11/28/10

Leslie Nielsen (1926 - 2010)

I just heard that Leslie Nielsen died of pneumonia.

On a personal note: I was hired on a basic-cable show, the money was terrible but I'd get to write for Leslie Nielsen.  I wrote a script for his humor and delivery, but then they couldn't get him.  So instead they hired Chris Wilde.

On a broader note: my favorite Leslie Nielsen performance is in the rarely-seen teleplay THE VELVET ALLEY (1959).  Nielsen played Edward Kirkley, the alcoholic TV producer.  Watch as he downs multiple "special" bloody marys and delivers a great monologue (written by Rod Serling.)  I challenge you to find a more expressive strand of bobbing hair than the one in this clip:





11/23/10

Something Old, Something New



ABOVE: The latest video I made for Comedy Central/Atom.com, the first in a webseries called OLD PEOPLE NEWS: THE TECH REPORT  (Note: this is a follow-up to the video Old People News)


BELOW: One of the earliest films I made, just added to YouTube.  "Family Dinner Party" was part of the sketch show TV Head Goes Nutzoid (1999)





11/17/10

Kevin Geeks Out About Genre Busters

Kevin Geeks Out About.... 
GENRE BUSTERS!
Wednesday, December 1st @ 8:00pm
92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, NYC

What's Kevin Geeks Out? 
A live variety show where we dive deep into an obsession-worthy topic. 

But what's a GENRE BUSTER? 
Genre Busters are those brave artists who bring their A-game to a disrespected genre. 

The December 1st show brings together 5 authors doing amazing work in Comic Strips, Young Adult novels, Romance Books, Wrestling magazines and "mash-up" literature.  The multi-media variety show will include mini-lectures, music, readings, video clips, trivia prizes, audience Q&A and more. Here's what you can expect from the 90-minute show:  

"A MASH UP MASTERCLASS
Ben H. Winters (author of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Android Karenina) defines and defends the hybrid genre known as the "mash-up novel," and explains why adding robots to Anna Karenina is more like adding smooth chocolate to creamy peanut butter than putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa.   The reading will include prizes to those who can correctly identify which passages are his, and which from the original, un-mashed-up books.