Geiler Joins Car Pitchers

What is it about local TV news people and auto dealerships? They seem to go together like Omaha and daily shootings.

The latest local personality to join the TV car pitchman clan is Second City grad Matt Geiler, former host of the cult hit “news” program on KXVO-15. Geiler can be seen in recent ads for Reagan Buick, where he promises that we’ll be seeing a lot of him.

Geiler brought his improv skills to KXVO and made the show an underground hit in Omaha. But those who live in the underground don’t tend to show up in the ratings reports, and thus the show was cancelled earlier this year.

Since leaving KXVO, Geiler has been honing his comedic skills with periodic performances with one of his improv groups, the Weisenheimers, and trying to get a new show on TV.

“In May I took a bunch of tapes and demo reels that I had done at KXVO to Los Angeles for a couple of weeks and I hooked up with a group out there called Rebel Entertainment,” Geiler said. “They’re an agency, but they also have a production wing that packages shows and sells them to different media buyers, so I signed with that half of the company and we’ve been working on getting a sketch and improv pilot together. They want to sell it to high cable sometime in the fall.”

The show – titled “Voila!” – will be a combination of original sketches and pre-taped segments such as “Congratulations,” which Geiler has been filming in Omaha with Second City members this summer.

“We were down in the Old Market this summer and we would roll up on people in this van and pile out of it – we had confetti and balloons and sparklers – and we’d run up to them and be like, ‘Congratulations! You’re the winner!’ And kind of dance around them,’” Gieler said this week.

“It was interesting, because we had every reaction under the sun. We had a little old lady who was very thrilled that she had these balloons. And then there were these two chicks who were outside of Drastic Plastic that were just like, ‘Get away
from me.’”

Geiler hopes to hear if the show gets picked up in the coming weeks. In the meantime, he’ll continue to hawk cars for Reagan to “fill the coffers.”

“It’s fun,” Geiler said. “These guys called and wanted to talk to me about doing these car ads and I’m like … OK, it’s good; they’re nice people. And hey, you know what, I’ve got a kid and a wife so I need to pay bills.”