Monday, April 21, 2008

Inside the Animated Children’s Actors Studio

I’m posting this for me, okay?  Not for you.  You don’t know what it’s like here.  You haven’t had a chance to get good and sick and tired of the cloying, bug-eyed, repetitive characters on kid’s cartoons like I have.  Diego and Dora and Caillou all that noise has really worn out my patience, and still Zach wants to watch them all the time.  I make an exception for Quack, from Peep and the Big Wide World.  He’s cool.  The rest, I can really do without.  And so I have suffered in (relative) silence so far, but my mind has been churning the sour milk of weak children’s animation and now I have formed, I suppose, brain butter, in the form of this imagined interview from Inside the Actor’s Studio:

JL: Tonight we have the extraordinary opportunity to meet a presence that is too large to be constrained by the small screen of television.  Though he has only had the opportunity to offer us one role, it is a role which has become iconic.  It would be unimaginable for this production to exist without him, for anyone else to take over for him, or even for us to face the challenges of our own lives without invoking his presence.  Theatrical history is replete with antiheroes, from Burbage’s Shylock to Shreck’s Nosferatu and Peter Lorre’s touching portrayal of the unspeakable Hans Beckett in M, all the way through De Niro in Taxi Driver and Pacino in Scarface… the shackled power broker, the personification of evil, the object of execration is rightly seen as a “juicy” role, but also recognized as one fraught with challenges and risks for any actor.  For tonight’s guest to have taken such restrained and feeling possession of such a role so early in his career, clearly obliges us to invite him to share a few words with us.  From Disney’s Little Einsteins, I am very proud to introduce our guest: Big Jet.  Thank you for joining us, Big Jet.

BJ: De nada.

JL: You are the first in your family to take up acting, are you not?

BJ: I’m a cartoon.  In fact, not only am I a cartoon, I’m an animation of a machine, animated by machines.  So I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. 

JL: Tell me about the audition for Little Einsteins. 

BJ: It was disconcerting, really.  They had me come in, rev way up, tip my wings a few times, and then hide behind a cloud that was in the shape of a harpsichord.  It was surreal.

JL: Did they have a harpsichord-shaped cloud for you to use?

BJ: No, I had to use a ukulele in a pillowcase.

JL: Ouch.

BJ: Hey, that’s why they call it acting.  I acted the hell out of that uke. 

JL: What’s the schedule?  How does Big Jet “do” Big Jet?

BJ: We film three days a week; the rest of the time the graphics team is doing that crazy stuff with the musical roller coasters and armies of Russian nesting dolls and that kind of thing.  So, three days, and I’m only in like three or four episodes per season - but when I’m there, I’m totally there all day long.  Then, the rest of the time, you know, I have free for, like, other pursuits.

JL: Pursuits?

BJ: Yeah, c’mon, I’m an F-16 Falcon.  I can pick up some freelance shit every so often when Leo doesn’t need me. 

JL: Freelance?

BJ: Look, I’m not here to talk geopolitics, I shot that wad on the Ollie North show.  I’m here to talk about acting.

JL: Tell me about being an F-16 Falcon on a children’s television program.  Your work is very gentle.  Is it hard to hold back? 

BJ: You know, it can be.  I can’t crank up to a full 27,000 pounds of thrust, I can’t get anywhere near my rated Mach 2 top speed… I don’t go faster than that gumball of a rocket ship that the kids fly around in , even when it turns itself into a train - the slowest goddamn train in the history of trains… and then I even have to make it look like I’m having trouble keeping up with them.  That’s hard as hell.  That’s like, isometric exercises or something.  Of course, no guns.  My standard armament is an M-61A1 20mm multibarrel cannon with 500 rounds; six air-to-air missiles, conventional air-to-air and air-to-surface munitions and electronic countermeasure pods.  All that stuff’s off the table when it comes to working with little Leo.

JL: Tell me about working with Leo.

BJ: Oh, there’s nothing to tell.

JL: That’s not how I hear it.

BJ: Yeah well whatever, it’s his show.

JL: You’re being very diplomatic. 

BJ: What, you want me to break down in tears like June did on Oprah?  That’s not me, man.  That’s not Big Jet.  Her folks pushed her real hard; she never felt like she could speak her mind, and there Oprah was, all warm and comforting… I felt bad for her, really.  At first, anyway.  Those “private dancer” videos were obviously a cry for help. 

JL: And you think that had something to do with Leo?

BJ: Everything comes back to Leo.  It’s his show. He sets the mission.  He’s got that wand, you know -

JL: Baton.

BJ: Whatever, he’s not afraid to use it and I like getting paid so that’s all I’m saying about it. 

JL: The grabby gloves. Tell me about them.

BJ: Oh yeah, they were sort of my idea.  I had just joined the cast and I was feeling my way into the work, you know, just sort of maneuvering around the set with my gunbays and missile stations all naked and empty, and here comes Leo riding up on his Segway and he says something smart about how I’m unarmed, like how he’s had his kitty declawed, so I say, like, “Remember, a cat without claws is that much more likely to bite you,” and he says, “Don’t be silly, dipshit, you haven’t got a mouth,” and as much as it pissed me off I had to admit he was right, and then that night I was playing some racquetball, I remember that, and it occurred to me, I could have them give me giant iron fists, and that way I could, you know, punch that little bastard’s face into osso bucco, or whatever, but they wound up not going for that part of it.  I’m only allowed to use them to pilfer tureens of soup or to switch crucial turn signals, stuff like that.  But the gloves are still cool.

JL: Tell me about Quincy.  Did he come out first to the cast members before the story broke?

BJ: First, no, he didn’t give us some kind of “this is me” speech.  And he did not “come out.” Leo made him gay.

JL: Really?  How?

BJ: Dude, I’m an animated jetfighter on a children’s program.  Why would you think I know how any of this shit works?

JL: Good point. I think that brings us to the Pivot questionnaire portion of our interview.  What is your favorite word?

BJ: Mission.

JL: What is your least favorite word? 

BJ: Retrothrust.  So inhibiting.

JL: What turns you on, creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

BJ: Clear weather.

JL: What turns you off, creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

BJ: Pilots who rely on autopilot for everything.  And snotty flight traffic controllers. 

JL: What sound or noise do you love?

BJ: The Star Wars theme.  The one they play for Vader.  That’s cool.

JL: What sound or noise do you hate?

BJ: Packing tape.  Pulling it off the roll, it sort of screams?  It’s just creepy.  I hate it.

JL: What is your favorite curse word?

BJ: Ramjet.  But I usually just rev my engines really loud and bust some eardrums when I’m pissed off.  Very gratifying. 

JL: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

BJ: Pastry chef.  I think that would really be fun. 

JL: What profession would you not like to do?

BJ: Consierge, or mid-air refueller. 

JL: If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? 

BJ: That Wonder Woman’s invisible plane has been waiting for me.  Sort of a fantasy of mine, really.  With the cockpit hatch wide open. 

JL: Big Jet, thanks for being with us this evening.  I’d throw this open now for questions from our audience, but Dan is just making this up so there’s no one else there.  Goodnight.