As some of you may know, Mike and I used to be famous. We used to publish a zine called Mister Density, which was dedicated to all things Crispin Hellion Glover. Because of our affiliation, we were privy to many unreleased CHG media forms. In addition to having a copy of his second (!!!) album, we also procured a copy of The Orkly Kid which was a re-telling of the true story of Groovin’ Gary from Beaver, Utah, and how his personality and quest for fame brought him into the local limelight as an Olivia Newton John impersonator. The man who filmed the essence of Groovin’ Gary for the local network was so enthralled he went on to write a movie about him. Groovin’ Gary’s story was interesting enough that a young Sean Penn tried out for the role, but ultimately, his characterization exists only as an audition piece. The actual movie, The Orkly Kid starred another young actor, Mr. Crispin Hellion Glover. The Beaver Trilogy captures the original news footage, Penn’s audition footage and the actual short film. As much as Crispin intrigues me, I never thought I’d see the day when he out-acted that young meister of Method, Mr. Penn. While Mr. Penn’s interpretation was essentially a precursor of Spicoli, Crispin captured the essence and nuance of Gary. The most interesting character in this trilogy was Gary himself, a handsome, swinging cat with a souped-up ride and CB radio, Gary exudes charisma on the screen, and although CHG did a great job capturing some of the nuance, he truly did not do justice to the person.

Groovin’ Gary:

Sean Penn:

CHG:

There are no comments yet. You could be the first!