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 Wanna see my chest hair, it's long and curly...  Hey there interwebs, looks like the cat is out of the bag on another DVD bonus project of mine, Mr. Johnny Bravo himself. This one was a whirlwind of fun and I'm incredibly appreciative of the folks at Warner Bros, Cartoon Network, Trailer Park and of course, series creator Van Partible for trusting me with Johnny's hair... hopefully not one of them is out of place. Read the full press release over on TVShowsonDVD: DVD Special Features * Bringing Up Bravo - Series documentary that will allow viewers to explore the beginnings, middles, endings, and everything in between of Johnny Bravo * Audio Commentary - With Van Partible, Jeff Bennett, and Seth MacFarlane (Troy's Note: More specifics on these to come, I'm sure) * Johnny Bravo Original Pencil Tests - Introduced by Van Partible, featured are some of the original pencil tests used in the production process * Seth McFarlane Audio Track - Listen to Seth MacFarlane lay down an entire temp track on his own, well before he would become known for his hit show Family Guy Want to help keep food on my table (he says with puppy dog eyes)? Pre-order now from Amazon! -Troy New Ghostbusters The Private Sector Column!  More Ghostbusters nerdery (as happens every Wednesday of the week on the major Ghostbusters fan sites) in the form of another Private Sector column. This week, I come clean about my childhood filled with larceny... Intrigued? You can read it over over on Protoncharging.com! - Troy New blog up... Smokey and the Bandit and... Twitter?  If there's one thing that I've learned having suddenly found myself unknowingly in the world of marketing buzzwords, "social networking is changing everything." Indeed, things like AIM, Facebook, and Twitter have changed a great deal in our day to day lives, but I got to thinking... you know what... Twitter is literally just the new CB radio... come back? Read more over on the blog... - Troy You're (Still) a Good DVD, Charlie Brown...  Some more great reviews, for the "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" DVD that I produced the bonus content for... presumably my last that I'll get to work on, so I'm still glad that the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Here's a few more of my favorites... From DM Speaks: "What is worth the price of this DVD, however, is the special feature. 'Animating A Charlie Brown Musical' is both educational and entertaining. It’s a featurette about the live-action musical and how it became an animated show. If you're a die-hard Peanuts fan, you'll want to pick up a copy of this DVD." From Sitcoms Online: "As for special features, these sets always have something and here we get a nice featurette like usual! It is titled 'Animating a Charlie Brown Musical' and runs 14:41. We find out the 20-year history of the Clark Gesner album that evolved into an Off-Broadway hit before this special was even created. Interviewed are Lee Mendelson (executive producer), Nat Gertler (Peanuts Historian), Dean Stolber (original Broadway Charlie Brown), and Jeannie Schulz (Charles' wife. There is also a clip from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from Feb. 7, 1973 with Charles Schulz! How cool!" Make sure that you pick up a copy (and copies for your friends, family, even the random people you walk past on the street that do their best to avoid eye-contact). I don't get a kick back (unless you buy from Amazon here, wink, wink, nudge, nudge) but it would be great to see WB continue to release more of these great special editions! -Troy Everyone can relax, I figured out how ABC can boost ratings!  Hey ABC, remember me? It's Troy. I used to sit every Friday night and be entertained by you for hours... well, at least until 20/20 started. Now I sit every Tuesday night and am entertained for 45 minutes during LOST... but what are you going to do when LOST is gone? You can't rely on Dancing with the Stars forever. But you know what, I did some analyzing and I think I figured out the way to get you back to the top of the network food chain. Hear me out... theme songs... Read all about it over on my blog... www.troybenjamin.com/blog -Troy Johnny Bravo Season One DVD Announced... But What's On It? Warner Home Video has announced the release date of one of my more recent DVD projects, Johnny Bravo Season One! It's the first in the line of Cartoon Network Hall of Fame sets, so hopefully the content on there does the name justice. What exactly is on there? Can't tell you quite yet, but let's just say that there were a whole lot of good looking people involved... According to TVShowsonDVD.com, it'll be on shelves May 11th, but if you're like me, you can hit that pretty l'll picture up there above to pre-order it so you get it the minute it's released. I'll post more about the content once it's announced by the powers that be! -Troy You're a Good DVD, Charlie Brown... The fine folks at Warner Home Video released my latest, and most likely last Peanuts related DVD today, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'. The restoration of the special looks fantastic and the Trailer Park folks did a great job as always on the simple and elegant menus. I have to say that I'm awfully proud of "Animating a Charlie Brown Musical", as it's the last documentary that I produced for the franchise last year (and the last that I got to cut with my good friend Mr. Jason Hardwick), and we were able to pack as much into that 14 minutes as humanly possible. There's some reviews out there on the interwebs that criticize that we didn't discuss the 1999 adaptation starring Kristin Chenoweth (there just wasn't time as the point of this doc was to focus on the origins and up to the animated show in the 1980s)... and another common gripe I've seen is that we don't show footage from any of the stage adaptations (you have no idea how difficult it is to license performances from the stage, I tried and failed - sorry folks. What's the lesson to be learned? Never try). But otherwise, general response seems to be positive! Here's a few of my favorites: From DVDTalk: "Featuring comments from regular Deluxe Edition participants including producer Lee Mendelson, this all-too-brief segment details some of the hurdles (and advantages) involved in adapting 20-year-old source material. Of course, Peanuts animated specials have always involved some sort of adaptation, but this particular project proved to be entirely different. Performances of the musical are often described...but never shown, unfortunately." From DVDmg.com: "'Animating' talks about the original Good Man album, its adaptation into a stage production, and then its move onto the TV screen as a cartoon special. 'Animating' traces the production’s complex history well and gives us a nice overview. I especially like the short snippet from a mid-1970s Charles Schulz appearance on The Tonight Show." From DVDFanatic: "Featuring interviews with producer Lee Mendelson, Peanuts historian Nat Gertler, Jeannie Schulz (widow) and Dean Stolber, who played Charlie Brown in the original 1967 cast, this new bit tells the story of how the 1985 special was based on the 1967 play, which was based on a 1965 record (of songs about the gang), which was based on the original comic strips. Very cool and very interesting, it's good for fans of any age." And thusly... and sadly... that might bring a close to my work on the Peanuts specials. It was a fun ride, even if Lucy still never let me kick the football. -Troy Some reviews coming in for "I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown"!  Some reviews have started coming in for the most recent Peanuts documentary that I had the opportunity to produce. I took all the bad ones and had a good cry over them, but here are some of the good! From "Comics Worth Reading": "There’s a lot of interesting information in the special that makes Rerun even more involving as a character." From "Rob Will Review": "Considering how many problems I have with the special itself, I was surprised by how insightful I found the accompanying documentary, “Sibling Rivalry: Growing Up Van Pelt,” to be. Including interviews with Bill Melendez, who directed all of the Peanuts cartoons, Charles Schultz’s widow, Jean, and others, “Sibling Rivalry” delves into Rerun as a character–why Schultz originally decided to include him, how he functioned in the strip, his evolution–and actually makes him a far more understandable character than the film is capable of doing. It was particularly informative to see how the writers of the special used actual Peanuts strip in developing the story. If only they had been able to recreate the heart of the series as well as they replicated the plots." From WNCT in Greenville, NC: "The featurette, 'Sibling Rivalry: Growing Up Van Pelt' is an insightful look into Charles Schulz’s use (and lack thereof) of Rerun Van Pelt. (...) What is most interesting in this featurette is mention of the belief that Schulz used Rerun to mirror himself. This somewhat contradicts the belief that Charlie Brown was a mirror of Schulz." Don't forget, you can pick up "I Want a Dog" through Amazon by clicking here, and also my latest (and most likely my last, sadly) Peanuts documentary on "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" hits stores next week! -Troy New writings are abound everywhere! And, as every Wednesday usually provides, there's a new Ghostbusters fan column that I've written making the rounds at all of the major Ghostbusters fansites. This week I wonder if Ghostbusters existed "in real life" if they would be treated like the rock stars they are in the movies, or if we'd treat them like any other public service worker. Sound interesting? Of course it does, right? I mean, I can't be the only one that finds this stuff fascinating... right? Guys? Guys? - Troy We Are Spirits Living In a Rendered World  It's okay; I can hear your groans all the way through the interwebs... someone else spewing about how CGI has ruined movies, like we haven't heard that before. But, especially after watching a few twenty to thirty year old movies over the Christmas Break, it continues to be clear to me that movies have completely lost a sense of peril after the advent of CG effects. Oh, and movies have people falling uncontrollably through the air a whole lot more than they used to... www.stillplayingwithtoys.com/mblog -Troy Troy Pretends to Know Something About Marketing More Ghostbusters nerdery (as happens every Wednesday of the week on the major Ghostbusters fan sites) in the form of another Private Sector column. This time, I take on how I think the marketing people are going to have a bit of a challenge with the new Ghostbusters III film on the horizon... You can read it over over on Protoncharging.com! - Troy New blog up and running about Boardwalk USA! New blog up! Christmas Time in Holl--- er... Franktown Troy recollects Sunday Nights at the Movies... Indeed, more nerdom in the form of another Ghostbusters column that has been syndicated to all of the Ghostbusters websites. This time, I take on how monumental Sunday Night at the Movie airings of new release films on national TV used to be. Give it a read over on Protoncharging.com! - Troy Yet another Private Sector column up on the webs... Showing my nerdiness yet again, my weekly Ghostbusters column is online, this time I hone what awfully minimal expertise I have in DVD bonus content and attempt my "dream collection" release of Ghostbusters on Blu-ray... Told you... nerdiness. The ladies love it. I think. Check it out here on Proton Charging! - Troy Den of Geek Reviews Clone Wars Season 1...  ...and calls The Jedi Temple Archives their favorite part, woo hoo! http://www.denofgeek.com/Reviews/352270/star_wars_the_clone_wars_season_1_bluray_review.html -Troy Want to hear Troy blab for about 20 minutes about Ghostbusters?  The good folks over at Ghostheads were kind enough to ask me onto their show for a second time, and they were kind enough to keep a whopping twenty minutes of the interview on their podcast... so drink a bit of caffeine and try not to get too annoyed at my throaty awful voice, and head on over to Ghostheads.com to give it a listen! -Troy Audi Design Challenge Video goes live on the YouTubes It's not every day that you get to see the inner workings at an auto design center, but if you would have told me a month ago that I'd be filming with the Audi designers in Santa Monica last week, I'd have thought you were joking. Alas, we cranked out a fully produced piece in record time having shot the A-roll for this just last week. Take a look, enjoy the wave of the future... -Troy The Digital Bits reviews Star Wars: The Clone Wars!  I know, I know, we're supposed to avoid reading reviews... I remember working for a few folks here in town that would make me sort out the good reviews from the bad reviews and put them in a pile, and then all he would do is look at which pile was bigger and be done with it. But that said, I have nothing but respect for Bill Hunt and to have him enjoy the special features on Clone Wars as it sounds like he did means a whole lot. http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviewshd/bdreviews111109.html -Troy Welcome to the new website! Powered by Coranto |
 Troy Benjamin is a Los Angeles based writer, producer, publisher, and sometimes very vocal lounge singer at the Holiday Inn, Paramus*... As a feature film producer, screenwriter, novelist, comic book writer/self-publisher, DVD and Blu-ray Supplemental Content Producer, blogger, ENG producer, and amateur (read: poor) right wing hockey player, Troy doesn't get a whole lot of sleep but spends a whole lot of time doing the things that he loves. Having been born and raised in the small town of Franktown, Colorado - a home to outdoors adventurers and mountain ski bums who braved the worst of I-70 conditions just to be the first to thrash through untracked powder, Troy's restlessness and want for adventure (complete with having several sage-like mentors along the way) would have made Joseph Campbell proud. His journeys since childhood have taken him from coast to coast, from productions in New Zealand and Rarotonga, to the strange and often treacherous jungles of beautiful downtown Burbank, California. Troy graduated from Los Angeles' Loyola Marymount University with a Bachelor of Arts in film production. After page checking what seemed to be ten thousand scripts and learning how to make several cups of coffee as an unpaid intern for several years, Troy then worked under a personal hero and creative film producer Trevor Albert for four years. There Troy assisted Albert in the 20th Century Fox films "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and "Because of Winn-Dixie." Troy is a prolific writer, having written several comic books for his self-published label (which also doubles as his production company) Still Playing with Toys and is also currently working on several novels and screenplays of varied genres. In addition, at one of Hollywood's largest multimedia powerhouses Trailer Park, Troy has acted as a producer on dozens of high profile studio DVD and Blu-ray releases, EPKs, publicity reels, theatrical trailers, and television commercials. His clients represent the top studios in the entertainment industry including Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Summit Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Electronics of America, and Walt Disney Resorts. And if you really want to feed Troy's unhealthy narcissism, you can also visit his message board called Troy's Place where he procrastinates and chats to some people that actually might be paying attention to things that he does (and risks alienating some of those that don't by calling out pop culture things as he sees them). *Note: Troy is not actually a lounge singer. But he aspires to be. He's also not a huge fan of having to talk in the third person on his main website bio and knows that his friends and acquaintances will be poking fun any time now...
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