INTERVIEWS

Greg Grabianski: Beavis and Butthead to Scary Movie

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By Jason Nawara.

Over the last twenty years, Greg Grabianski has invaded our minds subtly and not so subtly from a grinning Batboy on the cover of the Weekly World News, to the classic Cracked magazine in all of its satirical glory, to Beavis and Butthead and Scary Movie. Now, Greg is chasing the fun with his strange crew of brothers and sisters in arms around the world of animation, be it on Cartoon Network, or hosted on the internet. With Youtube slowly taking over the way the average person consumes content, Greg has kept busy by filling the world full of his bizarre comedic creations. Executioner with the hilarious Brian Posehn as said Executioner, is his latest sick endeavor on the Rug Burn Youtube channel.

It was my pleasure to talk with Greg, a fellow Chicagoan, about the changes the animation and comedy industry have gone through the last twenty years, and ultimately, where it’s going.

You’ve been in the game a long time, tell us what it was like writing comedy in the old days known only as: the mid 90’s.

*Takes on old man voice* Well, you see, we would carve our scripts on blocks of stone with a chisel! Yeah, my first gig was Beavis and Butthead and that was great. It was right out of college and it was just so easy and fun to get into. I used to watch the show and I would think “Man, that’s funny. I want to write for this.” So I called up MTV and I said “How do I write for Beavis and Butthead?” (laughs). So they said “Hold on.” and I eventually got through to the head writer Chris Brown and we hit it off. He asked for some writing samples, and I used to write for those old supermarket tabloids like Weekly World News, and off the strength of those, he asked me for some ideas. That was the start of that. That was a lot of fun, really just a lot of fun. It was just the back and forth of pitching ideas and Chris and Mike Judge would approve ideas and we would just write ’em up, and back in those days you had to fax in the script (laughs).

That seems like a pretty easy transition into the world of writing and entertainment, just calling up MTV. Pretty damn unique.

Yeah it was, it was and you couldn’t really do that anymore, but their pay was horrible, although the episodes we did back in 2011 were fairly decent… But back in the day, it was ridiculously bad. It was like five hundred bucks and I don’t know how many people were stampeding to get in there. I guess you just kind of have to go for it, because if you don’t you never know.

Beavis and Butthead

What inspired you to become the writer that you have become? Giving us Scary Movie, Cracked, Beavis and Butthead. What happened to you, Greg?

I locked myself in a refrigerator for 24 hours and I lost 80% of my brain capacity. No, I don’t know I like to have fun and if it’s not fun it’s not worth doing. That’s always been my philosophy and I’ve gone through life that way. I don’t chase money I chase fun and working with cool, crazy people and things just somehow work out if you keep doing it.

You worked for Cracked back when it was Cracked proper. It’s not what it used to be, do you still read it?

I don’t really no. I don’t really have time to read a lot of stuff online. I usually go to The Onion for my humor needs. It’s not as satirical or as directly satirical as when I used to write for it. There’s funny stuff I see on there for sure, but yeah it’s completely different from what it used to be. And that was my training ground, Cracked, as some wet behind the ears kid. I got to learn from these old Mad Magazine writers and editors who had jumped ship to Cracked, and they kind of taught me and mentored me. Lou Silverstone was probably my biggest mentor coming up. He was a Mad writer for about thirty years, and he had some hilarious stuff, and he took me under his wing and would sometimes be brutally honest with me and tell me “this was funny, or this wasn’t, this is too long winded” you know? I kind of developed my style over there.

What did you learn the most from working at Cracked?

Keep it brief, keep it visual, and you still see that in stuff that I do. Keep it physical and visual was one of the best things they taught me. I used to write these long scripts, and I look at my early scripts at Cracked, a Power Rangers parody and I cringe because it just goes on and on and on.

Let’s talk about Rug Burn, starting with: What is it?

It’s a combination between Titmouse Studios, who makes Metalocalypse and are just some of the coolest guys in the business, combined with another supercool studio called Six Point Harness and together they’re putting out these crazy, experimental, whacko cartoons with no oversight whatsoever. It’s just creators going mental, and you can’t spend a ton of money, but go nuts. I was really attracted to that aspect of it. The whole not having to go to studios and explain yourself to executives or anything like that. So that’s a big appeal for me there.

With channels like Rug Burn, or Jash, I’m sure you’ve heard of them, and these Youtube channels really carving themselves a piece of the pie, do you think there is a new ceiling for getting noticed? It’s almost as if Youtube was like getting in on cable before it was big. I guess that’s a long-winded way for me to ask if you think it’s even harder to get noticed now with all of the crap and quality on the net.

I think it helps to have someone who has a built-in audience like Rug Burn so you can spotlight your stuff. If you’re just a guy in your basement making a cartoon and you release it, it may get hits, and it may get completely lost in the shuffle of just crap. So it does unfortunately help to go through a middle man like Mondo and all of these others. Plus, working with people at Rug Burn, you meet all of these talented people who help bring your vision to life and so in that instance it’s working very well.

The Executioner

The Executioner on Rug Burn

How do you suggest people get noticed or get into these Youtube channels?

Try to get connected with these studios and if you’re talented, people will recognize and bring you on board. Like if I was getting started today I would see Metalocalypse and say “Wow! I want to write for you!”

But there are probably millions of people now on the internet who are trying to get noticed in that fashion. How do you separate the grain from the chaff?

They have to back it up with a clip or a script you know. Otherwise it could be just another guy trying to make it.

Do you feel like Flash animation is the latest big boom and best way for independents to get their work seen?

I tried to learn Flash myself and tried to learn to animate myself but I just couldn’t do it. I was too impatient. I tried. I tried, but I’m just not wired that way. For me it’s just so much more fun to write the stuff and make that as good as I can then give it to the animators that are much more talented than me. That said, you’ll have to follow your gut and follow what’s fun for you and animate and set the bones on the flesh, that’s great. It’s the purest form of your vision, as long as it’s fun. As long as it’s not agony. For me it was agony and I just said “fuck it.” I would rather work with people who can do it, and a lot of times it works out well because you can work with people who take your vision to the next level and do things with your vision that you never expected. Rather than working alone in your basement, it’s fun to throw people into the mix. The collaboration is always exciting. It depends on what your temperament is like, your personality. Keep it fun. If it’s fun – go. That’s always the rule.

That’s advice that I myself need to take to heart. Keep it fun. How did you come to be this Zen-like Greg Grabianski?

At any time that I haven’t subscribed to that philosophy or strayed from it, I became very unhappy. When you start letting other people dictate what you write, it’s a recipe for depression. And if you’re only writing to make money, any time I’ve done it’s been a big mistake. So I’ve tried to learn from that and said never again. Everyone is different and I’m just telling you what works for me, I would rather go fold boxes at UPS than do something that makes me miserable or something that’s not giving me joy. If you’re using your gift, this amazing talent, and you’re using it for someone else to make some money, this brilliant gift isn’t making you happy. It’s almost a perversion of your powers. And you’re also kind of killing your creativity in a way when you do that. To me, that really creative part is when you find that child inside, just accepting that screwball kid inside you when you want to make your friends laugh and that’s when you’re at your most creative. Just having fun. If you shackle that kid down to pay the bills, you’re in danger of it becoming a habit and you don’t want to turn into a hack, we all know ’em, who just churns stuff out for a paycheck. I would just rather not, ever.

Scary Movie 2

Scary Movie 2

Were you ever caught in a position where you were writing something you really didn’t believe in?

Very rarely. I will walk away from something if it’s not fun. My first big gig was with the Keenan Ivory Wayans show in LA back in 1997 or 98. It was so much fun at first, and by the end I was making tremendous amounts of money, but I wasn’t having fun. It started to become a drag and sketches were getting killed and all the energy and fun was sucked from that gig. People couldn’t believe I walked away from that paycheck, and I was making about $4400 a week and I walked away from it. It just wasn’t fun, it started fun and turned to crap (laughs). It’s not easy, at the end of the day I felt atrophied and felt like it wasn’t what it was about.

You gave me some interesting advice once, and it was something Adam Sandler said to you a long time ago: “Stay healthy and it will all happen.” Can you explain the origin of that phrase?

It was a lot like the Beavis and Butthead situation. I was a big fan of Sandler on SNL, so I sent him some stuff I had written and called him up and left him a message. This is when he was a writer and not much of a performer on SNL and he wasn’t full time. So I sent a message saying how much I liked him and told him to check out my stuff. And he wrote back. Man, I wonder if I have that note anywhere around here… So he wrote back and he also took the time to call me, but I missed the call and he got the answering machine. I was still living with my Mom at the time, and she had her little Polish accent on the answering machine, and so Sandler comes on and is imitating my Mom, saying “Oh, hellooooo, this is for Greg, this is Adam Sandler” in a Polish lady accent. It was a pretty inspirational message he gave me. To me I always took it as; by being healthy — don’t pervert that special spark in you.

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Jason is a writer living in Chicago focusing on martial arts and videogames. You've seen his writing on SI's Fansided, Bloody-Disgusting and Creative Screenwriting. He wants to talk gaming and comedy with you @JasonNawara.

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