Our humor is a little DEADPAN..Episode 4. A new Hope

 I was lucky enough to meet and become friends with a rising star in the comedy world a few years back when I agreed to " Troop" an event at a local comedy club. So let me answer the many questions that last sentence raises... First of all " Troop".. If you don't know by now I am whats known as a " fanboy".. Star Wars geek, nerd , what have you. I belong to a worldwide group called 501st Legion of Stormtroopers, yup the guys in the white plastic armor you see at big events and charity functions.. That's us! Will talk more about that in future blogs.

The Great Lakes Garrison after performing live on stage with Weird Al ( me on the far right)

It has been a real pleasure being part of this group for the past 3 years, we have helped raise millions of dollars for charities and got to be part of some really special events.

Anyway back to the story.... So we were asked to be apart of a comedy charity event that roasted Darth Vader and money raised went to the Fallen soldiers fund. So normally we mingle and pose for photos and generally stand around and look bad ass. But this time we were asked if we wanted to take to the stage and try our armored hands at comedy. Of course I said " sign me up". So to prep for this event, me and a few other braves troopers met at a local bar to write some jokes. There we met the guy behind this event, comic and Star Wars geek, Mike Bobbitt. PLEASE do yourself a favor and watch the clip below. Mike is a funny dude.

So Mike Bobbitt shows up at the bar to help us try to be funny but secretly he wanted to hang out with real live Stormtroopers..Did I say Mike is a Star Wars geek?... 

Well needless to say Mike and I just hit it off, I could tell this was gonna be a guy I wanted to be friends with and a bromance was born. I loved that he was a professional comic and he loved I was a real live stormtrooper. Platonic man love was in the air... So that all happened.. We did the charity event and Mike and I became close friends......OK I will post my stand up bit but remember, I am not a comic.

I should also mention Mike ( was the guy who introduced me in the video) has lost over 100 lbs since then. Good job Mike.

Man this blog has gone astray..Was going to blog about a project we are working on titled Deadpan but the backstory has grown into a complete post in itself. Well sometimes that happens to writers, oh well. 

Well needless to say Mike and I stayed in touch, hung out and and are to this day close friends. As it turns out Mike is one hell of a writer and told me of his screenplays he had written in the past. That little bit of info was enough for me to dig out a script I had been tinkering with and finish it. I even wrote a character in the screenplay based on Mike Bobbitt aptly named Bobby Michaels. That screenplay is called ZOMEDY and will blog about that in the future ( trust me you will hear all about ZOMEDY)..

I showed the screenplay to Mike and he really enjoyed the script, so much that when writing a his next project, a TV series called Upstairs, he wrote me in as a character named Clark Michaels, cousin to Bobby Michaels.  When presented with the final draft that Mike and his wife Christine had wrote I was blown away. I loved it ! I knew right away I wanted to film this and Mike was completely on board with Scallywag Entertainment producing it. We had some meetings and did some rewrites, we changed the title to DEADPAN and started casting for a 0 budget ( big surprise huh) film shoot.

This will end part 1 of this blog. When we return I will tell you the story of Deadpan , show some clips and give you updates of when it will be ready to show.