I just finished a week of costume work on a pilot for my friend Lisa as her assistant. It was good to just be the worker bee for a week. The project is called "Saul of the Mole Men," and it is a pilot for Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. The crazy part is that it's actually live action, considering it's for the Cartoon Network. It is a homage to all of those Sid and Marty Krofft shows, in particular Land of the Lost. We had a great time with it. A lot of the people involved had worked on Crank Yankers, so it was nice to see those folks again.

Name that 70's kid show cliche, it was crammed into this 15 minute show. Rock band? Little people in various costumes? Chase sequence? Trippy puppets? Space? Prehistoric earth? Catchy theme music? Spirit of '76? Got it, got it, got it. The only things missing were a talking dog and a groovy van.

The talent involved was super funny. One guy plays most of the lead roles. His name is Josh Gardner, and he's a writer on Mad TV. Cracked the crew up all day. Another guy, Gary, we just saw in a musical improv show of Marty Barrett's and does voices on the new Boondock's cartoon. One of his characters doesn't even have his face on camera, just his torso, but he still made hanging up the phone a brilliant bit. The big ticket player for me was this super nerdy guy, Dana. He plays a super nerdy NASA guy on this show, and they also had him as a terrible backup dancer. In costume, he looked like Hair Bear. Hilarious as everyone else, though.

Turns out, Dana is Master Shake. From Aquateen. I had a total goofball fan meltdown. I don't think Voiceover guys get recognized too much, so he was flattered enough to agree to leave a funny phone message for Steve.

I don't usually get all jazzed up about working on pilots. It's work for a week on a project to be tolerated thru and then forgotten about as soon as the check clears. It was nice to be on something fun for a change. The only downside? Not union, and though more $$ than I would have made on unemployment, it will average out to less than half my rate. Sometimes, you just take those projects anyway, because good things come from them.