- Martin Olson
-
Martin Olson is a comedy writer, television producer, stage director and composer. He is also a playwright and poet known for comedic and unusual subject matter and known as an original member of the notorious "Boston Comedy Scene."
Olson's encyclopedic satire Encyclopedia of Hell is published by Feral House (July 2011)[1]; the film rights were bought by producer Andrew Lazar for Mad Chance at Warner Bros.
Olson has received an Emmy nomination and an Ace Award for television writing and two Emmy nominations for song writing.
Screenplays
Olson sold his first spec screenplay "IQ 83" to Dreamworks SKG, produced by Andrew Lazar of Mad Chance.
As a result, he took a year off to write "Encyclopaedia of Hell," a satirical book, and sold the film rights to Warner Bros. through Andrew Lazar's Mad Chance Productions. With Ken Kaufman and Howard Klausner, Olson co-wrote the final draft of the screenplay adaptation of his book for WB under a new title, "D-Men."
Olson collaborated on a number of screenplays: with legendary special effects director Phil Tippet on the screenplay "Veronica's Daughter," with writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait on the screenplay "Sightings" for United Artists, with writer-comedian Rob Schneider on the screenplay "Family Disorder" for Touchstone, with writer-comedian Kevin Nealon on the screenplay "Late Bloomer," with Ken Locsmandi on the story and screenplay for "Bronson Beak," was a contributing story-writer/songwriter for Disney's Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension, and adapted the novel "The Man Who Was Thursday" by G. K. Chesterton as a screenplay for Andrew Lazar of Mad Chance.
Music and Songwriting
Olson is a twice-Emmy-nominated songwriter, and Annie-nominated songwriter. He has appeared as a singer on several television shows including SpongeBob SquarePants and Phineas and Ferb. His strange satirical songs were regularly featured on many television series, including London Underground (Comedy Central), Rocko's Modern Life (Nickelodeon), "Get That Puss Off Your Face" (HBO), Camp Lazlo (CN), Penn and Teller's Sin City Spectacular (FX) and The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat (ABC). Olson wrote or co-wrote 150 songs for Phineas and Ferb (Disney), and Olson and Bobcat Goldthwait co-wrote the theme song for "Don't Watch This Show" (Cinemax). In 2011, Olson co-wrote two songs for The Disney Channel with Dan Povenmire, Swampy Marsh and Bobby Lopez, co-writer of Broadway's The Book of Mormon.
Olson first collaborated with song-writer Jeff Root on four albums in the mid-70's, including "Idiot's Delight" (1975) praised by Beatles producer George Martin as "the best songs on a home-recorded disc I have ever heard."[2]
Music Awards: 2010 Emmy Nomination for Songwriting, [3] 2009 Emmy Nomination for Primetime Songwriting,[4] 1997 Annie Award Nomination for Songwriting in an Animated Series.
Background
In interviews for the Writers Guild of America, West's magazine Written By and thesop.org,[5] Olson stated that as a child he saw the eccentric comedian Brother Theodore ranting and raving on The Merv Griffin Show, and from that moment on he knew he would be a comedy writer. Before his death in 2001, Brother Theodore became a fan of Olson's first book, Encyclopaedia of Hell (Feral House, 2011), and wrote one of the quotes on the book's dust cover.
Raised in Boston, Massachusetts (USA), Olson began writing for comedians before there were any comedy clubs in Boston. He sent pages of jokes to Rodney Dangerfield, which were returned with the same polite note scrawled at the bottom, "Sorry, Marty!" (According to his agent's press kit, years later when writing for Penn & Teller in Las Vegas, Olson produced comedy bits with Dangerfield and the two became friends.)
Olson first sold comedy material to the hosts of local "Gong Shows" which began his career as a comedy writer.
Olson and Boston comedy
Olson's friends Paul Barclay and Bil Downes started the first comedy club in Boston in 1977. There Olson became house piano player between acts, and also performed as a comedian for the first two years with an absurdist deadpan act. His act consisted of playing the guitar and hosting "a show within the show" featuring other comedians as his eccentric guests. At the club every night for four years, Olson worked for and wrote with the comedians who became his friends - Lenny Clarke, Bobcat Goldthwait, Don Gavin, Jimmy Tingle, Barry Crimmins, Steven Wright, Denis Leary, Steve Sweeney, Joe Alaskey, Sean Morey and many others.
The Barracks
Olson and comedian Lenny Clarke became roommates in an apartment near Harvard Square where comedians from all over the country stayed while performing in their comedy club. Olson wrote for Clarke, who soon became the most popular comedian in Boston. Their apartment became known as The Barracks, a legendary hub of comedy and depravity that was the subject of a television special on Boston comedy in the 1980s, and also of the award-winning documentary on the Boston comedy scene When Standup Stood Out (2006) directed by filmmaker-comedian Fran Solomita.
Olson, the Ding Ho and Lenny Clarke's Late Show
When Barry Crimmins started the second comedy club in the Boston area, the Ding Ho, Olson became the piano player there. He began showing short films he wrote and directed. This led to Olson writing Lenny Clarke's Late Show, a late-night comedy TV series on TV-38 hosted and co-written by Lenny Clarke. This bizarre, two-hour weekly show attracted a small but dedicated cult following. After two years, however, Olson and Clarke were fired for airing two controversial segments ("News for Negroes" and "The Mentally Retarded Faith Healer" featuring Bobcat Goldthwait).
Olson and the West Coast comedy scene
Olson took his tapes from the show and drove cross-country to San Francisco with comedian Don Gavin. There, by coincidence, the 1980 San Francisco Comedy Competition was starting up, which offered a first prize of $10,000. Olson helped Gavin audition and make it into the finals. There Olson met his future wife Kay Furtado, a writer who had been flown to San Francisco to coach another comedian in the competition. A year later they married in a ceremony in San Francisco by comedian Michael Pritchard, attended by all of the local comedians. Olson and his wife moved to Los Angeles where they raised two children, Casey Olson and Olivia Olson.
Comedy writing
Olson's Los Angeles home became a halfway house for comedians coming to the city to perform and audition for shows. Meanwhile Olson wrote HBO comedy performance specials, became staff writer for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, wrote an award-winning series for Comedy Central in London and became head writer for many animated series voiced by his comedian friends. He was head writer for the first season of the Disney comedy series Phineas and Ferb.
Olson wrote, co-wrote or directed a number of off-beat stage plays in Los Angeles, including "The Head", "The Idiots", "I Never Knew My Father", "Torn" and "Cold Black Heart" at various theaters, including the Comedy Central Stage and the HBO Theater in Hollywood.
Impact on and affiliations in contemporary comedy
Specializing in writing comedy specials and staging one-man shows for comedians, Olson became producer-writer for Penn & Teller on their notorious FX variety series Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular.[6]
When Olson was a staff writer for Rocko's Modern Life, director Stephen Hillenburg showed Olson a comic book called "The Intertidal Zone" that Hillenburg drew as a student at Cal Arts. Olson loved it and suggested that Hillenburg rewrite it as an undersea cartoon series for Nickelodeon, which became SpongeBob SquarePants.[7]
Selling comedy screenplays to Dreamworks, United Artists, Touchstone Pictures, and Warner Bros., Olson was able to dedicate his time to writing and directing live stage performances in Hollywood at the HBO Theater, The Steve Allen Theater and Comedy Central Stage featuring well-known comedians and actors.
As an occasional actor, Olson has guest-starred in a live action sequence in SpongeBob SquarePants ("Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V"), in "Don't Watch This Show" by director-comedian Bobcat Goldthwait, in the documentary When Standup Stood Out by filmmaker Fran Solomita, on The Tonight Show playing an Indian yogi with Bobcat Goldthwait, as Marceline's Dad, Lord of Evil on Adventure Time, and in a featured role as a fundamentalist professor in the film The Anna Cabrini Chronicles by filmmaker Tawd B. Dorenfeld.
Martin Olson's brother, Thomas Olson, is a well-known dramatic film and stage actor. Olson's daughter, Olivia Olson, is a singer-songwriter, who starred and sang in the British comedy film Love Actually and plays Vanessa on Disney's Phineas and Ferb.[8] Olson also plays "The Lord of Evil" on Adventure Time, in which his real-life daughter Olivia plays his TV daughter Marceline the Vampire Queen.[9]
References
- ^ http://feralhouse.com/encyclopaedia-of-hell
- ^ Mp3 Jeff Root - The Secrets of Love tradebit.com - Retrieved: 8 April 2009
- ^ [1]
- ^ 60th Prime Time Emmy Noms: Music cinemusic.net - Retrieved: 8 April 2009
- ^ Interviewing Comedy Writer Martin Olson - Retrieved: 8 April 2009
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ [4]
- ^ http://frederatorblogs.com/adventure_time/2010/10/12/nightosphere-odds-ends/
Selected publications of Martin Olson
- Olson, Martin (2005). IQ 83. Martin Olson. http://www.martin-olson.com/pdf_files/IQ83-Olson-DreamWorks.pdf.
- Olson, Martin (2007). Invasion Manual of Earth. Martin Olson. http://martin-olson.com/invasion_manual.html.
- Olson, Martin (2007). Hitler's Dog: The Poems of Martin Olson. Martin Olson. http://martin-olson.com/Hitlersdog.html.
- Olson, Martin (2010). Imaginary History of Reality - Selected Poems. Martin Olson. http://www.issuu.com/emartin888/docs/imaginary_hist-8-8-10.
- Sheckley, Robert; Olson, Martin (2007). On the Good Ship Mandelbrot. Martin Olson. http://martin-olson.com/mandlebrot/mandlebrot.html.
- Screenplays by Martin Olson
External links
- Martin Olson at the Internet Movie Database
- Official website
- Trainor, Lisa (Kiczuk) (February 27, 1999). "Lisa (Kiczuk) Trainor interviews Martin Olson, writer for Rocko's Modern Life". The Rocko's Modern Life FAQ. Pat Trainor. http://www.title14.com/rocko/contributors/martin.html. Retrieved March 10, 2009.
Categories:- Living people
- American television writers
- American comedians
- American television producers
- American television directors
- People from Boston, Massachusetts
- Native American comedians
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