Heather Brumley

Chris Ellis guides Meathands into our own Fresh Hell

Many thanks to all who came out to our Tag Team show this past Saturday! We had a great night mashing stand-up comics and improv comedy into one big show, and judging by the laughs, you seemed to like it too!

Last month, we sadly said goodbye to our director Bill Johnson but that doesn’t mean the end of the Magic Meathands striving to get better and better. We’re now pulling from a number of experienced improvisers to serve as temporary coaches during our rehearsals.

Our first is Chris Ellis, a longtime member of the The Trans4merz, an improv group playing regularly at Fanatic Salon and originally directed by improvisation innovator Stan Wells. He is also co-creator/director of the hit web-series Fresh Hell, the comedy/tragedy starring Brent Spiner as himself in a world where a mysterious incident has destroyed his career. As you might expect, guest appearances and cameos abound, among them Star Trek: The Next Generation co-star LeVar Burton and The Guild‘s Jeff Lewis and Sandheep Parikh. The series was created with Spiner and writer/fellow Trans4merz Harry Hannigan (According to Jim). Meathands alum Heather Brumley can be seen in the opening credits of each Season 1 episode, and cameos as a Trekkie Nerd in Season 2, now playing on YouTube.

Oh and Chris Ellis is also British. So if you notice an inordinate amount of terrible British accents in our shows, now you know why.

Here’s a Fresh Hell promo:

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for over 3 years, performing over 150 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

That Obsequious Chick

The Magic Meathands have posted another video to their YouTube channel. Inexplicably, I am again not in this one. I can’t imagine why because everything I do is unerringly hilarious.

Be that as it may, fellow Meathands Carrie Aikman, Dawn Akemi, and Heather Brumley are pretty funny, too. Here, they play a game called Enter-Exit. They each have a cue word, given by the audience. Each time someone uses one of the words in the scene, the corresponding person has to either enter or exit. Carrie has “unicorn”, Dawn has “obsequious” and Heather has “grapefruit”. Needless to say, that middle word caused some trouble.

My Ooka Weekend

So there’s been a mysterious character roaming our offices recently. His name is Ooka Chaka. He’s been friending us on Facebook. And without warning, he will show up on your desk with a note instructing you to take him home for the weekend, take pictures, upload them to Facebook, and return him to a specific spot in the office on Monday morning. This past weekend, I was hit. So, what else could I do but comply?

So, I thought I’d post it here too, as I posted it to Facebook.

I found this on my desk at the end of the day last Wednesday. I think it speaks for itself.

Driving home from work. I insisted we drive safely.

It didn’t take long to lose control of the situation. A battle over the radio soon broke out. I won’t tell you which one of us preferred Ringo.

(More shocking is that anyone actually uses the radio anymore, much less has a preference about it.)

Thursday night was the weekly Magic Meathands show at The Spot in Culver City. (plug –www.magicmeathands.com – plug)

Of course Ooka had to go.

Before the show started, he decided to do an impromptu set to open for us.

Ooka then hung out with some more Meathands. Heather showed him some improv games that we use to warm up before the show. This one is called “hang loose telephone”.

Ooka really got into this improv thing. Here he is showing off his suggestion for our show. I don’t know why he’s showing it off like that. It’s supposed to be hidden until we’re on stage. That Ooka! Such a rule breaker!

Ooka jumped onstage during our show, nearly tackling Shane! Fortunately Shane’s sexy lips calmed Ooka down.

Friday night, we took a walk around our neighborhood. Ooka took an immediate interest in local print journalism.

We then stopped at a classy upscale restaurant known as Burger King. Ooka was thirsty!

And hungry!

(And lazy.)

He got so hopped up on fake food, he ran out to the Burger King playpen.

Ooka insisted that I take his picture in front of this. I couldn’t tell if he really liked the Jonas Brothers or if he was being ironic.

And Saturday night, it was another Magic Meathands show! Travis had to hold him down to keep him from jumping onstage again.

Soon after this picture, he exploded into a burst of rage and broke the camera on my phone. Needless to say the rest of the weekend was pretty awkward.

Magic Meathands news spot

The Magic Meathands main company, which I’m currently studying under, was recently featured in a CNN Headline News spot by Jeri Reeder. Director Bill Johnson and Meathand members Heather Brumley and Andrew Pari were interviewed. There’s footage of the group’s performances at The Spot Café & Lounge, as well as a performance for the Hope for Homeless Youth. The latter is part of the community outreach goals of the company.

No, I’m not in this, but I’m happy to be associated with the Magic Meathands. And it also kinda-sorta gives you an idea of what an improv show with this group is like. There’s also several videos of their live improv shows at the Magic Meathands’ YouTube channel.

As I did this past Saturday, I’ll be performing with some members of the main company again next month at The Spot. I’ll post with show info once we get closer.