I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

In everyone’s hooplaing and gazooksing about over this Obama fellow, people overlooked the passing of someone very special. A man from another age who was not equipped for our time. A small man with giant glasses and a passion for talking in a weird stiff manner which supposedly was modeled after Jackson Pollock.

Mister Glasses has died.

Mitchell Magee, my friend and sometimes-collaborator (although not on Mister Glasses despite what people think) did not produce a new episode for this month’s Channel 101 screening and, according to the rules, forfeited his slot on the ballot and was immediately canceled.

Mitch didn’t write or shoot anything this month—the stress of the huge production, scheduling, frequent cast changes, expense of making a show for free while living on a limited budget chips away at one’s enthusiasm pretty quickly. He had been talking about ending the show for months, but waiting until he finished the episodes focusing on each member of Mister Glasses’ entourage and after the NY TV Festival in October. By anyone’s standards (except the absurd Defenders of Stan’s), Mister Glasses had a terrifically long run even if you discount the two Welcome to my Study specials that I worked on (but you shouldn’t because Study is awesome and Mitch wrote those, too).

And now… I will present an interview with Mitch about Mister Glasses.

Dyna: What is the origin of Mister Glasses? It’s an unusual idea for a web series, for sure, which tends to be more on the quick and obvious tip.

Mitch: Well, as you know, Dyna, you were pretty intimately involved with the conception of the idea. The two of us were walking around Manhattan and I looked up at a building (it may have been the Urban Glass House) and I said, look at that—that was made by…you, know…Mister Glasses.” I was thinking of the architect, Philip Johnson, but I couldn’t remember his name. You immediately said, “you should do a show called “Mister Glasses.”

And the two of us then started to hash out the character (the voice, in particular.) Later, I thought about what the show would be like, coming up with the idea of an architectural team—Kitty, Hard Hat, Sean, and Mister Glasses—who were down on their luck.

Dyna: Part of the point of this interview is to also dispel the myth that I made Mister Glasses or that it is in anyway “my show” (It’s nice when people tell me how much they enjoyed the latest Mister Glasses—I agree with them— but I didn’t have anything to do with it aside from holding a boom mic a couple times.)

Mitch: Well, the two of us talk about show ideas all the time. I think it’s normal for friends involved in comedy to bat around ideas so much that question of “attribution” is tricky.

Dyna: Who are these guys in Mister Glasses’ entourage… Did you create them with the actors in mind?

Mitch: I thought of the characters and the actor at the same time. I wanted the characters to be iconic “types” to a degree.

For example, I was thinking of a classic “His Gal Friday” type—an independent Career Gal from American movies often 30s and 40s. And I thought of Kitty based on that model

And then I thought of a Blue Collar type. And Also a Harpo Marx type—a comedic character who didn’t say anything—and I thought of Hard Hat.

Dyna (rudely interrupting): Hard Hat is also inspired by “Jump Shot” ...and Lathan’s personality.

Mitch: Rob Lathan has a very funny deadpan style. Fun Squad was a web series that Will Hines made that used Rob (in the character of Jump Shot) in very funny ways. So I was doing my version of “Jump Shot” but with an even more laconic delivery.

Mitch: And finally, a smooth sophisticated “Leading Man” type. Maybe a Cary Grant type. And I thought of “Sean.”

Dyna: Was Sean ever Mister Glasses’ boyfriend? That’s what I pretend.

Mitch: (ignores)

Dyna: I think one of the big contributing factors to the appeal of the whole package is the music. It’s (aside from a couple exceptions such as the childhood flashback) all Bach performed by a group called The Swingle Singers. How the hell did you know about the Swingle Singers?

Mitch: There was a fad (mostly among the French) in the 60s to do Jazz versions of Bach (Jacques Loussier was another one.) In some ways Baroque Chamber music was a good fit to the type of cooled-down West Coast Jazz that was happening at the time and a lot of Bach-inspired Jazz was around then.

I had heard the Swingle Singers a while back on NPR—they had done an interview with the main guy—and I thought at the time, “this is great” and I just kept it in the back of my head for a while. When I was first making Mister Glasses, the idea was to use music from those Blue Note Jazz/Hip Hop remixes that came out a few years back, but when I saw the footage, I thought of the Swingle Singers stuff and dropped that in and it worked great. Originally, the Swingle Singer track was just the opening theme and later, I just came adding and adding more stuff to the subsequent episodes.

Dyna: I got you both “Jazz Sebastian Bach” CDs for Christmas (after Mister Glasses was in production). You have used every single track on them in the series.

Ok, what kind of fans does Mister Glasses have? What media attention have you gotten? It runs the gamut.

Mitch: The fans are art and architecture nerds and comedy nerds. Nerds.

I’ve gotten a few very nice fan letters. Unlike most web series—I’m generalizing here—I think my fan base has as many women as men. I recently got a fan letter from an architecture grad student at Harvard who shows it to all his friends. It’s a hit in architecture circles—Architect Magazine is doing a story on “Mister Glasses.” Hopefully, the series isn’t to wonky or esoteric, though. I really don’t know a whole lot about architecture. And if you were to try to create a time line for when “Mister Glasses” is supposed to take place, the show would fall apart.

Dyna: Yeah, it’s every year between 1939 and 1967.

Mitch: Right. Although, Mister Glasses is also battling Post Modernism, so maybe the year is also 1983.

Dyna: He’s really well preserved if he goes from 1938 to 1983 and only loses his hair

What was the visual inspiration for the Mister Glasses’ art direction?

Mitch: I looked at photos of the era. I looked at a lot of early photos of Philip Johnson and people like Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. And I thought about classic American movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s. The show is a Scewball/Noir hybrid. The original idea for the show was that we would try to emulate a classic Hollywood look and acting style, but I pretty much dropped that after the first episode. One of the fun parts of doing the show was finding the props—going on eBay and getting an old aluminum hard hat and glasses and a working flashbulb camera, etc.

Dyna: Did you have any story ideas that you wanted to do but didn’t for lack of time or money or because they were just unfeasible?

Mitch: I had a ton of location ideas. A ton. In every scene I wrote, I always seemed to imagine Kitty, Hard Hat and Sean following Mister Glasses through some marvelous High Modernist lobby in a wide tracking shot—impossible on our “no-budget” budget. I also wanted to do a big finale involving a fictionalized version of the architect, Robert Venturi where, as a boy, he approaches MIster Glasses as a devoted fan and Mister Glasses dismisses him. Venturi then becomes famous and ruins Mister Glasses’ career. And Finally Mister Glasses rebuilds his career by discovering Kitty, Hard Hat and Sean.

Dyna: That’s what happens between the credit sequence and the series. Venturi ruins him.

Mitch: Right. And show would then cut to 1982 and an old Mister Glasses would by surrounded by Kitty. Hard Hat and Sean and would give a “remember me though my buildings”-type speech and die. Something like that.

Dyna:You were screened in Seattle?

Mitch: Yeah, I was screened at the Raw Stock Film Festival there. And, from what I’ve been told, it was a big hit.

Dyna: Any other offers or interests from people wanting to do stuff with you?

Mitch: Meetings of one sort or another. I’m sure you can relate to that—you have a meeting and you think it went pretty well, but nothing comes of it. I website called icn.tv is distributing the series throughout the internet (a weird concept…) Perhaps the dirty little secret with web series is that they’re not particularly popular in the world of internet comedy.

Dyna: Compared to naked ass shaking videos. And dogs barfing videos

Mitch: Or one offs. If you look at very popular web producers—Derrick Comedy or Waverly Films—they aren’t known so much for series. (I like both those guys, BTW).

Dyna: I hear you like the look of the Mister Glasses glasses and are going to start wearing them as your real glasses… any comment?

Mitch: Yeah, I’m thinking of getting a smaller version of the “Mister Glasses” glasses. The show inspired me to change my look.

Dyna: Should I ask anything else?

Mitch: I don’t think MIster Glasses and Hard Hat are gay lovers. Mister Glasses’ sexuality is mysterious.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 11:38 pm and is filed under Comedy, Nerds, Videos.