Dolan gets rollin’ for humorous segment

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Updated: March 17, 2012 10:14AM

A recent Rollin’ with Dolan segment on BHS-TV began with one student reminiscing about singing in the guidance department while working on the making of another video “BHS Ghostbusters” last fall.

The segment fades way with a ripple-effect as if in a flashback to that magic time.

Bryan Dolan interviews counseling center secretary Donna Szczesniak as a soundtrack of “Build Me Up Buttercup” is overlaid on the scene.

Then four students pop-up from behind Szczesniak’s desk and mouth the words to the rousing 1968 song sung by The Foundations. Dolan and the gang ham-it-up dancing.

“Why do you build me up (build me up) Buttercup, baby Just to let me down (let me down) and mess me around”

Then cut to next interview with counselor Tim Martin.

When that interview is finished, they fist pump. An editor adds in the sound of an explosion and a visual of a firey explosion.

BHS-TV Rollin’ with Dolan segments are never ‘blue,’ burlesque or bitchy.

Dolan isn’t salacious, sarcastic or seditious

Rollin’ with Dolan is more impromptu and improvised, good-natured high school fun in a mix of real school news features.

Recently, a dance party segment veered close to the line.

“There was definitely some hip action going on,” Dolan says.

So the editors worked their magic, cutting out the potential pelvic Pandora’s box.

Rollin’ with Dolan taps into light-hearted high school humor and it is a hit on cable Channel 97 and on BHS-TV’s newscast on Friday afternoons and aired in Barrington High School classrooms.

However, this tall, thin, almost perpetually bemused senior has no set questions, no script and no idea what the ‘heck’ he’ll say next.

“I think of things on the spot,” he says while walking to the guidance rooms. “Otherwise it comes out manufactured.”

The two-minute Rollin’ with Dolan segments dance on a fine line of humor and school news.

Yet for two years they often are the most popular segment of the weekly broadcast, cracking up students and teachers with inside jokes and quick ad libs.

“He’s a famous person around the halls of this high school,” said Jeff Doles, head of the audio-visual department which oversees the weekly news program. “He’s kind of the cheerleader for BHS-TV. He has that magical personality that gets a group to connect to the program.”

This segment is about the many services available at the counseling department and the people who work there.

Dolan leads the way, often with his usual crew of Matt Weidner on camera, and the behind the scenes crew of Eric Beightol, Melissa Muche, Charlie Kingwill, Ryan Sarkar and Taylor Witzak.

In the guidance resource room, he stands between resource coordinators Nancy Crowther and Jilll Bauer asking about what they do.

The room has hundreds of college banners lining the wall and at one point, in another unpremeditated moment, Dolan swerves off topic and asks how many college banners are in the room.

The counselors estimate, 125 or 175. Then Weidner cuts away to Sarkar and coming up with the answer.

“From Adelphi to Wyoming, its 316 flags,” Sakar says.

Cut. That’s an interview. Next, the group meanders back to the front desk and an interview with guidance counselor Joan Bell.

Bell is a Rollin’ with Dolan fan and is up for the segment.

Dolan asks her if she has any humorous guidance counseling stories.

“Every time you come in it’s a funny counseling story,” Bell says.

Bell is laughing hard but her interview doesn’t make the final cut.

“You guys are hysterical,” Bell says. “What are we going to do when you graduate?”

Which brings up the fact that Dolan has already been accepted at University of Illinois and Indiana University but is keeping his options open. He thinks he may pursue a degree in business communications.

He later signs off for the counseling department segment in one smooth summation.

“I think we’ve all learned that the guidance department is truly awesome,” he says.

Before the segment, Dolan’s confidence seemed risky.

Inventing and performing unrehearsed, unscripted, makeshift one-liners on the spot on a subject as serious as guidance counseling? Sometimes, it’s a high wire act that seems like it should fall flat on its face but instead coaxes a laugh.

That’s just the way he rolls.