Long in the tooth

I have a friend named Spencer. We met in high school. We have many shared media experiences from those days, mainly from our time as staff members on the school paper. In fact, Spencer was heavily involved in an incident that pushed my interests fully away from "journalism" per se and towards writing to entertain. But that's a story for another time.

Spencer and I have hardly seen each other since high school, but we're still sharing media adventures. He works for a local health insurer, and was heavily involved in creating some promotional videos for their dental plan.

But they weren't the first ones to come up with a tooth mascot named, well, Toothy. My younger sister works with Spencer's wife at the public library, and I had her drop off a video of a class project my family helped me make in 4th grade. Ashamed of his inadvertent intellectual property theft, Spencer posted part of the video online.



This was the first script I ever wrote, and the first time I was involved in any kind of video project. Not a bad debut, eh? There's so much to love about this video:

--just the fact that Spencer set up his camera to record the tape playing on his TV. So old school.

--my awesome family stepping up at the last minute. A bunch of my friends had volunteered to help out, but all bailed.

--our old school TV, one where you could say "don't touch that dial" and it would actually make sense.

--my sister's big hair underneath her chef's hat.

--my brother seeming WAY too happy when he hears that "Toothy's in trouble."

--the funky positioning of my arms and hands during my brief cameo.

--my mom's great camera work and truly amazing costumes.

--most of all, my dad's tour de force performance as Mr. Cavity. For one thing, after his double knee replacement surgery last year, it would take him at least five minutes now to get up from a fall like that. And his acting was deliciously over the top. I had no idea my dad was a fan of Paul Lynde.

This was only a small portion of the entire video. I think the whole thing is about four minutes long, featuring an extended scene with the chef developing the secret Cavity Busters recipe, and me promoting the stores that sell it with a very crudely drawn poster.

Perhaps someday the entire production will find its way to the Interwebs, where it can be come back to haunt me if I ever become really famous. Thanks for posting, Spencer.