TurboFool (Neither, really)

All right, new episode of Mr. Deity is up, and I’m in it again! Woohoo, go me, living the dream, etc. Check it out (and stick around for the begging segment at the end):

Another good episode, and I loved the PZ references. Definitely some good, subtle stuff in there, and as usual plenty of ad-libbing (the Dagon reference was something I was especially proud of).

Anyway, the season’s nearly wrapped up, then there’ll be a small hiatus and for the first time ever, a Mr. Deity DVD release of the entire third season! Hopefully there’ll be a bunch of bonus content like outtakes (we have, on some very, very rare occasions, botched a line, or done something else mildly unplanned) and extended scenes to make it extra worth it, but just having it without the GoDaddy ads is enough for me. That and maybe no begging, although I find the begging bits nearly as funny (and, admittedly, occasionally funnier) than the episodes themselves, so hopefully they’ll be on the DVDs in one form or another.

Btw, if you were at all confused by the beginning, you may want to check out this Super Bowl commercial after the break to clear things up a bit:

More »

That’s right, folks, Timmy’s back! And check out what a headache he’s got on his hands…

This one was a doozy to film, because the dialog was so tight and the timing had to be so perfect that we had a lot to focus on. Plus I had worked late the night before, and Jimbo and Brian had spent the day filming another episode first, so none of us was as well-prepared as we would have liked. But that never stops a Mr. Deity, and better yet, some of the funniest things that come out of our mouths are born from sheer delirium.

As well, I was deeply honored to learn (and confirm upon reflection) that I am officially the first recurring character in Mr. Deity history (obviously not counting the four principle players). It means so very much to me to have been so openly and warmly accepted into this group and brought on-board such an amazing project. To go from a rabid fan (thankfully the doctors got that taken care of) to a recurring role as the head of R&D for the entire universe is a literal dream come true. I couldn’t be happier to be involved in something so clever, witty, original, and meaningful.

Well, enough blubbering. The next episode is one I managed to operate cameras and sound for, and it’s damn funny, despite me not appearing in it. Look forward to it in a couple of weeks. And word is I may appear in at least one more episode this season. Stay Tubed…

All right, finally getting around to posting this on my own blog since it went up yesterday. The latest episode of Mr. Deity is up, and it features yours truly. Check it out:

As the head of R&D for the entire universe, I think you can understand why I’ve been too busy to blog much.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to more coming soon. We’re filming another one later this week!

Well, the latest episode of Mr. Deity is out, and it’s a doozy. One of my absolute favorite yet. And that has nothing to do with the fact that I was there, on-set, when it was filmed, operated the cameras, worked as script supervisor, and provided real-time production feedback. I’ll totally skip over the facts that the cameras were completely pre-configured and all I had to do was start and stop them, the cast was so spot-on that dialog reminders were virtually never needed, and my real-time production feedback mostly consisted of laughing at funny things during rehearsal that they had been considering taking out, or reminding them later of hilarious things they improvised earlier that they should use again. Crap, I wrote that out loud, didn’t I?

Anyway, whatever the case, enjoy. And stay tuned for some special news under the video…

Pretty damn good, right? Now in case you were wondering how I got so lucky as to be on the set for this production, it was because I had to have a little meeting with Mr. D himself to discuss my upcoming role in a future episode. That’s right, yours truly will be starring in an episode of Mr. Deity later this year! Who will I be playing? Well, that’s going to have to remain a secret for now, as it’s just too delicious to spoil. Only hint I can give is that I’m going to have to revise a philosophy of mine from my most popular blog post.

Stay tuned for more details…

EDIT: In case anyone ever checks in and asks, the role I eventually ended up playing is NOT the one originally planned. It’s not my place to give away future plot points, which is why I’m not going to specify anything right now, but while it would have been a fun and unusual role to play, I’m much more at home as Timmy, and he provides me with a lot more opportunities.

Over the many years I spent as an actor, I accrued a pretty darn near decent list of credits to my name. If you’d like to see the entire list, please feel free to visit my IMDb page, but I warn you, it’s long and listy. My wife even noticed once that I actually had more credits than Julia Roberts (unfortunately for me, Julia kept working, while I… didn’t). While I did my best to collect video tapes (remember those?) of all of my work, this was mostly for the sake of posterity. Over time, though, the need to make a reel from those became more apparent. For most of my career it was pretty much unnecessary.  I was a cute kid who could act, so I gained a reputation quickly, and got cast frequently. As I got older, the cuteness wore off, and I had to fall back more and more on the acting skills, which are harder to prove via a headshot.

So, my manager helped me put together a reel which was then sent out to various people. If  memory serves me, the reel was wildly successful, spawning dozens of major film roles, multiple sequel reels, and became one of the very first viral Internet memes. But it was fun to put together, and during the editing process we actually managed to take a scene from a show I won’t name (I loved the job, so don’t wish to put anyone’s work down) and drastically improve the editing of one of my scenes. Pretty cool stuff.

Anyway, during an email conversation the other day, I was asked if I had a reel. I had to laugh at the above memory, as while sure enough, I’ve got one, it’s basically useless, what with it now being over ten years old (am I even ALLOWED to feel old at the age of 27?). I’ve changed drastically since then, and television has to some degree, too. Of course I also haven’t worked in the last four years, so I suppose it couldn’t be THAT bad. Still, it struck me that I should probably track down what I could that’s most recent, and edit together some clips.

Of course now, in this age of web 2.0, interactivity, YouTube, and the like, there’s no reason for me to put excessive time into editing together a single, classic-style reel. I can just as easily clip out my scenes from various jobs, put them in individual videos, and upload them. Then the viewer can pick and choose what they want to watch, and I can even make notes. So that’s what I did. Right here. See? I did have a point to this rambling.

Now I must preface this by stating that to call this a “work in progress” would be an insult to the word “work,” a slap in the face to the word “progress,” and actually a slight compliment to “in.” As of now this is made up primarily of a combination of my most recent work, and the low-hanging fruit of what I was able to piece together from easy-to-access resources. Over time I hope to delve into my older work (I DEFINITELY need to clip out my work from Freaks and Geeks), and put up additional posts, and maybe even an entire page dedicated to my digital reel. But laziness and impatience have won out at the moment, so I’m starting here. The following clips are in chronological order, which just happens to place some real fan favorites at the beginning and end. Lucky how that worked out, isn’t it?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This job was a real treat on multiple levels. I had recently become a HUGE fan of the show, so getting to actually cement myself as part of it couldn’t have made me happier. Also seeing the sets and various cast members was a rare chance to geek out over something I was normally quite jaded over. As for my scene, as you saw, it was a one-on-one with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Now, when I met her, I can honestly say I wasn’t half as excited as I was by everything else that day. The show, to me, has always been more about the supporting cast, so I was left feeling like I was SUPPOSED to be excited to meet her, but was easily twice as excited just to see Alyson Hannigan drive up in her Jaugar XK8. Still, I have to say she (SMG) was one of the most professional actors I’ve ever worked with. She made a lot of her own staging decisions, lighting, camera angles, and simply did her job flawlessly. I had a reputation for being especially professional, as well, so we knocked the scene out in two hours, which is pretty quick. And for what my daily rate at the time was, it was one of the best-paying two hours of my life. At first I got the vague impression that she was kind of rude, but as I worked with her I began to realize she was simply comfortable. She had no need to put on airs, and put most of her focus on the work. She cracked occasional jokes to crew members who seemed at ease with her, and everything ran smoothly. Overall, great experience.

More »

I was bored this evening (how unusual…) and decided to look up an old friend of mine, Samm Levine. I had the good fortune of working on three episodes of one of the greatest television series of all time, Freaks and Geeks. Samm played Neal which is a role I had actually read for initially, but can wholeheartedly agree received much better casting with Samm. Samm (who had to add the extra M since SAG already had a Sam Levine, much like Michael J Fox who has no middle name) is, without question, one of the funniest people I’ve ever worked with, and a genuinely nice guy. I worked directly with him on the show and have run into him quite a few times since, and he’s always great to talk to and endlessly entertaining. He’s heavily involved in comedy, and is even the youngest member of the New York Friars Club. He is also quite short which he has managed to make extremely useful.

So in my searching, I came across the following short film (and the pun is very much intended). It stars Samm as well as Seth MacFarlane (yes, of Family Guy fame), as well as several other talented actors. I thought it was extremely funny, and I had to share it with you. You, of course, being my imaginary loyal audience. That’s right, you know who you are, or at least would if a figment of my imagination could have cognitive thought. So enjoy:

I just read an article on Guardian Unlimited on how easily the author, as well as another more recent “software developer,” was able to win a “prestigious” award for his software… software which doesn’t actually exist.

I recommend you follow the link for the full details, but he merely submitted information about his software, DBXV, to the site, claiming an absurd amount of sales, they asked him to verify his statement, he essentially verified it by writing back the equivalent of “yep, it’s true,” and paid the cash for the plaque he was awarded. There was a big awards dinner which he declined to attend, and he was listed as a Million Dollar Guy. All with imaginary software.

The more recent case was someone else who won no less than 16 awards for a utility that consisted of nothing more than a TXT file renamed with a .exe extension. That’s it. It didn’t do a damn thing. But all the sites cared about was the publicity, and the hope that a link would be placed on their site to help generate ad revenue. The author of the page also noted that as with restaurant awards, they hope to get the winner to pay to advertise with the award-giver, not to mention get a few bucks out of them for a table at the award ceremony.

This got me thinking about some of my past experiences. Several of my old web sites won numerous awards through no effort of my own. It was almost every other week I was getting contacted regarding a new award my site had won. Wow, did I think my site must have been good in those days. I look back now and laugh at how naive I was, especially when I look at my poor design work. All those rewards always REQUIRED that I post the award link on my site. I never thought anything of it. It all seems so obvious now, though.

But it goes further. Back in 1999 I was nominated for a Young Artist Award for my guest role in an episode of Boy Meets World. At the time even I knew that seemed odd, but I was excited nonetheless. I had been nominated for an award; how cool is that? I had to rent a tux, and I had to pay for seats at the award ceremony. The voting was actually handled by, of all people, the nominees, themselves, as well as their agents. Huh? And no effort was made to differentiate who we were or what we were nominated for. Most of the work was guest roles or other parts that were hard to recognize, and no episode or even character names were given. Who the heck knew what I did in a single random episode of Boy Meets World? How could I possibly win? I did my best to figure out who the other nominees were and vote based on the ones I could honestly attest to, but for the most part I had to leave them blank. I doubt most voters made that much effort.

Anyway, the night of the award ceremony came, it was a semi-big to-do, my category was called, the nominees were listed, I pretended to think I had a shot, and guess what happened? I won! Yup, that’s right, I was voted the best male guest lead in a television sit-com for 1999… right alongside the other four nominees. A five-way tie. Who would have thought that in an awards ceremony voted on by ourselves and our agents that we would all tie? It was pathetic, it was a waste of time, and it never did a damn thing for me. But looking back, they sure made a mint off of all those tickets to the ceremony, now didn’t they?

I hate awards shows, and now I’m realizing more and more what a pointless waste they are, entirely designed for the benefit of the promoters of the awards. What a sad waste of all of our time.

btw, if you liked this post, as well as all of the other fine work on my site, please feel free to submit me to any of the fine web site awards sites on the ‘net. I’d be happy to display their worthless beautiful logos across the bottom of my page.