Synopsis: (for those who don't know...): Hot off the success of Bill and Ted's, Alex re-teamed with Tom Stern for this half hour comedy show for MTV. They also enlisted the help of Tim Burns as a co-writer as well. Tom and Tim had met while working as writers for the Jim Henson Hour. At a time when MTV shows HAD to have a musical theme, Alex and Tom devised a series of fake commercials, television ads, and host segments framed around popular music videos of the day. This spawned the popular catch phrase, "Just play the damn videos!"
Guests included Flea, Rikki Lake, and even GWAR (everyone's favorite Antartican rock gods)! Alex and Tom played multiple roles and created a number of memorable characters including Lockjaw (A cop who never got a tetanus shot), Willard Shrek (a convenience store clerk addicted to caffeine pills and beef sticks), The Huggins Family, The Burrowing Bishop, and of course, Eddie the Flying Gimp (From Outer Space).
The show lasted only one season and six episodes, but amazingly, it managed to snag a legion of fans who still reflect fondly on it after all these years. A Best Of... episode and a trailer also exist. All are included on the episode page for your viewing pleasure. Also, check out our picture gallery .
Alex Winter (on a possible DVD release): I'm petitioning for it right now. I've been trying to get MTV to do it for years and it's just impossible. It's such a bureaucracy over there. I don't think there's anyone opposed to it but I just can't get anyone off their ass and actually deal with it. But I'm hoping sometime soon. There was a moment where Anchor Bay was actually going to get all of it on the Freaked DVD and then at the last minute MTV changed their mind. I think eventually they'll put it out. It's one of those things where the product is sitting on their shelves and eventually it'll see the light of day again. We went back and remixed it in anticipation of getting it on this DVD, so at least it's ready to go. ( Source )
Tom Stern (on Lockjaw): I loved doing lockjaw. Acting is the most fun, if you ask me.
Alex (on MTV and the Idiot Box): They honestly let us go wild. We were amazed they aired it. Tom and I had to laugh because we had tame music videos get censored from MTV at the same time they were showing that depraved bit of business. You got to love 'em. The whole clueless, hopeless and evil, greedy, bloodsucking, child-murdering lot of 'em. ( Source )
Alex (on his favorite characters): Without a doubt it's Willard Shreck. It's the only decent bit of acting I've ever done. The Gimp also has a warm place in my heart. Actually, it's in my trousers, but the less said about that, the better. ( Source )
Alex (on the origins of Idiot Box): Tom and I wrote an anthology comedy which Sam (Raimi) wanted to produce for us to direct. It was years ago, right after Amazon Women on The Moon flopped, and we couldn't get it sold. Hollywood is weird that way. When a film flops hard they won't make another one vaguely like it for years, as if the whole genre is flawed. It never occurs to them that maybe that flop was simply an isolated pile of crap. Most of our script got turned into The Idiot Box. ( Source )
Alex (On the life and death of The Idiot Box): ...you know what, we had this anthology comedy script, which Sam Raimi was trying to produce for us, trying to get off the ground. This was right around the time he was doing Darkman. He couldn't get it off the ground, so we said, no, I don't want to do this "Valley Dude" MTV VJ thing, but, I do have this TV series idea, which basically became "The Idiot Box," which was a very aggressive, over-the-top comedy series, which they went for.
It was a character-based skit comedy, more like a British comic show than an American one, I guess. There are shows in England called "The Fast Show," things like that, which are very similar to what we did. It was real Python-esque, you know, it was just really weird, really violent, really absurd. It was an ensemble. We all played all the characters. It was really fun. We wrote it and directed it ourselves. It was a hit for MTV, but they paid no money at all, and at that point 20th-Century Fox had become interested in another script that we had. We went and did that instead of doing more "Idiot Box" episodes.
"Idiot Box" was only on for six episodes. It was a really short run. We could have kept going, but my heart's in features and so is Tom's. We really sort of looked at that as a way to get into the features game. We went and made Freaked instead. ( Source )
