Gimorozo has the world-exclusive first ever interview with Bruce the Shark, best known for his role in 1975’s Jaws.

Gimorozo: Good morning, Bruce.  This is your first ever interview, if I’m not mistaken.

Bruce:  Um, yes, that is correct.  I’ve always been, uh, shy about my English.  I’ve been practicing for years, but have only now developed any sort of confidence–I’ve been using Rosetta Stone.  And, besides, I really need the money.

Gimorozo:  There isn’t any money.  We actually don’t make money here, so we can’t pay you anything for this interview.

Bruce:  Huh…that’s unfortunate.  Well, I probably should be going then.

Gimorozo:  No, wait!  I can pay for your lunch, how’s that?

Bruce:  Well…ok.

Gimorozo:  Great!  Ok, so you started off as the shark in Jaws, right?  What was the audition process for that?  How did you get that job?

Bruce:  I didn’t eat the director.

Gimorozo:  What do you mean?

Bruce:  Well, Spielberg was like the 3rd or 4th choice to direct that film, but every time a shark came in to interview for the part of Lenny [ed note: Lenny is the name of the character], they’d end up eating the director.  I mean, I can understand why.  You’re in a room there with easy prey, the temptation is almost irresistable.

So, after each time a director was eaten, the producers would have to find a new shark.  People just can’t work under the pressure of possibly getting eaten by one of your main actors, besides, it would have been some sort of liability I think.

Gimorozo:  So, were you ever tempted to eat the director or other actors you were working with?

Bruce:  Oh, yeah.  It was a daily struggle!  But Spielberg made a deal with me: as long as I didn’t eat any of the principle actors, I could have all the extras and grips that I wanted–they’re pretty cheap and easy to replace.  So, it worked out ok.

Gimorozo:  Wow, so did you get a whole lot of recognition after that film?

Bruce:  Nah, Hollywood has a very distinct bias against, well, animals in general.  I was actually nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor, but it was ruled that those awards are only for humans.  I tried to sue the Academy, but what lawyer’s going to take the case of a shark that can’t even speak good English, y’know?  The only other films I did after that were Jaws 2 and Jaws 3-D.

Gimorozo:  What about Jaws: The Revenge?

Bruce:  No way, man!  Even I wasn’t about to be in that pile of crap!  That’s actually a chick they replaced me with, I think her name was Alice, maybe?  I don’t know, something like that.  It’s one of those things, you humans can’t even tell us apart.

Gimorozo:  I’m sorry…

Bruce:  It’s cool, man.  I can’t tell you guys apart either.  Like, during the first Jaws, I was always attacking the wrong actors–I couldn’t tell who was who!  Then Steven [Spielberg] got an idea.  One day I’m swimming around, doing my stretches, ok?  Big action scene coming up.  And I get a whiff of this, this just awful smell.  It’s Richard [Dreyfuss].  He had agreed to smear cat urine all over himself so that I could smell the difference–we sharks have an excellent sense of smell.  But, Richard, you know, he’s a real actor, so he just goes above and beyond the call, right?  So, he actually ate cat litter so that even his breath smelled!  He said the taste wasn’t so bad, it’s just the texture that kinda grossed him out.  So, what he would do is put it in with his Cap’n Crunch in the morning–he still does that to this day, the man just loves that stuff!  Like, my wife, she has a cat, right?  And every once in a while, I’ll catch a whiff of the cat litter and get flashbacks or whatever.  Good times, man, good times.

Gimorozo:  I did not know that…

Bruce:  I’ll bet not!  It’s not a really publicized part of the film.  But by the end, everyone was wearing these funky smells to help me differentiate between people!  I remember we actually got fined like a ton of money because Robert [Shaw] would bathe in baby seal blood to get that distinct aroma and I guess the local authorities realized that, hey, where are all the seals?  Right?  So, somehow they linked it back to production.  So after that, Steven would have the seal blood shipped in from Canada or something.  I don’t know, somewhere where they just don’t care about that kind of stuff.  It was a fun movie to shoot…

Gimorozo:  So, since getting out of acting, what have you been up to?

Bruce:  Um, not a whole lot, really.  I got married in the early 80’s.  My wife’s a lawyer, go figure.  While on set of Jaws 2, the guys would always make jokes about sharks being lawyers or something, and I never got it.  But, I guess they just knew that I was destined to marry a lawyer.  Weird.  Like, ok, this one they would always ask is “How is a lawyer like a shark?”

Gimorozo:  …I don’t know, how?

Bruce:  Um….I don’t remember.  I don’t know, I never really thought it was that funny, anyway.  But, yeah, I love my wife.  She’s a good lawyer too, I think.

Gimorozo:  I hear that you’re planning a come-back.

Bruce:  Yeah, my agent tells me that the kids are into this hip-hop thing.  So, I’ve got a record coming out soon and then I’ll try to do a cross-over movie about my life as a gangsta, y’know?

Gimorozo:  I didn’t know you grew up on the streets.

Bruce:  Well, I didn’t say it was a documentary or anything.  It’s like, um, fictional biography, or something.

Gimorozo:  Well, I hope you have success with that, thanks for taking the time with me today.

Bruce:  It was fun, man!  Oh, yeah: “to get to the other side,” that’s it!

So concludes our interview.  Incidentally, “To get to the other side” actually is not the punchline to the joke “How is a lawyer like a shark?”

What can you really say about Monty Python?  They are the absolute funniest act in geekdom.  Or maybe they are the absolute geekiest act in comedy?  I don’t really know, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a geek who doesn’t love Monty Python.  I’d say it’s a fair bet that we can all quote at least 75% of Holy Grail. 

 So, here we present every geek’s favorite comedians doing a skit about Bruces.

P.S.  Tomorrow we’ll post a real post or two and end our first ever Week of Bruce in style.  I hope you can wait.

Yes, I realize that this barely counts as a post since I am not pouring out my vast knowledge on you.  All I am doing is embedding a YouTube video.  But this is not just any YouTube video.  This is the trailer for the new documentary about Bruce Campbell entitled My Name is Bruce. 

These are tears of joy.

This being the Week of Bruce and all, I decided to post a piece of Batman artwork from my meeting notes.  I realize that the last meeting notes were Batman-oriented as well.  Next one will have nothing to do with the Caped Crusader, I promise.

I hope you like the pseudo-anime style, just don’t expect to see it too often.

I never fully appreciated Bruce Springsteen’s music until I drove through New Jersey.  Now I understand why he was so eager to get out.

Welcome to Day 2 of the first annual Week of Bruce.  Today we will focus on the butts that Bruce Lee has kicked.  Now, we’re not talking about average joe butts, cuz everyone knows he could kick those.  No, we’re talking about hard core butts.

First butt on the list to be kicked?  How about Kareem Abdul-Jabar.  Yeah, the Kareem Abdul-Jabar.  7′2″.  38,387 points scored during his 20 years in the NBA.  This is one serious manly man.  But guess what?  No match for Bruce Lee.

What we have here is a scene from Game of Death.  This movie came out about a year after Bruce had died.  Yeah, you read that right, Bruce Lee kicked Kareem Abdul-Jabar’s butt after he was already dead…now that’s freakin’ hard-core.

Next on the celebrity butt-kickin’ list?  How about Jackie Chan?  Here we have Chinese Connection/Fist of Fury (yeah, it had two English names, take your pick).  So Jackie Chan is the world’s best stunt man at this time, but he’s no celebrity yet.  In fact, in this 1972 flick, you don’t even get to see Jackie’s face.  But, check out 7:32 through 7:36, you get to see Jackie do what he does best.  That samurai dude who Bruce is beating with his nunchucks ain’t man enough to get kicked out of a window, so ol’ Jackie steps in and goes flying out the window and lands on the concrete in his stead.  Ouch.

Ok, so who’s next on the list, you ask.  Well, how about Jackie Chan again!  Yeah, last fight wasn’t totally fair.  After all, Jackie only got called in after the samurai’s butt was already kicked anyway.  He didn’t have a fighting chance.  I’ll bet if he snuck up behind Bruce and had the upper hand he’d win.  Right?  How about wrong, buck-o!  Just check out the 1:20 mark, that’s Jackie giving Bruce a bear hug.  That snap at 1:29?  Jackie’s neck.  Yeah, he lasted 9 seconds against Bruce.

No fair, you say, Kareem is a basketball player, not a martial artist; Jackie was just a kid, he wasn’t on top of his game yet.  You want a challenge?

How about the Professional Middleweight Karate Champion for six years running?  How’s that for a challenge?  Not enough?

Then how about the winner of the Karate Triple Crown?  Huh?  Want more?

Well, how about Black Belt Magazine’s fighter of the year?

Yeah, how about all of the above in a crazy little package we all know as CHUCK FREAKIN’ NORRIS!  Yeah, that’s right, Bruce Lee kicked a clean-shaven Chuck Norris’ butt in 1972’s Way of the Dragon/Return of the Dragon (yeah, it’s another double-named movie…whatever).  Apparently, back in the day, Chuck’s beard liked to hang out on his shoulders!  Behold the manly ballet that is Bruce vs. Chuck:

When talking about manly names, a few obvious choices pop up in any conversation: Arnold, Dolph, Keanu.  But rarely mentioned is the name Bruce.  Why is that?  As we shall reveal throughout this week, Bruce may well be the manliest of names.  Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the kick off of the first annual Week of Bruce!

But, first, we must prove to you that Bruce is indeed the manliest of names.  A quick round of trivia.

Who is the manliest singer?  Bruce Springsteen.
Manliest martial artist?  Bruce Lee.
Manliest person to ever marry Demi Moore?  Bruce Willis.
Manliest zombie fighter?  Bruce Campbell.
Manliest shark?  Bruce.
Manliest superhero?  Bruce Wayne.
Manliest monster?  Bruce Banner.

Bruce is such a manly name, that Monty Python made an entire sketch based on men named Bruce.  Australian men at that!  Australians are some of the manliest men on the planet.  When God granted his powers to someone in the 2003 documentary Bruce Almighty, who did he give them to?  Bruce.

So, what makes Bruces so manly?  Vitamins for starters, but it’s more than just that.  Throughout the course of our scientific research, we noticed a trend in the births of Bruces.  As you can see from the below timeline, the Bruces we love were all born (or created) during times of turmoil.  Turmoil breeds manliness and manliness was surely permeating the atmosphere during these times (click to enlarge).

From this timeline, you can see that there were great amounts of Bruceliness in the second and third quarters of the 20th century.  Scientists are still trying to determine why this was such a fertile period for the birthing of such manliness.  The prevailing theory is that the start of World War II forced humanity to man up whether they wanted to or not and start popping out more manly men.  And this manliness came in the form of Bruces. 

This manliness continued throughout the 50’s, most likely due to the manliness necessary to fight the Commies during the onslaught of the Cold War.  The sixties were turbulent times and required many a manly man.  The trend of Brucely manliness seems to taper out in the seventies and there are absolutely no instances of Bruceliness after that decade.  Most leading experts agree that the fall of Bruceliness can be directly correlated to the rise of disco.

Regardless as to why it started or why it ended, we are all thankful for the rise of Bruce and we now officially declare the first full week of December to be the Week of Bruce.

First off, let me tell you: Punisher: War Zone is over the top.  In some cases this works splendidly, in others…not so much.  P:WZ takes hyper-violence into a realm that can only be described as an artform.  This movie is full of beautiful, gory ways of dispatching bad guys (and a few random people as well).  There are decapitations and exploding heads; faces are punched through, necks are run through; throats are bitten, kidneys are eaten; and lots and lots of gun shot wounds are inflicted upon many a mob henchman.

As far as those gun shot wounds are concerned, Punisher is the kind of hero that never misses his target except when it will advance the plot.   His enemies are the perfect corollary to this type of hero: they can’t hit anything except for the good guys who don’t matter to the story.  This is neither a bad thing nor a good thing; it’s just an action movie thing. 

Ray Stevenson (who, oddly enough, is not Ray Stevens‘ son) is the third actor to play Frank “Punisher” Castle.  Not only is he the best Punisher, he also uses the most hair gel of any other Punisher.  He also brings a humaness and grittiness to the role that has been missing in past films.

The big bad in this film is Jigsaw, who is a disfigured Joker wanna-be.  As far as I can tell (not really being a fan of the comics), this is the first time that a villain from the comics has been in any of the movies.  He starts off creepily enough, but by the final confrontation has gone so far over the top that he’s rather annoying.  None of the other over-the-top characters even have the benefit of ever being interesting at any point.  Loony Bin Jim?  Typical case of trying to force the creepiness/quirkiness of a character and ending up with an unbelievably goofy villain.  Detective Soap?  Unnecessary comic relief.  Those three crazy acrobat robbers?  Another failed attempt at quirky villains, but in reality, they are stupid beyond belief–in fact, their leader made me mad.  That’s how ridiculous he was.

In the end, P:WZ’s downfall is that it’s characters are too uneven.  Are they in a gritty crime thriller?  Ray Stevenson is.  Are they in a heart-warming human melodrama?  A few of them try to be.  Are they in a super violent action flick?  The effects department definitely is.  Are they in a comedy?  Apparently some wish they were.  Did I laugh?  Only at the parts that I wasn’t supposed to.

Overall, 7/10.  The action and violence is top-notch.  Ray Stevenson is great.  Everything else, meh.

Ah, it has been a while, but I have returned to my preferred medium: ballpoint pen on styrofoam.  This series is a wonderful representation of the artist’s inner soul: A reanimated monster in a tuxedo trying to save the world that so fears him.  Yes, dear readers, that is me in a nutshell.  Behold!

What we have here is Frankenstein’s Monster with a Martini (the secret agent’s drink of choice)

Frankenstein’s Monster with a Gun.

Frankenstein’s Monster with his Flashy Car…which you can only see the very top of because I wanted to focus more on the conflicting emotions in the monster’s face than on the car.  And also because I started drawing this picture too low on the cup to include the rest of the car.

As I’m sure you can imagine, I’m a very important person who does very important things at my very important job.  In fact, without me, I’m sure the entire operation would fall apart.  As such, I must attend many (many!) very important meetings to discuss important and confidential things.  At these meetings, I take many important notes. 

I figured it would be a good public service to all of the many people who read this blog to show you some of my meeting notes.  Think of it as a glimpse into the mind of a genius at work.  Please remember though, all of these notes are highly confidential and are intended as a tool for you to excel in your own professional growth.

Without further ado, I present Mr. Freeze (click for a larger view):