The Danny Awards!

When I posted about aborted projects, I forgot The Danny Awards. They were to be Danman's answer to the Oscars, complete with clips of the nominated films, shots of my actors crossing their fingers and looking tense, and, of course, bloated and tearful acceptance speeches. It was pretty much impossible to pull off without editing equipment, so the idea died.

Tonight, I bring it back to life. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to...

THE DANNIES!!!

Who's that good-looking fella in the tux? Why, it's me, your host!

It's my privilege to finally be able to honor the very best of the very worst. The four awards I'll be presenting tonight are:

• Most-Deaths Award (aka "The Corn Syrup Award")
• Danman MVP (aka "The I-Was-Just-Always-There Award")
• Best Worst Actor
• Best Worst Film

No extended opening musical number here. These actors have waited long enough for their overdue recognition--so let's get this show started!

MOST DEATHS AWARD

It took me a long time--a very long time, you have no idea what I've gone through--to tally up every death scene in Danman Productions. When I finished scorekeeping, I discovered a shocking three-way dead heat between myself, Joe, and Jami, with eight deaths each. So who deserves the award?

Not me. I often killed myself off early so that I could spend my time running the camera (witness my hasty demise in such films as Night of the Living Dead and The Blob). And Joe? As my most persistent leading man, Joe's death-count was but a statistical residue.

Therefore, the award goes to... Jami!

With an atypical amount of enthusiasm from the director (and pints of my sticky blood substitute), Jami got strangled, stabbed, and shot (repeatedly). Plus, he complained about it a lot, something you'll see in the mockumentary Sex, Drugs, and Film: The Rise and Fall of Danman Productions - Part One. Jami, for your trouble, please accept this award. Now get over it!

DANMAN MVP AWARD

Who really put in the man-hours? Over the past year, I've dutifully tagged every blog entry with the names of the featured actors. Once you add them all up, you realize three things:

1) I was in everything. Well, no duh.
2) Joe was in almost everything. Again: duh.
3) Julie was in just as many movies as Joe.

What? Say again? Is it possible we have a dark-horse contender for MVP? Well, let me just open the envelope and see... Why, yes, the winner is Julie!

Why does she look so crafty? It's because she knows something you don't know. Who do you think was running the camera all those times I was on-screen? Oh, sure, sometimes it was Jami or Joe, but more often than not it was Julie. Maybe she didn't get the glory, but Danman Productions couldn't have "succeeded" without her. Congratulations, Julie.

BEST WORST ACTOR

Let's pretend--just for a moment--that we were talking about actual acting ability. In that case, it would be a horse race between Shad and Matt N. Those two had chops, and I tip my hat to both of them. Good show, gents.

But the Danman audience isn't interested in chops. They crave bad accents, inappropriate laughter, and that deer-in-the-headlights gaze you can't learn with a lifetime of lessons--it's a gift you have to be born with. This is one award whose winner was long ago foretold.

I present to you, ladies and gents, Joe. [Thunderous standing ovation.]

Joe was as bad in the first film as he was in the last. Despite starring in over 30 Danman Productions, Joe's skills never advanced--and that's why we love him. It didn't matter if he was portraying an abusive father, a psychotic priest, or Dracula, he never knew what emotion to play and could never, under any circumstances, stop laughing. Thanks to him, we're still laughing all these years later.

BEST WORST FILM

You try winnowing down Danman Productions to five worsts. It ain't easy. Obviously, if we were talking "Best Best Film," there's no question--The Godfathers: Part Two puts everything else to shame (although there is an underground contingent that insists The Bastard Chicken Clock from Hell is my Citizen Kane).

After months of tortured consideration, the nominees for "Best Worst Film" are...

The Blob...

Breakdown: The Eugene Brinkmeister Story...

Fear...

Misery...


...and Night of the Living Dead.

And the Danny goes to...Yes! Yes! I knew it! The Blob!



You can watch the entire thing above. And you should. Though not ambitious in any way, shape, or form, this 9-minute ditty is the zenith of everything that makes Danman Productions great: the catastrophically dismal pairing of Joe and Ben, matchbox cars being pulled by string, model houses being attacked by garbage bags... need I go on?

A final hearty congratulations to tonight's winners. I'll see you at the afterparty, where I fully expect to get beaten up.

The Godfathers: Part Two

At long last, here it is. The final Danman Production.



(Watch or embed the full YouTube playlist.)

Originally, this epic sequel clocked in at 2 hours and 40 minutes. Neither you, I, nor the internet had any interest in uploading that much crap, much less watching it. So I decided to recreate the so-called “Director’s Cut” that vanished circa 1998. By simply tightening, trimming, and reordering, I have eliminated 90 minutes.



You read that right. The version here is 70 minutes long and it breaks my heart. When I set out to shoot a feature-length film at the age of 18, this was how it was supposed to look. When I screened it for my stupefied friends, this was the movie I saw. It’s been 16 years, but The Godfathers: Part Two is finally done.



Although the first 30 minutes are too concerned with which gangsters are on which team, the rest of it is somewhat of a revelation. The torture scene, the seduction scene, the Russian Roulette scene, that blood-soaked finale—I’ll just say it. The kid behind the camera was starting to get it.

But it was too late: college had arrived. Like most of my friends, I packed my bags and a day later found myself sitting alone in an unfamiliar dorm room. I could sense it in the frat-house screams coming from across the street and the laughter booming through the wall: I was no longer the big fish. I was something much, much smaller.



The Godfathers: Part Two was my attempt to hold on. If I could keep Danman Productions together, then I still had a tether on my old life. I organized the script around which friends I had access to at college and which friends I could meet back in my hometown on holidays and weekends. It was massively complicated and I threw myself into it. The more elaborate the task, the less time I had to recognize that something big was ending.



The shoot concluded over Christmas break of 1993, during which my new college pal (and begrudging co-star) Tony hauled his ass to Fairfield to film the climax in Ben’s garage during one of the coldest winters in Iowa history. When I yelled “cut” after the final shot, everyone shouted in relief and ran for their coats and cars. And that was that. Danman Productions was finished.



Even tyrannical teenage directors have to let go, and eventually I did. Sure, there were college movies, but they were largely humorless affairs that stir within me almost none of the joy of Danman Productions. After graduation I became a legit filmmaker and author, but as much fondness as I have for my films and books, sitting in my house and partaking of them is not my idea of a good time. Watching Danman Productions, though—well, it’s been 16 years and I’m still not sick of it.



Back then, these movies allowed me to revel in my friendships by just hitting “rewind.” I dare say they are even more important to me now. Today my former superstars are spread all across the country, making a living in so many different ways it makes my head spin. Some of us are still close; others I’ve lost all touch with. But when I watch these movies it feels like I could call up any one of them and five minutes later we’ll be cruising around the square, windows rolled down.



I did add one thing to The Godfathers: Part Two. As an homage to the best friends I ever had, I created special end credits to replace the illegible originals. If you find yourself tearing up a little at the final fade out, you’re not alone. This is dedicated to the tireless cast and crew of Danman Productions. This may not be the movie I originally made, but it's the one I had in my heart.

Dirt 2

What can one say about perfection? I choose to say nothing.

Chuckles the Clown

You can feel the panic in these final few videos. College was probably only weeks away. Friends were departing. There was hardly anyone left to put in front of the camera. The result was improvisational garbage like this that was more about my need to keep the tape rolling than it was anything else. The sole impetus for this was that I had come into possession of a clown outfit. (What, such things never happened to you?)

I just deleted a bunch of text about how bad this movie is and I'll tell you why. Yeah, sure, this is one painful flick. My accent is something that should be hunted down and killed. I barely knew what a documentary was, much less a mockumentary. But at the end of the day, this was probably the only Danman Production that revolved around a character rather than a plot of irretrievable complexity. Good effort, me.

This was prized in Danman lore for one reason: that basketball shot. Holy crap. I was supposed to miss. Yet somehow I sunk it. Jami's still smarting from it, I guarantee you.

Evening of Fear

When I pillaged my dad's basement looking for mythic Danman oddities, I was shocked (and then, after I watched it, appalled) to find the single extant copy of Evening of Fear. It is hands-down the most embarrassing footage of me in existence. Yes, even more embarrassing than this. And that. And let's not forget that.

With college just a couple months off, Danman Productions was within its death throes. Desperate to milk every last bit of local fame, I decided to give my public access station an extra-special gift: my newest movie and three of my "classics" strung together with little introductions featuring me doing my best Rod Serling. Sadly, my best Rod Serling involved sunglasses and green pleated parachute pants.

If you are batshit insane and wish to recreate the entire Evening of Fear experience, it's easy! Just watch the following films when you receive the on-screen cues:

Harvest of Wrath (this was the "world premiere" of this "suspense" picture)
The Bastard Chicken Clock from Hell (a "brief little excursion into the bizarre")
Night of the Living Dead (an "oldie but a goodie")
Fear ("the movie that put Danman Productions on the map"--yes, I actually said that)

Nothing you say can hurt me because I have magical pants.

Trailers X

As I explained earlier, it was no less than a miracle to uncover this long-lost artifact. And what a find! The first three groups of trailers can't hold a candle to the disturbing goings-on found in these precious five minutes.

First up: the infamous General Foods International Coffee commercial. Because I found this footage on a raw tape, we get bonus bloopers of me cracking up that normally would've been cut out. The dippy concept, the icky sexual overtones, Joe's god-awful crooning--this just might be one of the greatest things ever created by a mammal.

Next: The Ping-Pong Kid. Following our offensive portrayals of Mexicans, Jamaicans, Italians, Vietnam vets, literary agents, and country folk, finally we get around to... Asians, I guess? (Oh wait, we already did that, too.)

Finally: Richard Simmons' 120-Minute Workout. I have no memory whatsoever of making this, which is a shame, because it's genius so pure I should cut it up and sell it in baggies.

I've tried to create this blog chronologically, but in truth I'm not sure when this was shot (hence the "X"). From the looks of me, though, it was probably in the summer before I went off to college, near the very end of Danman's reign. And things got weird near the end. Stay tuned.

The Lottery

Here's a weird one for you.

Due to my incalculable fame, a movie was chosen as the special project in my Advanced Speech class. After picking a story--Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"--all we had to do was adapt it to script form, assign ourselves roles, raid the school's costume room, and shoot the thing. After so recently knocking back epics like The Godfathers and Father Sin, it sounded like a cakewalk.

And it was. But secretly (or not so secretly?) the group setting frustrated me, especially during the process of adaptation. Didn't these fool amateurs know anything about narrative economy? About the amalgamation of minor characters? Perhaps the true gift of this odd footnote is that it makes the usual Danman Productions team look like seasoned pros.

The fact is that I was control freak. I probably drove everyone nuts shooting this. That might be okay if the whole movie was as cool as the opening sequence, but, sadly, the rest is a mess, right down to the incomprehensible climax. It was like hiring David Lynch to direct Dune. It was out of my comfort zone and I didn't play well with strangers.

So, no. Not officially a Danman Production. But who are we kidding?

Ice Hot Ravioli

Surely inspired by the art-film non sequiturs of "Sprockets", this is our uninformed take on the "experimental film." Senseless and idiotic. But let me tell the story behind the story:

It was the dead of winter. Ice had been pounding down all night. This mattered little in small-town Iowa--they wouldn't cancel school for anything short of gremlin invasion, and only then if the gremlins had throwing stars. So I got up as normal, jackknifed through town, and met up with Matt N. at whatever rehearsal we had that morning.

Probably not an hour went by before even the merciless sadists of the school system admitted that this was no ordinary storm. Trees were disintegrating beneath the weight of the ice. Birds were falling dead from the sky. The McDonald's was... closed. The word shot out around school: Go home. Run. There is nothing here but death.

But Matt N. and I hung around for another ill-advised hour, chatting with our drama teacher, Mr. Slechta. (He is given homage in The Godfathers as the revered "Don Slechta".) Eventually the school was locked and we made our way into the parking lot. Ours were the only cars left. I set about chipping the ice from my door, heating up the engine, and slowly creeping from the lot.

Matt N. waved me down. His car, an infamous jalopy (see for yourself in Breakdown), refused to start. There was no sense in having one of my star actors freeze in the snow Jack Torrance-style, so I told him to get in. We set off together. Inching up the long hill to my house was no mean feat; somehow we made it with lives intact.

The rest of the day was the kind of sunny blur that make up the best memories of your life. My mom made food. We went sledding. At some point we spent a half hour or so making Ice Hot Ravioli. Too many details of that day are lost to me now, but I have this video. And in the margins of its silliness, if I dare say so, is the evidence of a youth well-spent.

The Godfathers

Although it would be The Godfathers: Part Two that would implode Danman Productions, this is the one that paved the way for the overdue extinction. Clocking in at around 50 minutes, it was ambitious. Not good, mind you. Just ambitious. (And, thankfully, nowhere near as tedious as the trailer hinted it might be.)



Re: ambition, there's one scene involving eight actors and a camera person. That's nine kids! I mean, that's enough to start a freaking baseball team! If nothing else, it speaks to my curious powers of persuasion back then. What could I possibly have enticed nine kids with? Cookies? Fame? I guess that must have been it. Well, dudes, here's your fame. Let me get back to you on those cookies.



There was only one good reason Matt N. and I got to play the godfathers: we had tuxes. As proud members of our school's chamber choir (and, lord help us, show choir), we were both up to our armpits in bow ties, vests, and cummerbunds. Unfortunately, we grossly overestimated the hilarity of our Brando impressions (though I do kind of think our continual references to stuffing our jowls with cotton are kinda cute).



Probably the oddest thing about The Godfathers is the tone. In the third video, there's a scene between Ben and I that's actually rather sad (and, no, I don't mean pitiful-sad). Large stretches of the movie are weirdly sober. Even the snowy holiday setting contributes to the sense of melancholy. So what was I going for here? Parody? Drama? I don't know now, and I don't think I knew then, either.



Points of (some) interest:

* Stop with the in-jokes already! The Naughty Elephant and the Bastard Chicken Clock both get gratuitous shout-outs.

* I love when Joe gets shot and he squeaks, "Ouch!"

* Best line in the entire movie: "Butthead."

* Jami singing "I'm Too Sexy" in the shower.

* The size of Mike's cell phone!!!

* The out-of-nowhere AmberVision scene that is somehow, totally inexplicably, the most tender thing I ever shot. There's something hilariously resigned about how Ben laments that his sunglasses are "just the old regular kind."

* At 3:37 into the final video, the cold weather became too much for our boombox batteries. The famous Godfather theme has never sounded so feeble. Somehow appropriate, don't you think?

Take note, brave viewers: the first couple sections have enough sound issues to seriously try your patience. But take heart! By the third video things pick up considerably. It's all relative, of course, but you know what I'm saying.

Trailers #3

Give me some credit. Even as a teen, I knew I had a future cult hero in Joe. His train-wreck performances quickly became the stuff of legend. White Lightning was a movie purported to be written and directed by Joe, and the joke is that he was as unflaggingly inept a filmmaker as he was an actor. Me making a joke about shoddy filmmaking? We can only hope I was in on the punchline. (Let's also take a moment to thank Joe for his sense of humor about all of this.)

Love Never Dies is next, a sweeping melodrama set to the tune of Gone with the Wind. Just like White Lightning, this co-stars my mom. While her surprise cameos are understandably poignant for me, they're also pretty hilarious - her nonplussed expression when Joe abandons her is priceless. With their equally wooden countenances, she and Joe were truly the perfect on-screen couple.

And then something totally bizarre: the preview cuts away to me as Peter Jennings, relating a news story of Admiral James Stockdale opening fire at a local Wal-mart. Political satire? Seriously? I couldn't tell you, because I have no memory of making this.

Lastly we have Croc-Face. Aside from a lame Fear in-joke, I can't make heads or tails of this one. Fake arms? Dental floss? Believe me, I wish I knew, because I'm sure my future therapist will ask.

Breakdown: the Eugene Brinkmeister Story

At long, long last, a movie I'm not embarrassed to post!

Long overdue (and sorely welcome) was the debut performance of Matt N. He plays Eugene, a budding lunatic whose dense psychotherapist is too busy shooting up (and smoking joints and snorting coke and weilding power drills) to notice that his client is about to freak the hell out. Nearly every joke in this movie was a reference to something Matt N. and I found funny in our high school Psychology class. For example: "They told me it was to control my salivation!"

The opening credits (set to the Three Amigos theme!) features the only known use of a tripod in a Danman Production. It also features the only voice-over (done by playing a tape recorder next to the camera). And here's a behind-the-scenes story to pluck yer heartstrings: Joe, our resident superstar, had recently had his foot torn off (and reattached) in a pretty gnarly farm accident. He was bedridden for months, but would that stop me from working him into the movie? No way. Thus: "Guest Starring Joe Adam as Professor Higgins."

Word on the street was that the Pyschology teacher continued to show this in class for years after we graduated. Yet not a single point of extra credit rolled our way. That, my friends, is what you call a travesty.

Best quote: "Sorry, doc, I can't come in. It's Bug Week on the Discovery Channel."

Trailers #2

As the feature presentations themselves got bigger and bolder, the trailers that preceded them got worser and worser. As if the preview to Como Estas? hadn't been offensive enough, Como Estats? Dos! claims to be from both Spain and Mexico. I can only hope that joke was intentional.

Following that is a bona fide trailer. See, I was planning something big. Real big. It was called The Godfathers and it was to be my magnum opus. So sure was I that The Godfathers would set the world a-tizzy that I shot this teaser. Unfortunately, the result is hands-down the dullest thing I ever made. Oh my god, is it dull. This did not bode well for the feature film.

After that is a pretty miserable joke called Home Alone in the Field of Dreams followed by a commercial that takes advantage of the early-90s hackeysack craze (remember that?) by focusing on a Japanese sack I had come across with the words "Naughty elephant" printed on it. Look, I can spin backstories all day long, but it's not gonna make these videos any more bearable.

Father Sin

If anyone was qualified to take on the Catholic Church, it was me and my merry band of teenage yo-yos. Thus this excruciatingly paced drama/thriller about a boy's sleuthing into the life of a murderous priest. That priest is played by Joe in another hilariously goofball performance, but you gotta slog through about nearly twenty minutes before you get to hear him whine, "Surely they couldn't have found the checklist of my wife's murderers!" That's good writin', Kraus.

Why is this movie so damn complicated? I've watched this three times now and I still can't follow it. Thankfully, nothing is confusing for the first seven minutes. Why? Because the movie begins with a seven-minute opening credit sequence. It kicks off with classical, smash cuts to Pearl Jam, and segues oh so smoothly to Enya. Yes, Enya. I had no shame. (Footnote: many years later, when shooting the book trailer for The Monster Variations, I shot in the same cemetery as the one in the Enya scene. Truth!)

Some notes on the actors:

* Father Sin featured our first return character. Officer Bill Johansen, so manly and commanding in The Blob, is once again played to jittery perfection by Ben. Along the way he gets to say a bunch of cool crap like, "Comprende?"

* Leading man Mike, in his first Danman appearance, steals the show with his guitar wailing. Mike had talent, real talent, and since we at Danman Productions had never seen talent before, all we could do is gape at it like morons during the gratuitous shredding scene.

* Matt K. also made his debut as the Cajun bum. Why Cajun? Because Matt K. did a pretty good Cajun accent. Unfortunately, the accent completely swallows the highly important exposition (that he's clearly reading off the script because, like the rest of us, he couldn't follow the plot, either).

* Shad had gone off to college at this point, and his status was clearly "elder statesman." I mean, his cameo role was Mike's dad, for chrissakes. I'm surprised we didn't make him use a walker.

* Julie, the unheralded workhorse who quietly slaved away in practically every single Danman Production ever, is mysteriously absent. But no! Those wedding hands at the beginning are hers. It's a brutal injustice that she was left out of the credits, and to make up for it, I've tagged her name to this entry. I'm sure that makes up for the decades of grief and therapy my oversight caused.

The Missing Masterpieces

Not every Danman Production made it past the script stage. Given the general quality of the movies that did get made, I know this is a harrowing assertion. Nevertheless, I can think of at least three movies that were put into perpetual turnaround. For the first time ever, I share these lost films with the world. Behold!

FRIDAY THE 13TH
No matter that I had never actually seen Friday the 13th. I knew enough to cobble my own version: there was a kid who was really into hockey and who died a terrible (possibly hockey-related?) death and who now rose from the grave to murder teen campers.

I had all the materials: I had a glow-in-the-dark hockey mask from a Halloween set. I had enough corn syrup and dye to make ten gallons of fake blood. I had a freakin' lake, for crying out loud. One thing I did not have, however, was enough actors. I recall calling Joe and trying to cajole him to come out one Saturday, but on this rare occasion he declined. So I took the script that I had scrawled out that morning, as well as the "Camp Crystal Lake" sign I had hastily made from some college-ruled paper and a sharpie, and put them into a drawer. Unlike Jason Vorhees, they were never to rise again.

THE WAGER
Much like Battle of the Arms, this was meant as a late-in-the-game "Tales from the Creep." At some point, someone had given me a novelty bear-trap the size of a quarter, and so I wrote a movie around it. The premise was rather delicious: two bored aristocrats (to be played by Joe and I), make a wager about the nature of greed. Their plan? Throw a dinner party, and on the bathroom floor hide the tiny trap within a wad of money. By the end, the entire cast was fingerless - including one of the aristocrats.

Genius, right?! But if you didn't notice, the period between Misery and Fear were lean times for Danman Productions. Most of my actors had vanished (it was summer vacation, I think), and I ended up starring in everything. The Wager required an entire dinner party worth of actors. I'm sure I considering playing all of the roles, but sadly did not.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
This project was so top-secret I don't think I ever told anyone about it - until right now. It came near the end of Danman Productions, when I was high on power and convinced that I could do no wrong. It required a large cast, elaborate costumes, set dressing enough to turn my garage into an underground labyrinth, and songs.

What, didn't I mention that it was going to be the freaking Andrew Lloyd Webber version? Yes. Yes. Shad was going to be the Phantom. I was probably going to be the normal dude. I'm not sure who was tapped for Christine. But it gets even crazier. See, the problem with the soundtrack album was the vocals. If I could only somehow isolate just the music tracks then we could actually sing. You heard me right. I intended to make my actors sing.

Ultimately, the logistics were too complicated. My actors dodged a potentially soul-crushing blow to their psyches. And the world was robbed of perhaps the worst musical in history.

THE DANNY AWARDS
A Danman-only awards show that I have recreated here.

Trailers #1

Now my movies were so epic they needed trailers. The highlight of this first batch is the fairly clever JFK 2. But before you get to that, you're going to have to wince through our umpteenth ethnic stereotype in Como Estas? and amuse yourself during White Man Can Jump--a perfect example of why I so desperately needed real editing equipment.

The first thing you'll see, though, is a popcorn and concession stand advertisement. The tune that is hummed is a replica of that which ran over similar ads at our local movie theater. In high school I worked as a projectionist at that theater, so I heard the song a bajillion times. I can still sing it. Hey, why are you walking away?

Fear

By this point, Danman Productions had become infamous within my circle of friends. Yet I hungered for wider appreciation. Thus, my first "original" story and my first epic: Fear. I was swinging for the fences now. We weren't playing zombies or mad scientists. We were giving "performances." Fear ultimately screened in my high-school English class. Fame was mine.

Fear is about how a mop-wigged, voodoo-practicing Jamaican stereotype (named "Freedom Jones") summons an evil ghost (named "Tyler Fearless") who turns nice-guy Joe into murderous freak. Both Freedom and Fearless were played by my pal Jami. This being Jami's first Danman Production, I exploited him for all he was worth.

Any movie revolving around Joe's descent into madness is bound to be hilarious, and in that regard, Fear does not disappoint. But Joe's emotionless screams and psychotic glares are the obvious payoffs. Far more inexplicably bizarre are the getting-a-can-of-Coke and preparing-some-instant-coffee scenes. Watching these numbing procedurals, you are forced to repeat to yourself, It's only a movie, it's only a movie...

As always, the music selection is the most baffling element, segueing uncomfortably from "Carmina Burana" to the Beatles to Twin Peaks to Don McLean to gangster rap to Phantom of the Opera to Guns n Roses. Say hello to the mix tape from hell.

The Blob

The Garbage Bag would've been a more accurate title. With a flapping Hefty bag as our dastardly villain, we needed a couple of manly heroes. Instead we got Joe in his most peevish role to date and Ben (who had impressed me with his zombie grunting) as the kind of cop who says things like "Drive, fool! Drive!"

The Blob has the greatest final scene of any Danman Production. And that's saying a lot, because the scenes that precede it include inappropriate doo-wop music, special-effects shots with crappy-looking miniatures, and phone calls to President Bush. The final scene begins with Ben saying, "Well, so much for that Blob"--so much, indeed!--and ends with that old chestnut, the maniacal laugh.

"Apple butter, grape jelly, blob". Soon this will be your new mantra.

Battle of the Arms

Don't we all remember our first Vietnam flashback scene? I sure do. I play "Jack," a sweaty dude with only one arm. "Arm donors are scarce," says his doctor, which causes him to flash back to 1969, when he was part of an elite fighting force that wore white tennis shoes, jeans, and sweatshirts.

You would think the best thing about this would be the Vietnam stuff. But no! It's that scene where I'm stewing at the table and tell my my cad wife (played, naturally, by my sister, who may or may not also be my doctor) that I'm "thinking about the war again" and she flippantly suggests that I "stop that foolishness." Clearly, this is my Deer Hunter.

Even better than that: for a movie about a guy with one arm, I manage to spent two entire scenes with both arms.

Jif commercial

Anyone who knew me as a teen remembers my cat Gooshy. My mom had named her Marilyn, but that name just didn't "pop," as they say in the biz. I was obsessed with Gooshy. I carried her everywhere, communicated to her in babytalk, and pretty much annoyed the hell out of anyone who came within earshot.

With my actors fleeing me like I had the plague, it was inevitable that I would recruit Gooshy to star in a video. Despite her acting skills being superior to those of my usual actors, she was even more difficult to work with. Thankfully I had the good sense to know a good blooper reel when I saw it and thus this gem was born.

Scary side note: At the end of the video, for less than one second, there's a mysterious shot of my Grandpa (deceased). As far as I know, this split second is the only existing video footage of him. There's something eerie about it, as if his ghost is breaking through the footage to say hello. Hi, Grandpa.

Wide World of Sports

A sextathalon featuring such competitions as the egg roll, leap frog, and beer guzzling. Sounds like comedy gold, right? Eh, not so much.

Most enjoyable for me is all the nostalgia hiding in the margins: that horrible tan van we used to own, how shockingly lush our backyard was, the omnipresent buzz of lawn mowers. In fact, I'd really enjoy this video if those two geeky teens weren't in it.

Night of the Living Dead (2 of 2)

Kinda like the first half, except with more dying. Witness:

* Chris's girlish, screaming death-howl as the Shad-zombie strangles him.

* Julie's inability to get more than three feet outside the house before she's overwhelmed with zombies, despite the fact that she has a gun and they are "slow."

* Bad-ass Joe's death by the nerdiest, squeakiest-voiced assassin in the history of cinema (me).

You have to hand it to Night of the Living Dead--it's probably the fastest-paced Danman Production ever. And speed is a quality that will become increasingly elusive as the movies drag on (and on).

Bonus: the credit music is from Rocky IV!

Night of the Living Dead (1 of 2)

Oh, damn. Finally we get down to kickin' some zombie butt. Night was my favorite horror flick as a kid, yet somehow I sensed what the original was lacking--bland, robotic acting and half-ass make-up. Luckily, I had both!

After some more chillingly authentic screaming from Julie, I get killed within seconds of this one starting--and if that's not a good sign, I don't know what is. Moments later, action-hero Joe is on the case, and it's his brainstorm that a flimsy card table leaned against a window will protect the house from invader zombies. What's really weird is that it works.

Do not--not! not!--miss Part 2 of this, which has a battle royale zombie fight scene that will haunt your dreams for the rest of your natural life. Your unnatural life, too, maybe.

ALA Video Interview with DK

Yes, it's an interview with me just after my reading at the 2009 ALA conference. It's short, thank god.

YouTube hounds go here.

The Twilight Zone

The good news: a trip to my grandparents' farm meant I could make a movie that wasn't set in my living room! The bad news: no actors. Thus the stage was set for my surreal triple-performance as a bratty kid, the kid's grandpa, and Rod Serling.

The plot is deliciously stupid: two siblings dare each other to perform increasingly dangerous feats until a climb up the side of a silo ends in tragedy courtesy of a gun-happy grandpa. The teen falls to his death (with an impressively wet smack! noise), whereupon the barely perturbed grandpa utters the most disinterested eulogy in history.

Two recollections: 1) I remember trying really hard to make the dares look difficult, but walking across hay bales? Climbing up a five-foot rock pile? These things are not difficult. 2) About half-way through the taping, Julie and I were abandoned to finish it ourselves, which meant that one of us had to be behind the camera at all times. The trippy result--no character could be in the same shot as another character--approaches a level of weirdness that's almost avant-garde.

Practically my favorite Danman Production, perhaps second only to The Blob. Watch it!

Duckcorder

Talk about unnecessary! This fake commercial is a sequel to the fake commercial we made about the Duck Phone. I'd recommend watching "Duck Phone" first, but I can't really recommend watching any of these.

You have to give me some points for originality, though. There are a lot of things a kid filmmaker could do with a house full of hunting paraphernalia, but pretending a wooden duck decoy was a camcorder is pretty out there. It's actually kind of surreal, if you think about it. Screw it, I'm a genius.

Dan's Brew

I have no memory of making this. Apparently it's a commercial for an awful-tasting beer called Dan's Brew: "The beer for when you think you've got it bad."

Yet there's something about this video that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Maybe it's those backyard corn stalks, or the dusk-hour lighting, or the total lack of self-consciousness, but for me it just captures that feeling of a summer night in Iowa when there wasn't anything better to do than make a 42-second commercial about fake beer.

Sorry to get all sepia-toned on you.

Jinsu Knives

To decompress after the epic that was Misery, Joe and I shot this Jinsu knives parody. Of course it involves machetes and fake blood, but the main thing this has going for it is that it's really short. Sure, there are a couple cute touches (the flourish with which I caress the "Jinsu Peeler"; the band-aid on my finger after I hack into it), but let's just how or that the... sorry, I just got bored and forgot what I was writing.

So let's take this opportunity to bask in that kick-ass basement mural! As the basement was my room, I would've preferred a cooler image-- the Death Star, maybe, or those dancing girls from "In Living Color"--but the 'rents went with the meditative autumn scene. There's also a Spuds MacKenzie doll sitting on top of the TV. You know, for all you Spuds MacKenzie fanatics out there. Yeah, that's the best I can do today.

Misery (part 2)

If you only watch one-half of one teen version of Misery this year, make this the half you watch! There's so many choice cuts here, I'm gonna need to bust out the bullet points:

* The opening action scene marks my pioneering of the hold-the-boombox-up-to-the-camera method of making a movie soundtrack. Sadly, my genius goes unrecognized to this day.

* My dorky performance as the good-ol'-boy sheriff has two highlights. First, at the end of the "I don't reckon he's dead" scene, you can hear me skid my tires off the driveway. (I was just learning to drive.) Second, I get shot. Finally!

* While it's cute that Paul gets his foot sawed off with a butter knife in our version, where's the gore!? I was probably afraid to get my parents' room all bloody. If I had a nickel for every time I said that.

* If only the real Misery ended with Paul screaming "Die! Die! Die!" before dispatching the psycho with a punch. Yes, a single, manly punch.

Overall, though, Misery is much more comprehensible than what came before it (or after it). Why? The only thing I can think of is the absence of Joe. Sorry, Joe.

Misery (part 1)

Here it is! Stephen King's Misery as performed by hapless high-school teens! This was the first of our "real" movies (you can tell by the astonishing letterbox effect) and in some ways it's the best. Shad plays the captured novelist Paul Sheldon; Jenny plays the psychotic Annie Wilkes. Even at an early age, Shad's improv acting instincts were flawless; when he falls from the bed onto his hideously broken legs, he says, "Oh, that smarts."

But, if I do say so myself, the show is stolen by the moronic phone conversations of Paul's curiously laconic agent and the local redneck sheriff, played by yours truly. In probably the lousiest performance of my career (and that's saying a lot), I wear a fishing cap (our closest approximation to a sheriff's hat) and adopt an unbelievably irritating country accent. Someone should've used this footage to blackmail me. Too late, suckas.

Bonus points for cameos by an Apple IIe, more fake cigarettes, and that damn bottle of vodka again.

(Part 2 has all the good stuff--action music, death scenes, dream sequences--so stay tuned.)

Duck Phone

This won't make a lick of sense unless you remember those Sports Illustrated "football phone" ads that blanketed the airwaves in the 80's. Actually, even then it won't make much sense.

Here's what you need to know: In Iowa, I was surrounded by hunters (I thought everyone ate venison three times a week until I was, oh, 18), and so they became the butt of many jokes in my movies. In this commercial for the fantastically titled fake magazine Iowa's Most Bloody Deer and Disgusting Fish, I play something around 22 different "country hick" characters, which is pretty ridiculous considering that I myself was a country hick nonpareil. Watch until the very end for my delicate portrayal of the "I'm glad I called" guy. Emmy Award, please.

Sitter Splitter

Plot: Two brats drive their babysitter insane with fake ghosts. But when real ghosts show up, the boys end up joining their sadistic sitter in the loony bin. If you enjoy watching high schoolers pretending to be annoying little kids, then, wow, not only is this your lucky day but I feel kind of sorry for you, too.

It's hard to see how a few flying pillows could drive anyone mad, though Shad and Joe's screeching performances are another story. This is mostly notable for the final shot (set at the creatively spelled "Mt. Pleasant Mental Hospitol"), which is genuinely disturbing. Seriously. Watch it and try to tell me all that giggling doesn't leave you a little unnerved.

Finally, a mystery revealed: Child-welfare advocates may be wondering about the "Catering by Smitty's Wine & Spirits" in all of our closing credits. Yes, it's true. The entire Danman crew would get plastered before every shoot. Scandal! Oh, who are we kidding? We couldn't even score real cigarettes. Smitty's was just a short-lived local liquor joint that we felt obligated to mock. Alas, it was we who should have been mocked by Smitty. Sorry, Smitty.

4-D

Plot: A girl's new "4-D" television is bunches of fun... until she changes the channel to Dracula. Clearly by this time I was feeling the cocaine buzz of confidence: a zany premise, multiple costume changes, in-jokes, cheap laffs. Basically, ugh.

This is notable mostly for Joe's triple role as a frustrated tennis pro, Faith No More guitarist, and Count Dracula. But there's two more things I want to draw your attention to:

1. Jenny as an overweight game show contestant. After getting a whammy, I find her delivery of the line, "Thanks, Wink!" especially eloquent.

2. During the shot of me in the closing credits, I whine "Joe!" as Joe screws up the shot. It's obvious I'm actually pretty pissed. Ah, moments like these are what make this whole blog worth it.

Doll House

Plot: An abusive dad suffers the inane vengeance of his daughter's dolls. Who's to blame? I'd put my money on that "priceless Egyptian jewel" that Dad stole from "the museum." Possibly the biggest mystery of this deeply mysterious movie is why anyone would go through all the trouble of stealing a "priceless Egyptian jewel" only to leave it sitting on their living room cabinet.

With Shad and Julie limited to last-second cameos, this one's all about the acting chops of Joe and Jenny. Though technically Joe was younger than Jenny, he gives a masterful, nuanced performance as her father, doing all the things that fathers do--you know, getting bombed on vodka, incinerating their kids' toys, and saying befuddling things like "I lost my money." You what your what now?

The Geek

Plot: some bullies accidentally impale a geek with gardening shears. When the geek returns from the grave, bad make-up and disturbingly realistic screaming ensue. Say what you will, "The Geek" is a quantum leap forward from "Kat Killer." I mean, the scene where Shad gets whacked? That scene oozes tension! Perhaps oozes is too strong. It trickles tension. At this point it became clear that Shad was the only one among us with an iota of acting ability. That didn't stop me from hilariously featuring Joe in lead roles. Stay tuned.

Shad's death scene also features a fake cigarette made from a rolled-up piece of paper. We weren't even cool enough to score real cigs. Losers.

If that scintillating picture of dirt still hasn't convinced you to press "play," consider this: a freaking corpse will rise from that dirt! It was our first special effect, and even though you can clearly see the rest of Joe's arm on the right side of the frame, dude, were we stoked about this shot! (I was somewhat less stoked when Joe laughed on camera while he was supposed to be dead, but what was I supposed to do? I'd already impaled him with gardening shears.)

One thing I can't figure is why we always had the damn TV on while we were shooting. In the background, you can clearly hear MTV playing a U2 song followed by a Raid bug spray commercial. Perhaps "The Geek" was a commentary on the ills of commercialism. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Kat Killer

Plot: An idiot tries to find out which of three idiots killed his idiot wife. Idiocy ensues. Plus there's some cats (we always had 20 or 30 cats running around the house), some implied cannibalism, closing credits that take up about half of the total running time, and, if you watch close, our soon-to-be-trademark joke of the Three Men and a Baby ghost hiding among the drapes.

I know what you're thinking. Whoa boy. This is bad. Worse than you had imagined. Almost unwatchable. But don't abandon hope! Wait until you see The Blob! You will never forgive yourself if you crap out of this experiment before The Blob!

Anyway, "Kat Killer" is historic for so many reasons. 1) It was the first time I'd ever picked up a camera. 2) It features our very first racially insensitive character (check out Julie no habla-ing Ingles). 3) It is the debut leading-man performance of Joe. Oh, Joe. You will grow to love Joe. If that robotic, maniacal chuckle at the end doesn't steal your heart, then you, sir, are made of stone.

Obviously our "Tales from the Creep" parodies were based on HBO's "Tales from the Crypt" series, which was brand-new at the time. Since there are four more of these coming, I apologize in advance for how irritating I am as "The Creep." I don't know what to say. I'm sorry?