More Heroes DVD Stuff, Six Degrees of Frazier's Brain, and a Tiny Touch of Reviewing Nostalgia

When I was reviewing movies for the Daily Oklahoman, waaaaay back in 1986-87, two of the movies I reviewed were "Teen Wolf" and "Burglar," both written by the team of Matthew Weisman and Joseph Loeb III. While watching "Teen Wolf," I figured that the writers must be comic book fans, both because they treated Michael J. Fox's lycanthropy more like a superpower than a curse and because they used the term "wolf out" to refer to his transformation (which was a shout-out to the old Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk TV series; the series's crew used the term "Hulk-out" when talking about Bixby's transformation scenes).

Imagine my surprise when I learned recently that Joseph Loeb III had changed his professional moniker to Jeph Loeb, comic-book writer extraordinaire who has also achieved great success in TV, as a producer/writer on Smallville, Lost, and Heroes.

Speaking of guys who change their professional monikers, Loeb and Weisman also received story credit on the sequel to "Teen Wolf," "Teen Wolf Too," but they did not write the screenplay. The screenplay is credited to R. Timothy Kring, known these days as Tim Kring, creator of Heroes.

I've now listened to all the commentary tracks (except one which was so inane that I couldn't finish it). One of the things I've been newly reminded of: Actors often don't read entire scripts. Depending on the actor's philosophy of acting and/or devotion to craft, they may only read the scenes in which they appear. This reminds me of a Shatner anecdote I'm going to try to find and post about later.

And here's my own little version of "Six Degrees of Separation," connecting me to Heroes. I went to high school with a guy named Steve Spencer, whose dad went to school with a guy named Hunt Lowry. Hunt Lowry produced (among other things) a movie called "Get Crazy," starring Malcolm McDowell and directed by Allan Arkush. McDowell played Linderman on Heroes, and Arkush is an exec producer and has directed five episodes.

So Steve Spencer to his dad to Hunt Lowry to Arkush/McDowell. That's four steps. Can I do better?

Hmmm. Another of my high school classmates was Suzy Amis, who starred in a movie called "Firestorm" with Howie Long. "Firestorm" was co-produced by Joseph Loeb III, aka Jeph Loeb, writer and co-executive producer on Heroes. That's two steps.

Can I do any more? Let's fish around on IMDB...

One of my classmates at USC was a guy named Ken Tsumura. His most recent credit was as an exec producer on "Curious George." The first time I saw Ken's name in credits was on The Simpsons as production manager. George Takei, who played Hiro's father on Heroes, has done voices on three episodes of The Simpsons. That's two again (I could cheat and say it's only one, because I met George Takei at my first sci-fi convention, but getting autographs doesn't count, I don't think).

You know, it's a fun game to play with Kevin Bacon, but it gets a little depressing when I start playing it with my own name.