If you happen to be in Los Angeles on the evening of June 10, the underground cinema appreciation group Cinefamily is hosting an evening of weird, mutant fun that is quintessential Boing Boing. "Michael Winslow, Man of 1000 Noises," who you may recall from Police Academy (see clip above), will perform a live "score" for an assortment of silent films...
You know him best as Officer Larvell Jones, the irrepressible burbling, beep-borping human Foley machine that was a mainstay character in the Police Academy repertory company. Be it helicopters, electric guitars, cop sirens, the inner workings of robots, barking dogs, squishing soggy sneakers, roaring jets, spine-tingling scratches on a chalkboard, screaming guitars, cell phones, kung fu dubbing--he is truly the man of a thousand noises, at the very least. He captured the juvenile fascinations of a generation with his uncanny talent for imitation, and tonight, Winslow takes the Cinefamily stage to embark on a new venture: a never-before attempted challenge that only he could possibly fulfill. Yes, Winslow will be providing a live music-and-effects track to a varied sampling of classic and not-so-classic shorts from the silent era. Not so silent anymore.I know only a small portion of Boing Boing readers are in Los Angeles, but this event was so cool, I had to post. And -- hey, if you can't make it, there's the YouTube video, above, for a sampling of Winslow's insane skillz. Link to Event Info on Cinefamily site, here's the official Michael Winslow site, and here's his Wikipedia entry. (Thanks, Hadrian!).
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:-) this reminds me of gerald mc boing boing
I've lost the bleeps, I've lost the sweeps, and I've lost the creeps!
Met a stripper in ATX (in from L.A.) that claimed to be his daughter. Her last name was Winslow (she provided I.D.), she looked a bit like him in the eyes and she had some of the details right that his website/IMDB provide. Always wondered though...
@BBONYX
i don't know how many kids he has total but i met him and two teenagers, and his wife about 8-9 yrs ago. they were living in orlando at the time, visiting disney and i worked there. can't recall what gender the kids were though. the age group would probably be about right if your meeting was recent
Man, makes me wish I lived in LA. He'd come in handy for podcast sound effects.
Hey, don't forget his scene in Spaceballs!
Before Police Academy, he was in a television episode of _The White Shadow_.
Currently on Hulu:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/09/to-do-in-la-police-a.html#comments
Quite a few sound effects in that episode before he goes crazy and threatens to kill a teacher.
Sorry...copied the wrong link!
http://www.hulu.com/watch/30169/the-white-shadow-psyched-out#s-p1-so-i0
@zuzu, That's not all he's lost!
@ DCluberson
Sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...it
is one of the best comedic uses of diegetic consequence in comedy, I can currently recall.
I wonder if he really did all the sounds in Police Academy, though. It's like old Charlie McCarty movies, did he bother doing ventriloquism or did they just use sound editing?
This makes me think of Rifftrax. But how could Disembaudio synchronize an audio track to a silent movie?
Bought my buddy a ticket for a graduation, he said he LOVED it. He said they did some old movies, then did some music too. There's a great YouTube vid of Winslow doing Jimi Hendrix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wga1nLKVlRs
There's a film on Michael Winslow's comedy and live performances over the years now on iTunes if you'd like to check it out:
http://www.itunes.com/movies/michaelwinslowlive [link opens in iTunes]