Apollo Creed & Carl Leo: partners in crime

By Tracy Walters

What do these two hunks of men have in common?

The movie Creed comes out on Blu-ray today.  It is a spin-off and sequel to the Rocky film series, and tells the story of Apollo Creed's son.  But did you know that our very own movie Vision Man: Eye Contact has a special connection to the character of Apollo Creed?

The main villain in Vision Man: Eye Contact is the local crime boss of Vision Man's hometown of Boonville.  And spoiler alert: Boss Leo winds up beating the crap out of Vision Man at the end of the movie.

While trying to think of a name for the crime boss's character, I thought of Apollo Creed defeating Rocky Balboa at the end of the first Rocky movie.  Rocky, the protagonist of his eponymous movie, and Vision Man, the protagonist of HIS eponymous movie, were both beaten at the end of their respective movies by their respective antagonists.  (In Vision Man's case, horribly so!)  So, I used an anagram of Apollo Creed, and came up with the name Carl Leo.  Go ahead, rearrange the letters of Apollo Creed and see for yourself!  When you do, you'll notice there are some letters left over.  Those letters spell another word that might give you a clue about what Leo is the crime boss of.

So is that why I had Boss Leo to put on some boxing gloves and use them as part of one segment of Vision Man's beatdown?  I'd like to say it was, but actually I didn't even think of Apollo Creed being a boxer when I wrote that part.  I was simply thinking of yet another funny way for Leo to knock the snot out of Vision Man. Later on, Jon Boon McNutt, the actor who played Vision Man, suggested that Boss Leo may have been a boxer in the past.  Makes sense, considering that he also hit Vision Man's face like a punching bag at one point.  Of course, Leo also employed the elbow drop on Vision Man in one instance, so maybe he used to be a wrestler, too.

There is also a strange coincidence to this story.  Apollo Creed was played by actor Carl Weathers.  I've always known that was the name of the actor who played Creed, but it wasn't until I was writing this article that I realized that Carl is both the first name of the actor who played Creed, and the first name of the character of Boss Leo!  Freaky, huh?

Syfy show Face Off goes looking for the next Penzar Grat

This week's episode of Face Off on SyFy had the teams creating an alien bounty hunter.  The show mentioned that Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was one of reasons why alien bounty hunters are so popular.  Of course, we have our own Star Wars bounty hunter here at Dramedy Productions: Penzar Grat!

Penzar Grat: baddest of all bounty hunters...Star Wars or not

The teams' creations were pretty cool-looking.  None of them were anywhere as awesome-looking as Grat, of course, but they still looked good.  The picture below is of the winning team and their winning creation.  Click on the pic to see all of the teams and their creations.

Grat calls Ben Wolf a Jedibe, as in Jedi wannabe...so he'd probably call this dude a Gratabe

Star Trek™ Strange New Worlds Writing Contest

Star Trek is bringing back its Strange New Worlds fan fiction writing contest.  That means that anyone can write their own Star Trek story and submit it!  So Dramedy Productions' writers need to get on the ball!  We're looking at you, Jay Chipman (main writer of Star Wars: Coruscant?), Jon Boon McNutt (co-writer of Vision Man: Eye Contact), and Tracy Walters (co-writer of the aforementioned, plus sole writer of everything else).  Oh, and we're even looking at you, Ted Millikan (writer of Star Trek: Chicago) and Dylan Kinney (writer of Star Wars: Jedi Kwan Leep), who wrote a story each for Dramedy, even though we just never did get around to producing them for some reason!

Actually, come to think of it, Tracy did submit a story to Strange New Worlds a few years ago. Well, maybe this time, Tracy and the rest of his fellow Dramedy writers will all win prizes for their winning submissions!

It's just too bad our writers can't use Dramedy Productions' own Star Trek characters; we'd be guaranteed to win spots in the contest if we could write about the awesome adventures of Captain Cobalt Ben, Commander Convor Tark, and the the crew of the Starship Excalibur!

The Scar Destroyers to appear in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens...but who will play them??

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens will be coming to a theater near you on December 18, 2015.  It will be the first Star Wars movie in theaters since The Walt Disney Company bought the Star Wars franchise.  And it has just been announced that Dramedy Productions' own Star Wars characters, the Scar Destroyers, will be in the movie!  However, with this announcement has come a bit of controversy.

The five Scar Destroyers characters were originally created by a different person each to play in Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game by West End Games.  Then, years later, a movie based on the characters was made, but in some cases, the characters were played by people who did not create them.  Then, in the sequel, some of the characters changed actors again.

Dramedy Productions doesn't pay its castmembers.  The actors are in it because amateur filmmaking is a hobby the partakers enjoy during leisure time.  But some of the actors have quit playing or never even started playing characters that they created or didn't create.  But now, Disney is willing to pay the BIG BUCKS for some actors to play the Scar Destroyers.  And so now, all the various people who have ever had anything remotely to do with these characters now suddenly want to play them again or for the first time!  So Disney faced a really, really, really tough decision about who to cast.

So let's run down the list of the five Scar Destroyers characters and the actors who played/never played them:

1. PENZAR GRAT
Tracy Walters created Penzar Grat for the RPG and played him in both movies, so no choice needed here.

Tracy drinking an alcoholic beverage after making his millions playing Grat.

2. BEN WOLF
Ted Millikan created Ben Wolf for the RPG and played him in both movies, so no choice needed here, either.

Ted, living LARGE on the millions he made playing Wolf!

3. LEX NOVA
Jeremy McNutt created this character for the RPG, but he left Dramedy years before the movie started production.  So Kevin Shelby played Nova.  Who should play Nova now??

Jeremy (happy Captain America)?? Or Kevin (happy lumberjack)?

4. ROBERT KRAIG
Jon Boon McNutt created this character for the RPG.  McNutt left Dramedy years before the movie started production, so in the movie series, Kraig was played by Dylan Kinney.  (McNutt did return to Dramedy after filming began and had other roles in the movie series.)  However, Kinney dropped out of the second movie before finishing it, even though the footage he filmed was still used in the movie, to hilarious results.  So who should play Kraig now??

Jon (Weird Beard)?  Or Dylan (Weird Beard with java?)

5. JON BON NEBULA
Jeremy Howard created this character for the RPG.  Some time later, though, he dropped off the face of the earth.  So Mitch Trotter agreed to play the character.  Then he dropped off the face of the earth, too.  So we had to cast someone else.  That someone was Jay Chipman.  Chipman left Dramedy before the sequel, though, so Donny Byrd played him instead.  So who should play Bon Nebula now??

Actually, we don't know who's who in this picture, they all look so much like Jon Bon Nebula!

Well, don't get stressed out, because Disney has made a judgement in the casting fiasco.

They have decided that picking an already-made character template in an RPG and then giving that character a name does not constitute much of a "creation," so the "creators" are out.

This means Kevin Shelby will play Lex Nova.

As for Robert Kraig, Disney finally realized that Kraig can't be in the new movie, because in the Scar Destroyers sequel, Kraig turned to the Dark Side and so then got brutally and horrifically murdered by Penzar Grat, Ben Wolf, Elan Rai, and Miko Von Edward's ghost.

And as for Jon Bon Nebula, see who gets to play him in the new movie here!

McNutt brothers banned from making any more Dramedy Productions Star Wars movies

Scott McNutt, who played Jedi Master Miko Von Edward in Star Wars: Quest for Vengeance, and his brother Jon Boon McNutt, who played Elan Rai in Star Wars: Beware the Dark Side, have been banned from appearing in any further Dramedy Productions Star Wars productions.

The Walt Disney Company, which took over the Star Wars franchise in 2012, has recently discovered a picture taken at The Hall of Presidents in Walt Disney World in Florida of the McNutt brothers disrespecting a part of the park.

The McNutts, having fun with the Prez

Disney sent the following to Dramedy Productions about the picture:

"After seeing this picture, we must respectfully request these two heathens no longer be allowed in your Star Wars productions.  We must protect our properties, both theme parks and movie franchises, as best as possible."

Dramedy Productions then released its own statement:

"We will comply with your wishes.  Scott McNutt's character, Miko Von Edward, is dead anyway, and as for Jon McNutt, there's a different actor playing Elan Rai in every movie, so it's no big loss with either of these actors.  We really couldn't give a shit."

As for the McNutt brothers, they weren't too happy and released their own statement.  But we must warn you, their statement is NSFW (not safe for work).  But if you dare, you can read their statement here.

Jon Jay: baseball player and Dramedy Productions star?

The St. Louis Cardinals were eliminated from baseball's National League Championship Series last week.  But did you know that a player on that team has an eerie connection to Dramedy Productions?

Jon Jay has played for the St. Louis Cardinals for the last few seasons.  St. Louis is the closest Major League baseball team to Dramedy Productions.

Jon Jay, in the past, has played for the Memphis Redbirds, a Minor League baseball team.  Memphis is the closest Minor League team to Dramedy Productions.

Jon and Jay are the first names of two of the biggest contributors to Dramedy Productions' past, Jon Boon McNutt and Jay Chipman.

FREAKY..................................

Jon Boon McNutt (Vision Man himself) to be a guest at Superman Celebration in Metropolis, IL, this June

The Superman Celebration has announced the Celebrity Guests for the 36th annual festival to be held June 12-15 in Metropolis, IL.

At the top of the guest list is our very own Jon Boon McNutt, who played Vision Man in our 2006 movie Vision Man: Eye Contact.  The Vision Man movie was also shown on a big screen there in Metropolis in 2008 at the very first Superman Celebration Fan Film Competition.

The other two major guests at the Celebration this year are Dean Cain, who played Superman on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and Billy Dee Williams, who played Harvey Dent in Batman (1989) and Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars saga.  But we all know who everyone will REALLY be there to see!  To find out more about the Celebration, and when the special guests will be there, click here.