Josh Robert Thompson: A Talent At The Forefront Of Media And New Business
Josh Robert Thompson is an immense talent — comedian, actor, and voice actor. I first saw him when I found the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS in 2012. I think I was searching YouTube for interviews of an actor with a movie coming out and immediately I started watching all of Craig’s interviews I could find, and became a regular viewer of the Late Late Show. Besides Johnny Carson, the Late Late Show was easily the best late night talk show going. Craig is very smart, handsome, amazing with women, extremely quick witted, and makes acknowledged lies sound true. At the same time he was painfully honest about his alcohol and drug addictions of the past, wouldn’t judge people for the same, and was never afraid of being silly or goofy. Light years faster than the other four hosts (Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon), no actor could “handle” Craig and would be exposed, either poorly or endearingly, for who they really are. Such a talent is rare and to find someone who could improvisationally play at the same level, and even challenge Craig is rarer. And yet there was such a man: Josh Robert Thompson.
The show went through three big changes during the 10 year history. For the first five years 2005–2009 it was just Craig, although Josh was hired to voice some parts for sketches and did a few sketches as an actor playing Arnold Schwarzenegger and others. Then in 2010 Craig on a whim had an operational robot skeleton built from a bet he won. Josh was hired at first to just do pre-recorded voices, but then in a seminal moment for the show and I think television history, while at a location shoot with Craig just to do recorded voices of the robot, his talent was apparent and Craig hired him as his “sidekick” Geoff. Thus the next two years (2010–2011) was the second phase of the program, where Josh matched Craig punch for punch every night, or Monday through Thursday afternoon recording sessions. But during this time Josh was very grateful for this opportunity and, compared to his later work on the show, was a bit reserved. Understandably he was new to working every day with the crew and cast and was feeling out the situation. Reigning in his unbridled talent, you can see watching the show during this time that Josh would only speak when spoken to by Craig, or at very obvious indicated moments. Josh has acknowledged this later.
The third phase of the program happened coincidentally at about the time I discovered Craig and Josh. The last four years, 2011–2014, saw a move to a new, bigger, flashier studio and more importantly, Josh letting go of his restraint and becoming at least half, if not more, of the show. During 2012 when I was first watching the show I would get annoyed when Craig would move on from a subject, motif, or improvisational aside when Josh clearly had more to offer. Maybe Craig was done with it or thought he had to move on, but the silence gap of what could have been a hilariously funny moment was deafening. These would happen regularly until Craig started to leave the space for Josh to fill. I thought at least people seeing the show, whether non-business viewers or producers and directors, would clearly see and feel the talent left on the table and available by the man playing Geoff.
Apparently, at least in terms of offers after the show, this didn’t happen.
Josh was born and raised in Cleveland Ohio in an area of the country and circumstances that produced Robin Williams. They are comparable talents. Both were only children left to themselves, came up with voices alone in rooms, made fun of authority figures in school mostly to avoid getting beaten up, and through much pain and feeling grew outstanding improvisational talent. Josh is Robin if Robin had sidetracked into Scientology instead of cocaine (although frankly, Josh followed a very attractive girlfriend into Scientology, so who’s to blame him?). A small, wiry, handsome boy born to a classically beautiful mother and somewhat bigoted step father, Josh got a Fisher Price cassette tape recorder for a gift as a child. Fascinated with the magic of hearing his voice play back immediately and accurately after recording, Josh started recording conversations with himself, first as himself, then as characters. Early on this led to seamless multi character dialogue that would become a hallmark and staple of Josh. Josh spent his childhood and early teens in the 1980s in the basement building sets of the Johnny Carson show, and introducing pretend and sometimes real friends as “special guests.”
Several people and circumstances formed Josh’s philosophies and characters. In middle school a kid always punched Josh in the arm in homeroom, not in a joking way, until one day Josh commented on something and made him and the others laugh. Josh didn’t get punched and continued to strive through the years to make the group and bully laugh so he never got punched. Still to this day Josh metaphorically sees that kid in his audience, whoever they may be, and is afraid that the group will like him, and accept him.
Sent to a Catholic high school, and one white kid among a mostly African-American neighborhood and school, Josh learned to fit in. An initially unsure and unsettling encounter alone with a gravelly voiced toothless African-American man at a bus stop led to Josh’s character Darnell Jenkins and a love for that voice. A high pitched, gay-affected “married” manager at a fast food job after high school spawned the hilariously self centered gay character Robin Sooper. And the combination of Catholic school, Pentecostal church, and particularly a Southern manager at a cable company job after college named Bill Greene led to the great Reverend Apostle BG. Josh’s illicit thrill of renting horror movies in his middle teens, drawing him for the scare and imagery, caused him to make his own horror shows and translated later into goth and a lifelong love of movies.
Josh moved to Los Angeles and payed his way through a degree in television by working at Blockbuster. I wish I had been in Los Angeles at that time, to walk into the Blockbuster where Josh was working! Always kind and professional to the rude customers, he would point out quality films and then be berated for not having an umpteenth copy of a recent B movie. With mounting annoyance at the customers and Blockbuster’s mass-appealing unintellectual policies, he dramatically quit one day. Before and after Blockbuster at night and on the weekends Josh made public access television doing all of his characters with friends. In seeing these public access tapes it’s clear that Josh’s talent, just like Robin Williams, didn’t just get this way. His talent was apparent from the beginning — the public access quality was great. Josh has said this was his real school in learning how to work a studio and run a show.
The fact that Josh doesn’t have a TV show doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have one. He should have his own show. He has everything a studio wants, he’s a star, writer, producer, editor — a one man band and intimate ensemble actor. What he has produced so far on his own, three versions of television shows, the lead in the movie Nowhere Girl, some of the highest quality Youtube shorts, 25 golden radio play podcasts, forty more personal podcasts and interviews, and hundreds of videos on Periscope, Facebook Live, and Youtube, each worth money but not paid, is beyond what would be needed to book a contract with a studio, not including his work as Geoff Peterson, voice acting, and ten years of public access shows. Surely people at studios have seen his work, or upon meeting him realize what they have in front of them — why hasn’t he gotten a contract? Studios, unfortunately, are running an old business and don’t know what they want, or know what’s good for them.
Technically there is no need for television channels, physical cables, or the mass untargeted advertising that funds it. The fiber optic cable, which delivers the internet, is superior in every way and delivers everything people need. The speeds are far greater, thus the highest quality, formats can be any, there is interactivity, it’s available anytime, and no ads or minimal targeted ads. New media businesses are already delivering on this; Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Video. With artists’ direct delivery or working with these new studios on the internet, there is no need for the old studios, and they know it. The Boomers are the last generation that watches TV in the old format, it’s unwanted by every newer generation. But with any old business model that should go away, the entrenched parties don’t want to close up shop and desperately cling to the increasingly diminishing but still large dollar sums of mass advertising.
That business of advertising will go away in 5 to 10 years as the Baby Boom generation dies off, but before it does, while the studios desperately invest in advertising the way they always have, television shows delivered by old studios look like the legitimate big game in town. They are not, but by putting up a good front and moving lots of capital around, the old studios can convince others that they are still legitimate. So picking a new show for a business that will go away, from a studio executive’s view, is arbitrary. They are middlemen now, and we don’t need them anymore. And as curators they have a terrible track record. Every year Nielsen ratings are down, no shows “stick” like they used to, and the only successes are unplanned. But the studios do have sheep for sheep’s sake, everyone watching, and group think thinking “it must be good.”
Ironically Josh fits perfectly in the old studio system of the 1930s, both in being a superstar talent among half a dozen retained by the studio and in his timeless comedy. Just as these studios used to do, Josh should be given a long term contract and retainer money to make whatever he wants, have the personnel to spend no time on busywork, and just make things, perform, or relax and absorb with every minute of his time. The world would benefit greatly.