

Last Oct. 13, Moore addressed a full house in the Wisconsin Union as part of the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Distinguished Lecture Series. He invited the audience to join him on the lower State Street Mall immediately following his talk for the filming of the witch hunt segment, which he directed.

“I couldn’t believe how we pulled off this scene with a ‘cast of thousands,’ he said. “Virtually the entire audience came outside! You won’t believe the shots we got — you’ll think we spent a million bucks to get them, but it was the cheapest scene I shot for the whole series!”

Moore says the rest of the country will owe a debt of gratitude to the students of UW–Madison. “They put the exclamation point on a year that we’d all soon like to forget.”

According to ‘The Awful Truth’ web site, Moore uses his “signature ‘guerilla video’ style and scathingly funny observations” for the weekly half-hour series that “brings together comedy with nonfiction, and places Moore squarely in the middle of today’s controversial issues and events.”