Josh Robert Thompson · @joshrthompson
13th Aug 2014 from TwitLonger
Why I'm making "The Josh Robert Thompson Show"
For the last few weeks I have been in production on my own comedy/variety series entitled, originally enough, "The Josh Robert Thompson Show." To say that this has been a passion project of mine would be a gross understatement. I've put every last one of my pennies into this project. Every drop of blood, sweat and tears. And I assembled the finest cast and crew that I have ever had the pleasure of working with. This was the show that I've always dreamed of doing, the way I wanted to do it. Without barriers. Without limitations. Without a script. It was a huge gamble, both financially and personally, but it has paid off in spades.
I needed to push myself out from the safe harbor of "The Late Late Show." To prove to myself and to the rest of the world that I am much more than the sum of my robot skeleton parts. And so I devised a new comedy/variety series, something different from anything I'd done in the past. I wanted to create a strange new universe of puppets and stop-motion animation, something offbeat, unique and based entirely around my bizarre original characters. Essentially, I wanted to find a way to plug the audience directly into my mind in a way that had never been done before. A funny, colorful and comic blend of Mr. Rogers meets The Muppets by way of SCTV, The Carol Burnett Show and Portlandia.
The most exciting part of this show is that it is entirely unscripted. While shooting a parody of Carl Sagan's 'COSMOS,' for example, I requested that the prop department NOT tell me what objects they were going to place out on the beach. When I finally happened upon them I was genuinely surprised, and this led to a series of improvised monologues that would never have happened had this been a scripted show. Just today I was sermonizing on Venice Beach boardwalk as my televangelist character, The Apostle BG. It was to be a day of street preaching and crowd interaction, until cast member Beau Ballinger showed up dressed as Jesus. Suddenly, people were coming from all over the beach to talk to the faux King of Kings. We quickly rechristened (no pun intended) the bit "Talk With Jesus," and the rest is history. It is easily my favorite thing we've shot so far. And we didn't even know it was going to happen!
We've got a few more days of shooting left on this project, but I really don't want it to end. It is the happiest I've ever been doing what I love to do most: creating something wonderful out of nothing at all.
Never let anyone stop you from realizing your dreams. Allow nothing to hold you back. If you can dream it, you can do it. Yes, it will be hard. Yes, it will take a tremendous amount of faith and work. But once you've accomplished what you set out to do, I promise you it will be the greatest feeling you have ever known.
I can't wait to show it to you! More UPDATES and VIDEO soon...
-JRT