Chapter Twenty-Six, Which Used To Be Chapter Twenty-Eight.

     Aaaaaannnddd, we're back. The gorgeous redhead and self have returned from our European adventure. Of which I intend to write a lot about, especially about the history and the food and the fact that Europe evidently has never heard of a comfortable bed. But those are stories for another post. I've been quietly bitching to myself for a while now that I didn't have anything to write about, and I consoled myself with the fact that I've been publishing a chapter a week of the memoir, so I didn't really need to write anything additionally, and if that sounds lazy to you, it should. I'm a lazy, lazy writer. Remember the cartoon of the old hound dog on the porch who is so lazy that he just watches a cat saunter across right in front of his face? I would totally be that hound. Especially if the hound were also slightly drunk. And wondering where in the hell the tv remote had got to.

     My point is, I've returned form the Old World with a lot of stories and observations, and I intend to start interspersing them with the usual weekly chapter posts of the memoir. For those of you who have stuck with me this far, I'm absolutely going to finish out the book on this space. But I'm also actually going to start blogging again, since that's why I started this non-sensical enterprise in the first place.

     Also, publishing the book here has given me the chance to edit, and by "edit" I mean remove whole chapters that I've already written as posts on this space. (Evidently I went through a brief period writing the book where I was so desperate for pages, I plagiarized myself. If that's not the definition of laziness, I don't know what is.)

     And so: to those of you who missed me (both of you), thanks. I hope you'll keep coming back, because I had to go all the way to Europe to find out that I still have a shit-ton to say about things. But for now, let's get back to the book:

Chapter Twenty Six

Commercial Wisdom, or “Listen To Your TV Dad”

Always have a spit bucket. That’s another piece of wisdom that I stand by, especially when shooting any commercial involving food. Take any commercial where a human being is eating food, or drinking a beverage. Now, unless it’s a comedy bit, and the actor is about to spray that bite of food or slurp of milkshake all over some unsuspecting bystanders due to some real or imagined surprise, what is usually the very next thing you see the actor do after putting that food in their mouth? They smile. And that is why these kinds of commercials have a very specific name: Bite and Smile.

     It sounds like the easiest thing to do in the world. The bowl of spaghetti is in front of you. Take your fork, and slowly, sexily twirl the pasta around your fork. Raise it to your lips – not too fast, so the camera can track you. Open your mouth expectantly, close around the fork, slide that sexy-ass spaghetti off with your lips, and begin to chew. Reaction shot: wide, earnest, closed-mouth smile. This is the best goddamed spaghetti ever made by man. You are pleased. No, ecstatic! Just on the southern end of orgasmic. Aaaaaannnnd…CUT! That was beautiful! Perfect timing, excellent facial expressions, the client is thrilled. Now, we just need to do it EIGHTY-SEVEN MORE TIMES.

     I want you to try and imagine what your life would be like on a single day, if I asked you to take a bite of pasta once every 45-60 seconds or so – for ten straight hours. If you are imagining yourself dead, or contracting celiac disease, then you’re about on target. And that’s why a spit bucket.

     I remember my first bite and smile. It was a national commercial for an Italian chain called Johnny Carino’s. We had to report for work at one of the restaurants at 3AM, because the producers didn’t want any real people in the restaurant while we were filming. We were dressed in acceptable attire, arranged around tables, and the food started coming. I found out that I had one of the few close-up shots for this commercial, a tight shot on my face as I’m wrapping my lips around a wonderfully cooked piece of steak.

     The First Assistant Director asked me if I wanted a spit bucket, with a matter-of-factness that I didn’t think was appropriate for the word “spit.” I hate that word. (Irrational, I know. I’m also weird about “goiter,” and “pusillanimous.”) I replied that I did not. I had expressly not eaten dinner the evening before, knowing that I was getting up in a few hours to gorge myself on Italian food. I was ready. Bring the meat.

     And they did. And they kept bringing it. And I kept eating it, long past the point where I was actually full. But we kept shooting the scene over and over. From different angles. Multiple takes on every angle. This went on for hours. At the point where I physically started to turn green, I believe I had the thought that I was working with the Cecil B. DeMille of bite and smiles. I watched the faces of the other actors at my table, as they progressed from amused, to concerned, to disgusted, to outright horrified.

     When at long last the director (whose name I cannot remember, and I’m almost sure my mind did that on purpose, because if I did know his name my brain would probably put me in a fugue state long enough to track him down and murder him, and I’d wake up in a convenience store with no clothes on) decided he finally had the shot, and it was time to move on, I asked if I could be excused to go to the bathroom. I will not describe what I did in that bathroom; I have already told you a story that illustrates my family’s genetic pre-disposition for projectile vomiting. What I will tell you is that, by the time I was finished, the owners of Johnny Carino’s likely had no choice but to demolish that bathroom (and probably that whole side of the restaurant), but not before burning it down.

     A few years later I did another bite and smile, this time for a well-known baked goods company. I was no longer the hip, leather blazer-wearing single guy out with his friends at Johnny Carino’s. Now I was the sensible dad, with an adoring wife and two young daughters, ready for a day at the office in a crisp suit and tie. The heroes of this commercial were the baked goods: a selection of prepackaged donuts, donut holes, cinnamon rolls, and coffee cake. Picture the Middle-American family, gathered around the kitchen island on a weekday morning, about to dash off to work and school, but not before enjoying a plethora of packaged, processed sugary carb-bricks, all laid out and presented as though Martha Stewart were about to pop in any moment.

     One of the young actors playing my daughter (let’s call her Amanda, not her real name, because I’m friends with her on Facebook and she’s a teenager now, and she would knife me if I used her real name) could not have been more excited about the fact that she was going to spend the entire day eating donuts. That is the equivalent to an eight year-old of winning the lottery while riding your trained unicorn to Disneyworld. I had worked with this young lady before, and had built some rapport. As delicately as I could, I raised the idea that eating donuts all day might not be good for her stomach, and there was an actor’s trick I could teach her so that she could avoid a bad tummy ache later. A little trick I liked to call Spit That Shit Into A Bucket (I didn’t tell her that). She was horrified at the thought of “spitting gross chewed up food” into anything.

     The cameras began to roll. Every take, we would each take a bite of something, smile, look at each other, act like it was the best shit we’d ever eaten, then – CUT! Everybody would reach for their own bucket. Me, my tv wife, and our older TV daughter - but not Amanda. She would happily keep on chewing and swallow, and look at us like we were crazy for passing up what had to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We started to get into a groove, and the shoot was going well. Until about thirty minutes later, when I heard the director yell “Action!,” and we all started moving about the kitchen, doing our thing, reaching for our baked goodies, and quite suddenly I heard “Cut!” That meant a busted take, and when I looked around the set I saw Amanda still on her first mark. She was supposed to have moved with me over to the kitchen island, but she looked rooted to the ground. And she wasn’t moving. And she was very pale.

     I walked over to her, put my arm around her.

     Me: “Hey kiddo. You okay?”

     Her: “I think I’m ready to spit now.”

     Instantly a production assistant appeared from around the corner with a large Styrofoam cup in hand, and gave it to Amanda.

     Me: “There you go.”

     Her (looking at the cup, then at me): “It needs to be bigger.”

     Cut to Larry looking directly into the camera in wide-eyed horror.

     Her: “You should probably hurry.”

     Production only had to shut down for an hour, which is about how long it took the Wardrobe Department to locate a suitable replacement for the dress that Amanda destroyed.

     Always have a spit bucket.

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Chapter Five (My Life As A Dog, Part I).

     Holy shit. Chapter Four was heavy. Thanks to those of you who took the time to write me encouraging comments, even if it was just to say you're really, super-glad that it happened to me and not you. Let's lighten things up this week with the story of my first real foray into the world of television. It may also have been the very first job I worked where I was paid more than minimum wage. Off we go...

Chapter Five

My Life as a Dog (Part I)

   

 I didn’t land the role as the voice of Wishbone because I was an awesome actor. I got it because I could make shit up. In October of 1993 I was asked to audition for the voice of a character for a new children’s television show. Except it wasn’t a show, yet. It was just an idea. I showed up to the audition with only one piece of information: the character was a dog. I didn’t ingratiate myself to the audio engineer who was recording the auditions, as I started asking a bunch of questions that, had I thought a few seconds about it, I would have realized he couldn’t possibly have the answers to: Is this a cartoon? Is it a dude dressed up in a dog suit? (Which was followed immediately by a question I managed to keep in my own head  - (Oh Christ, if I get this gig will I have to dress up in a fucking dog suit?) What kind of dog is it? What’s the dog’s motivation? Is he more into toys, food, or licking his own balls?

     Whatever I did at the audition was at least enough to get me invited to the callback. A callback, for those of you not familiar with the term, is a second audition, usually one attended by the director, the producer, the writers, etc. This provides you with an opportunity to get more information about the project you are competing for, and gives the director a chance to see just how direct-able you are. That’s the upside. The downside is that a callback also gives you the opportunity to suck in front of a much larger group of people, thereby bringing shame and dishonor to your clan. This would turn out to be one of the strangest callbacks of my career, which, in the end, was probably a good thing.

     I was given an address by my agent and told to go there for the callback. I assumed this was another recording studio, but it turned out to be a house in the fashionable M Streets district of Dallas. I walked in to a living room packed with people. I was quickly introduced to the executive producer and creator of the project, the line producer, head writer, cinematographer, etc. Then I met the star of the show, which turned out to be a Jack Russell terrier, and I met his trainer. So, okay. It was a real dog. I would not have to dress up in a dog costume and dance around, which, for the record, I would have done for the right amount of money, and which also would likely have sent me down the path of alcohol and/or drug abuse.

     I had the opportunity to see how the callback would work because there was one voice actor in front of me to audition. They handed him a page of script, and told him that, while he read from it, the trainer would put the dog through a series of behaviors that were supposed to correspond with what he was reading. They recorded the auditions on a boom-box set up in the living room. So off he went, giving it his best, but the problem was the trainer was speaking commands to the dog at the same time this guy was trying to read the script, so it was kind of chaotic. Plus the dog wasn’t being terribly cooperative at the moment. The actor finished his read, everybody thanked him, and he left. I panicked, because I could think of no good way to do a good read the way they had it set up. I could tell everybody in the room was kind of stressed. Things were not going well. Just as the producer called me over and gave me the script, the trainer announced that the dog needed a break. With that, she took a tennis ball out of a pouch on her hip and tossed it to the dog – who immediately went bat-shit crazy with a ball in his mouth.

     Maybe it was because I had already written this callback off and felt I had nothing to lose. Maybe it was because the moment I saw how happy and animated that dog became with something as simple as a ball, I connected with something in the universe that drove me at that precise moment. I don’t know why I did what I did, but here is what I did: without being asked to or given any direction, I put down the script, opened my mouth, and started speaking what I thought must be going through the dog’s head at that moment. It was completely free form, stream-of-consciousness blather, Improvisation 101. Just me riffing on what I thought a dog with a ball might be thinking. I won’t try to recreate that moment on paper; it wouldn’t be funny, and I can’t remember exactly what I said, anyway.

     I had a vague notion of people in the room laughing, and I heard somebody say, “Thank you. That was great.” When I asked if they wanted me to go back and read the script, they said no. Turns out they had recorded the whole thing the minute I started talking and making shit up. That turned out to be my audition. I walked out of there thinking, Well, I fucked myself out of THAT gig. But I suppose I didn’t care. I made them laugh, and that was enough for that moment. A few months later I was sitting in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains when my agent called and told me I had the gig. When she told me how much money I’d be making per episode, I broke out in a rash. It certainly wasn’t much compared to a network television series (we landed on PBS), but to a poor white boy from Conroe, Texas, it was the freaking lottery. On the drive back to Texas, that’s all I was thinking about. I wasn’t thinking about what it was going to mean to be working on a national TV series.

     I had no idea what I was getting into.

     1994-1995 was a Big Year. I was still young enough to do a whole bunch of Life-Changing Things at the same time and think it wouldn’t have any adverse affects, as only the young and truly ignorant can think. In a single year I got married, moved to a new town, built a house, and started what amounted to a new full-time job. Basically four of the five most stressful things you do in your life. The only thing I didn’t do that year was murder a guy – which might actually have relieved some stress. I was working six days a week on the show. Monday through Friday was principal photography – the actual filming of the show. But dude, you may ask, you’re a voice actor. Why would you be needed on the set during filming?  A fair question. The first reason was they were paying me what I considered to be a shit-load of money. I would have done anything they asked me to do, up to and including crapping in my hand and throwing it around in a festive manner like a zoo monkey.

     The second reason was, I was needed. Speaking on set in character made life easier for the other actors, the director, and the editors. So that’s where I was five days a week. While on set I created a rough voice track for the editors to use after the show was in the can and in post-production. Saturday was my day to actually go in the recording studio and record “clean” on an episode that was most of the way through the editing process. We’d start from the beginning of the script, and I’d watch the episode on a monitor and open my mouth and speak accordingly. A lot of people have asked me over the years how many of the words that came out of my mouth and made it into the show were on the page, and how many were made up. I don’t really know. I can tell you that I worked for folks who trusted my instincts, and when something on the page didn’t seem to make sense, they would more often than not turn me loose on the scene to see what would happen. A lot of times it would turn out funny. A lot of times it would turn into a train wreck. But I’ve always enjoyed that kind of creative challenge.

A dog and his boy, circa 1995.

The difference between voicing a cartoon versus a live-action sequence is one of chronology. In animation, you do the voice acting first. Sure, you have storyboards, and you know what your characters look like, but the acting performance comes first, and then the animators work with what you give them. On Wishbone we did just the opposite. The on-camera work had to come first. Soccer (that was the dog’s real name) would get suited up as Robin Hood, or Oliver Twist, or whoever he was going to be that week, and the trainers would put him to work, and all the human actors would play off of that, and that’s how you shoot a television show. Thing was, Soccer didn’t always stick to the script. Some times, he would do something that he was definitely not asked to do, but it was so charming or interesting or funny that the director would want to keep the shot. So now it’s in the final edit, and there are no scripted words for it. That’s when I would make shit up. It wasn’t always comedy gold, but it beat the living hell out of working in a cubicle. 

     Next week, Chapter Six: Planned Parenthood, And A History Of Dumbasses