RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK
A different friend of mine named Alex, (Alex Zsolt) sent me this photo a few weeks ago. It was us back in the early 2000s right after I had finished doing a Voice Over session for the Pax-TV network. Good memories!
Because I had been doing so much work with this music over the past week to get it up on our Christoween.net website, so we could be compliant with the trademark office’s rules, the music has been stuck in my head. Composer Alexander Arntzen did a fantastic job composing original music for our “Frankie-fied!” animatic, so I figured it was time you could sample his music without any narration or sound effects over it. This compilation of some of the soundtrack’s best moments is what I call “Christoween™ Suite!” Enjoy!
Monday the 19th – Christoween™ CRUNCH! – To begin the busy day, Michelle and I took off to see my special effects pal Jim Ojala. He’s going to re-mold the front of the Frankie Christoween™ ornament I sculpted. In the initial molding process, something happened with the eyes and it didn’t turn out quite right. So I fixed the problem on the master sculpture and I took it back to Jim for re-molding. This should do the trick. Speaking of Christoween™ merchandise, I sped off to my mailbox to pick up four copies of the 4th printing of my first Christoween™ book “Frankie-fied!” For some reason, the other 2 copies (I ordered 6 this past printing) will come a little while later. I’m not sure why Shutterfly broke up the order into two parts, but it doesn’t matter. I submitted the order last week, and within a half hour of submitting it, I detected a very small mistake in one of the photos. Since I submitted the order in the middle of the night, I was hoping that if I corrected my master file on my Shutterfly account before morning, they might print the fixed version. But after inspecting the books I just received, I saw that they printed the UN-corrected version. But a fifth printing should be perfect! Luckily, the mistake is so small that almost nobody will notice it. We headed over to my seamstress Shelley’s house to pick up some work that she had done for me (a few new bowling shirts and a couple of emblems sewn on to caps), and then we went home to feed the pets. But we couldn’t stay long, because we were soon due at The Smokehouse to have a birthday dinner with my pal Christian Malmin, whom I’ve known since he was 15 when I was living in South Dakota. Before cosplay was even a word, Chris and I would cavort about town as Batman and Robin – visiting kids at the mall, or at local charity functions. It was a blast having dinner and chatting over some incredible food! After dinner I came home to relax, do a bunch of auditions, and type out Wally’s Week.
Tuesday the 20th – RUSH RUSH RUSH RUSH! – Considering that I had been up most of the night doing work, I slept in quite late. But I needed to be at a Voice Over session at 5pm, so I woke up in plenty of time to make that. I figured I’d have time to sit down for a bit, cut some checks to pay some bills and get those in the mail before the session. But my agent texted me to see if I could go into the session early, as the producers had finished with the previous actor earlier than expected. I always try to accommodate, even though it’s not always easy. So I put on the gas and got ready a little faster than I had originally planned. I did get to the session early, but only by about 7 minutes. Oh well, “better 7 minutes early than on time,” if I might completely mangle an old saying. It was a great session at Rocket Sound for a video game that I had a session for previously. And it was for a director (who directed via Zoom) that I’ve known and liked for years and years. What fun! After the session I met Michelle for dinner at the Coral Café. I hadn’t been there in a long time and it was good to enjoy a chicken Cesar wrap again after all this time. I drove home to do some work, recorded my nightly auditions, and spent some time organizing and color correcting some of the photos in my photo archive on my computer.
Wednesday the 21st – WALK HARD! – For my upcoming trip to Palm Springs, I needed to reserve my usual SUV to transport all the trappings of home I like to have with me while enjoying some time away in the desert. It was a beautiful day, so I strapped on my walking shoes and headed over to the nearest Enterprise office to make my reservation. Then I walked to my neighborhood hardware store to pick up some more hexagon bolts for more Frankie Christoween™ ornaments, and I stopped by Roxy’s vet to pick up a prescription refill for her meds. I walked back home, got in my car and drove to JoAnn to pick up some fabric necessities. My seamstress Shelley suggested making pillows out of the cotton sateen Christoween™ fabric I had lying around, so I wanted to pick up a few pillows and some silver/gray piping for the trim. I also grabbed a small quantity of white terry cloth for the trim on the Santa hats for the Frankie ornament. I had tried using faux fur before, but it didn’t give me the look I was striving for. I also picked up small green poms for the tip of the hat, as well as some fabric dye called ‘apple green’ which had the perfect tint of green I was looking for! Since the terry cloth was 100% cotton, it would dye very nicely. I got back home just in time to meet up with my pal Officer Mark, who was going to show me how the interface worked on a website he frequented, where you could order custom-printed rolls of wrapping paper! We sat and designed three different designs and they turned out very nicely! We had a delicious dinner at Ernie’s Mexican Restaurant, and I ate every last bit of it! I had missed dining in at Ernie’s during the past year! Later I did an audition, added some cool LED lighting strips in the Puppet Room, cut out some of the little Santa hats for forthcoming Frankie ornaments, made some spaghetti, and watched a few more episodes of “The Lone Ranger!”
Thursday the 22nd – BLURS-DAY! – The manic pace of the previous several days had caught up to me a bit. Not only did I push it too hard on my Wednesday walk, which had caused a slight discomfort in my lower back, but I was feeling a bit lazy because of the cloudy, cool weather we’ve been experiencing. So I rested most of the day and did some things around the house. I did a little writing, did some more random Christoween™ stuff to get ready to do a limited launch for our product line, and I assembled a new Santa hat for the first “pull” of the Frankie ornament. Even though the eyes weren’t quite right, I’d still be able to use this one for experimentation. This second hat turned out MUCH better, though it was still rather hard to assemble. I’ve got to put my brain to use to come up with an easier way to assemble and attach these. But the terry cloth is a MUCH better option than the previous try with the faux green fur!
Friday the 23rd – iPOD IN THE PUPPET PAD! – It was shaping up to be another busy day, so I wasted no time in getting going with my errands. I stopped over to my seamstress Shelley’s house to drop off the things I had purchased at JoAnn’s a few days earlier. I went to my mailbox to pick up my packages, and I stopped for a quick salad at Paty’s in Toluca Lake. One of the arrivals to my box was a Kermit the Frog iPod dock, which will fit the décor of the Puppet Room perfectly! I installed it on the nightstand, next to the bed. I removed the iPod dock that had been there and installed it in my kitchen. That way, the next time I’m working at the kitchen table on a puppet or a photo project, I can have some tunes to work to. I also got a cool Wizard of Oz clock to replace the Cookie Monster clock which fell and broke last week. It’s a great clock, but the design on the face is so busy, sometimes it’s hard to see the hands of the clock to determine the time. I did some other straightening up around the Puppet Room. I made a pot pie and watched another Lone Ranger episode. Before bed, I corresponded via e-mail with my trademark attorney to get the exact verbiage correct for our Christoween™ website so we can show the government trademark office that we’re using our marks in commerce correctly. But the words have to be structured exactly right, so it’s something where you want to make sure you have all of your ducks in a row. Compliance is complicated, but necessary.
Saturday the 24th – BECOMING BOND! – Late in the afternoon I had an appointment with my stylist Andie for a touch up on my color. While she worked, we heard a terrible car accident outside, and we rushed out to make sure everyone was OK. The cars were totaled, but it looked like everyone had made it out of the crash alright. The airbags deployed and there was smoke everywhere. I walked back home when we finished and got ready to watch a movie with my pals Brian, Officer Mark and James called “Becoming Bond.” It’s a documentary about the guy who played James Bond only once – George Lazenby. Actually, I liked him as James Bond! But had he continued with the role (instead of walking away from it because it didn’t ‘feel right’) we would never have had Roger Moore. So it all worked out. It was a VERY well done doc! And speaking of Roger Moore, we watched the final episode of “The Muppet Show” which featured Roger Moorea as the guest. If you’re going to cease production on a show, you might as well go out with a “bang” and have James Bond himself as a guest! After the guys left I did some more work with my photo archives, and created a rhythm bed for a “Christoween™ Rap” from sound effects I had in my archive. My attorney said we needed to have some sort of downloadable music on the site, so in the spirit of the opening of Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs,” I assembled a rhythm track, and wrote the lyrics. I did my auditions, made my traditional Saturday Night Super Salad and watched (Roger Moore again!) another episode of “The Saint” before bed.
Sunday the 25th – Christoween™ COMPOSITIONS! – As my attorney instructed, we needed to have some downloadable music, as well as some non-downloadable music on our Christoween.net website in order to be compliant with the rules of the trademark office. I’ve always loved the original score that Alexander Arntzen composed for our “Frankie-fied!” animatic, so I figured that deserved some attention all on its own. I sent some notes to my pal Scott Sebring to create a “suite” of movements from the soundtrack – all compiled into one nifty song. Scott did a fantastic job of assembling everything and it sounds fantastic! I also got the mixed rhythm track for the “Christoween™ Rap,” so I set about finishing up the lyrics so I could record it and we could put it on the website as a downloadable. I did some more work on my photo archives, and later recorded the vocal track of the rap song. Michelle got off work and came by, so we went over to Denny’s to grab some food.
And how was YOUR week??!!
PIX FROM THE WEEK
One of the bowling shirts I picked up from my seamstress Shelley’s house this week features a character that I voice from time to time for Disney. Cubby, the Lost Boy in “Peter Pan” has always been one of my favorites, and I’m happy to have his image on a shirt!
Officer Mark and I enjoy a sumptuous dinner at Ernie’s Mexican Restaurant before we get on-line to design some Christoween wrapping paper!
For some reason I can’t get this darn chip in my mouth! I can’t figure out why!
It’s almost summer, and here I am making tiny little Santa hats.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – two Frankensteins and a Dracula walk into a kitchen…
The cool lighting in the Planet Wallywood Eatery makes the Frankie Christoween ornament look even more fun!
I’m pretty happy with the new hat design!
Why is it in the middle of working, my cat Spook always wants to come up for pets and kisses?
The Christoween Capers Book and Stalking sets are almost ready for sale!
One of the items I picked up at my seamstress’ house was this Kermit cap! It’s a cool, metallic Kermit the Frog embroidered patch stitched on to a black cap. I got one for my girlfriend Michelle, as well as one for myself!
In response to a Tweet from my friend and fellow Voice Actor Colleen O’Shaughnessy, who recorded at Rocket Sound a few mere hours before I did last Wednesday and posted a picture, I snapped one of myself in virtually the same area of the studio!
One of the other bowling shirts I got this week was this one, made from my custom Andy Kaufman fabric. I’m going to have her re-do the pocket without the trim, because it’s covering up a portion of Andy’s face. But I truly LOVE LOVE LOVE this shirt!
This week’s Stalking video features the hero of “Donnie Druthers’ Christoween Capers™,” – Donnie Druthers himself!
If you loved Alexander Arntzen’s score for “Frankie-fied!” in this week’s “What’s Wally Humming,” you’ll LOVE this video we put together of “The Christoween™ Suite” with some of the images from our first book!
