Gonzales-Gonzales and Hunkee

Fame is weird, isn't it?
I saw Soul Plane the other day. Very funny movie. Unfortunatly despite the title Don Cornelius is NOT in this film, but Tom Arnold is.

Tom plays Mr. Hunkee. It is pronuced HONKY. Get it? He just came back from a vacation and is flying on the Soul Plane. Wanna know where he went on vacation? CRACKER Land! Wow, aren't the writers of Soul Plane subtle?
Anyway, it was great to see Tom Arnold on a movie screen. Tom was in one of my all time favorite DUMB films; The Stupids.

The plot of The Stupids is pretty, well, stupid. Stanley Stupid (Tom Arnold) wakes up to find that his garbage was stolen right out of the can. He vows to get to the bottom of this conspiracy. It contains some of the craziest scenes ever put on film, Captain Kangaroo, Jenny McCarthy and the worst acting EVER by an extra. His name was Max Landis.

Max is the son of The Stupids director John Landis. He is spray painting a wall, when he gets a bucket of paint dumped on him. He turns to the camera and before he even opens his mouth I was stunned by his bad acting. He hadn't SAID anything yet. He couldn't convincingly act like he had paint dumped on him, even though he HAD paint dumped on him.

Max was a lucky guy, his dad is a famous director and he gets put to the front of the line regardless of his lack of ability. Millions of other kids are trying to become actors and he gets the part. Other budding actors are eating nothing but sandwiches made from cigarettes to STUNT thier growth and making cute faces until thier cheeks BLEED, but we get Max Landis.

Max got a lucky break, so did Tom Arnold. Tom married Rosanne Barr and next thing you know he was a star. Years later Nicole Kidman would try this same thing; sadly for Nicole, Rosanne Barr wasn't interested and she had to marry Tom Cruise instead.

This brings to mind the fascinating case of Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales. Pedro appeared as a contestant on Grouch Marx's You Bet Your Life and what followed was one of the funniest moments in game show history.

Pedro was the perfect straight man to Groucho, and the audience responded in a big way.

Groucho:If we got together as an act, what would it be called?
Pedro: Gonzales-Gonzales and Marx
Groucho: Do you believe that? Two men in the act, and I get third billing!

Legend has it that after the show, John Wayne contacted him and put him in several films. Pedro has since appeared in over 30 feature films from 1953-1995 (most notably Rio Bravo and The Love Bug). Talk about stretching your fifteen minutes of fame!

More recently we have had the whirlwind post game show sucess of Colleen Haskell. Colleen was one of the pretty girls on Survivor.
After the show she became the best example of stunt casting since Hulk Hogan in Mr. Nanny as she played the female lead in the Rob Schneider film The Animal.

If you want to see Colleen in a movie theater again, you're in luck. Go see Garfield. She will be attending the 6pm show at the El Capitain in Hollywood. Get there early and you can sit next to her.