Maria Ferrari is a staff writer on "The Bill Engvall Show." She is a graduate of Northwestern University.

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Episode 205 – Susan's Best Friend

This week we introduce the lovely and talented Cynthia Wattros as Susan's best friend, A.J. If she looks familiar, it's probably because you've seen her as Libby on "Lost," a show that keeps sucking me back in like a bad relationship, even though I have tried to break up with it twice. Anyway, it turns out that working in TV has not helped me feel less star-struck around actors from other TV shows. Cynthia probably thinks of me as the short writer with the crazy eyes who keeps going in for a hug.

So after some debate in the writers' room about whether a Vanabago is a real kind of camper, distinct from a Winnebago, we learned that it does exist but has mostly been phased out by now. And we found out why when our transportation coordinator found an old one for sale on craigslist. When he went to meet the owner at the spot they'd agreed on, the 'bago was on fire. Literally, on fire, from overheating on the ride over. So he decided not to buy it. If that 'bago had waited fifteen more minutes to blow, Susan's friend A.J. would have had to ride into town in her pile of scrap metal and carbon.

I'm not sure, but that story may have led to one of my favorite jokes from this episode - when A.J. runs in and says "Hey Susan, I got the Vanabago running, we gotta go. It gets crazy hot if we don't get some wind into the grill." She's not kidding. Fortunately, the transpo department was able to find a second Vanabago and somehow get it to the lot in one piece, and this one survived until shoot day. I don't think we moved it around very much once it got here.


The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer/speaker and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc.”