CageMatch 7/26/08

Yayyyyyy...blogging drunk, there's nuthin' like it!

CageMatch has happened again--it couldn't be prevented! We had the Banana Breakup boys, excellent as always, making us both laugh and gasp, taking on Robots Are Human Too, hilarity incarnate involving people dressed in cardboard and styrofoam. The video is right here, go check it out, and then I'll start rambling. HEY! Be a peach and click the link in the video to watch it in High Quality, won't you? This video is particularly artifacted for some reason.

Quick question: why does spellcheck not recognize "styrofoam"? For that matter, it doesn't recognize "spellcheck". Bastards.

Ah, upon further review, it looks like styrofoam (I ain't changin' the spelling, boys!) is a trademark. Bastards.

Okay, let's start with the Robots identity screen, since it is pictured above. I need more cider. The picture was drawn by yours truly whilst hangin' out iwht my good buddy Jackson on Friday night. The robot in the pic is based on one my mom owned s a wee lass, and I now am proud to have in my possession. Crayola crayons, activate!

Okay, quick break: I'm watching Mock The Week's new season, and Frankie Boyle continues to be amazing. Best Scottish standup EVER. (Sorry, Loftin.) Here's what he just said: "George Bush says that when he retires, he's going to make his living from speaking. Yeah, play to your strengths, eh George? That's like Abu Hamza having a career doing shadow puppets."

Okay, back to me. The video! It seemed to go over well. We had a fun time shooting all the Banana Breakup stuff out in to 100 degree heat at McDougle. The music in the background. believe it or not, is Madonna. I had a bit of a giggle doing the forward-and-reverse stuff. I was pleased that the end of that segment turned out well, with Eitan leaping off the table and then Kit flying off the swing, and the two of them supposedly landing in the shot. Then the robot attack! That turned out great. Mary Sasson looks evil smacking the water tower out of the way. This whole segment was hard, as there are like ten or eleven special effects going on in there, so it wouldn't render in Final Cut, and I had to play around a lot to get the sound effects to match up. I was quite proud of the sparks on the broken water tower legs. Thank you, Apple Motion! All the rays and lasers and whatnot were fun to place. The sound effects of the blast include no less than the laugh of one Eitan Lees. And we finish up with the dulcet tones of Tatu and "Robot".

And this week I got the idea for a new project I may be doing soon with the energetic Banana Breakup fellows. Stay tuned to see what Ted, Kit, and Eitan will be up to!

The Batslap Meme

Corey Brown challenged me ("New Mimi for you," was all he said, actually,) and I accepted.

It's a lot like the Angry J. Jonah Jameson meme we did a while back. Corey sent me this panel of Batman slapping Robin and invited me to go wild. Here's what I came up with: one, two, three, four, cinco, six.

Here's a blank version if any of you folks want to participate. Don't forget to link to your work in the comments of this entry!

CageMatch 7/7/08

Another quick entry here, about last Saturday's CageMatch. There's a bunch of videos involved here, so watch them when prompted and we'll discuss each one.

First, early in the week we had a statement from CageMatch President Jack Tunney. View it here. Basically, this was a promo for the show, and a vain attempt to get people wondering about what was going on with CageMatch. (That's "vain" in every sense of the word.) It was also a setup for what would happen with the opening of the actual show on Saturday--I planned WAY ahead for this one. This was another one of those fabulous pretapes with Bill Henderson. The phraseology at the end of Tunney's speech was meant to echo an exchange between Tunney and Biff Hobgood in Biff's last appearance. It's what we dramatic experts call "foreshadowing". And I wrote and recorded a rap about Troy Sterling. Yep. Go watch the video again. (Only Kit caught it the first time.)

So on to the show proper. This week's episode started with this video. Go watch it. I used a banana tree pic I had made for the BB boys a few weeks ago and never got to use, and then used stock photos of pretty boys to make up the members of Formula X. (As you will soon see, Formula X didn't actually exist, and to my knowledge, there isn't really a "By Golly Improv Theater" in Minneapolis.) By the way, the Formula X guys are all named after wrestlers from the glory days of All Japan Wrestling.

Okay, so then yours truly as Scott Sullivan comes out to introduce the show. I mention that Jack Tunney had released a statement, and show them the above-described video. Then after reiterating that Jack Tunney said if Troy didn't show up this week, that he'd "take care of him", I tell the crowd that I had not seen Sterling around the dressing rooms, but that he did release a statement of his own. It is here. Seen it? Good. So now you see the reveal--we basically did a callback to the way Biff was killed off way back when. And then we gave it a little twist to make it dramatic and hilarious. I loved the way it turned out, and when the crowd saw the opening with Troy in front of the massage parlour, they freaked. They knew what I was trying to do, so that was a good feeling. One funny thing: University Massage took their sign off the front door, so I had to replace it in post. Remi did a great job delivering the threat at the end, and then having the strains of "Money Money Money" come in just before the bill slid across the screen came off perfectly.

So now Troy Sterling has made his entrance, and he goes into a rage, proclaiming that CageMatch has gotten too expensive, and so he's firing Scott Sullivan, he's firing tech Tommy Dynamite, and he's even firing the challengers, Formula X. He's decided to replace us all with inexpensive Mexican labourers. So Joe Stanton makes his entrance as Don Sullivan, which is hilarious. And then Troy orders that the show be restarted, and we get this video. Enjoyed that? So yes, Senor Bueno is the real challenger this week. The footage was from "Los Campeones Justicieros" and "Vuelven Los Campeones Justicieros", and I was terribly amused to actually find a shot with Blue Demon in a suit at a desk, as Business Bueno. I had a blast making the identity screen for Senior Bueno, with the parody of "Meet The Beatles". I also loved making the "Perro Lucha" logo, playing on the "Los Perros del Mal" group.

The great thing about this show? I was under one of the masks. So I performed as two characters on the same show. Great fun. Tommy ended up hitting me with a chair, and I got him in the sleeper. There was some improv in there somewhere, and apparently I delivered a half-decent contribution to the group, according to commenters after the show. Banana Breakup premiered their shirts that I helped design. We all had a blast.

Stills aplenty from the videos are in the usual place, here.

Addendum: Forgot to mention, I also recorded a special version of the Hall of Champions for this show, where I did the whole "Since the dawn of humanity..." speech in Spanish, and all the champion identity screens were wearing bandito mustaches. It got a good series of laughs. I'm not uploading that video though. You really need to attend the show more often.

Also: I calculated that there was almost TEN MINUTES of video in this show. YOW!

CageMatch 6/28/08

Hey! I've been slack...I haven't blogged since 6/12--TWO CageMatches ago. That's pretty lame. Suffice to say I've been too busy doing things rather than write about them. But I know my rabid public wants to know what I've been up to, so stay tuned for three swift blog entries in a row.

This entry will be about the CageMatch before last, which took place on 6/28/08. It was the first CageMatch on our new night, Saturday at 9:30 as part of "Best Show Ever". Hopefully this'll help us get better crowds, and it's much better for me as it gives me all day on Saturday to do last-minute video work.

Check out the video here, and then we shall discuss. Back? Excellent. I'll be honest, I didn't have much of an idea for this one. What does one do with a name like "White Trash"? So basically I decided I'd just spend time making one good picture, and then pan across closeups before the big reveal. I had a fun time putting the tattoos on Becky and Zach, and making Becky pregnant and Zach goofy lookin'. It's always nice to throw a little Freebird in there as well.

Addendum: Forgot to mention, my boss Mel came up with the idea for the spartan identity screen for White Trash. View that stuff here.