Greg Benson

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Greg Benson
Birth name Gregory Charles Benson
Born (1968-01-23) January 23, 1968 (age 56)
Dallas County, Texas
Nationality American
Spouse Kim Evey
Website http://www.mediocrefilms.com/

Gregory Charles Benson (born January 23, 1968)[1] is an American comedian, actor and director. His production company, Mediocre Films, creates comedic short films, generally for YouTube. He is a frequent director for The Guild.[2][3]

History

Born in Dallas, Texas in 1968,[1] Benson graduated from W. T. White High School in 1986. Eventually he moved to California, where he has since appeared in several television commercials. Benson is a sometime member of the ACME Comedy Theatre improv troupe in Hollywood, where he first worked with writer/actor Wil Wheaton, who has since appeared in a variety of Benson's projects.[4]

He started making videos in 2005, initially hosting them on his own Mediocre Films website.[5] Eventually he moved his distribution from his own site to YouTube, where within one month, "Greg Hits Hollywood", one of his shorts, was featured on the site's home page.[6] The video and its sequels feature Benson interviewing strangers as a pretext for hitting them with his microphone to see "what people will put up with just because they want to be on TV, or even just YouTube."[5] Since then, he has become a popular YouTube comedian, number 47 on the list of most subscribed comedians on YouTube. His most popular video as of early 2009[6] was episode 1 of the Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show, which was selected to be featured on YouTube shortly after being posted February 25, 2007, and subsequently drew nearly 2 million viewers. The series later was picked up by Sony Pictures,[4][6] who continued the show through two seasons on YouTube as part of its "C Spot" lineup; one reviewer for The Times of London described it as "Pee-Wee Herman meets Monty Python via the hyperkinetic madness of Japanese television."[7]

Benson's most prominent directing credit is his work on the Internet series The Guild, on which he worked again with his wife, Kim Evey, producer of The Guild, as well as creator and performer of the Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show.[8] He also as portraying one of the passengers on the short Docudrama "The flight that fought back".

Awards

His first video, "Coming Home", was chosen by Amazon.com customers as one of the top five videos of the Amazon/Tribeca Film Festival's short films division.[9] His short "Phone Call to God" was chosen for second place in the best comedy division at the 2006 Evil City Film Fest.[10]

Retarded Policeman

Retarded Policeman is an American YouTube comedy web series written, directed and edited by comedian and actor Greg Benson based on an idea by his wife, producer and performer, Kim Evey. Scott Perry, Luke 'The Ponceman' Perry's brother, has worked on the series.

The videos are uploaded on YouTube under the channel MediocreFilms.

Retarded Policeman
Genre Web comedy
Starring Josh 'The Ponceman' Perry
Kim Evey (creator and writer)
Greg Benson (writer,director,editor, camera and sound)
Carl Ratajski (camera)
Scott Perry (sound and writer)
Jonathan Green (pianist (ep 11))
SAP (music (ep 13))
Dave Days (theme song performed (ep 15))
Country of origin USA
Original language(s) English
No. of series 1
No. of episodes 36
Production
Running time 1-3 minutes
Release
Original network YouTube
Original release 19 September 2007 (2007-09-19) –
7 June 2012 (2012-06-07)
External links
[{{#property:P856}} Website]

Synopsis

The fictional series follows learning impaired Officer Ponce (Josh 'The Ponceman' Perry) as he pulls over members of the public.

Theme song

The following is the lyrics to the 8 second long theme song played at the start of the video. Episode 15 had a rock remix of the theme song performed by Dave Days.

He is a cop,

And he's learning impaired,

He's the retarded policeman! (that's me!)

Episode list

# Episode no. Episode name Guest starring Air date
1 Hi Scott Perry and Stacey Perry 19 September 2007
2 Officer Monkey Kim Evey 27 September 2007
3 Coked Up Greg Benson 4 October 2007
4 Racial Profiling Cozmo Johnson 20 November 2007
5 Writers Strike Wil Wheaton 22 January 2008
6 Sobriety Test David Hussey 4 February 2008
7 MILF Corey Williams and Jody Hoells 20 March 2008
7.5 Fish (April Fools) Felicia Day 31 March 2008
8 Tazer Mark McCracken and Laura House 1 April 2008
9 Boobies! Heather Provost, Valerie Querns, Alan Heitz and Scott Perry 23 April 2008
10 Mexicans Connie Perry, Al Perry 10 June 2008
11 GILF Peggy Grigsby 25 June 2008
12 Casual Friday Shelby Malone 2 July 2008
13 Mime Doug Jones 10 July 2008
14 Bribes Phil DeFranco 25 July 2008
15 Assburgers Syndrome Charles Trippy and Dave Days 8 August 2008
16 Stalker Michael Buckley 15 August 2008
17 Nalts Kevin Nalty 29 August 2008


References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Ancestry.com. Texas Birth Index, 1903-1997 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005. Original data: Texas. Texas Birth Index, 1903-1997. Texas: Texas Department of State Health Services. Microfiche.
  2. Mediocre Films profile at YouTube
  3. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. 4.0 4.1 April MacIntyre."Wil Wheaton interview: A Gorgeous Tiny Chicken C Spot," Monsters and Critics, May 29, 2008.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Tommy Garrett. "Nothing mediocre about Greg," Canyon News (Laurel Canyon, CA), April 20, 2008.
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 Kellie Hwang. "With Mediocre Films, couple embraces Internet's viral video," The Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ), March 28, 2009.
  7. Nigel Kendall. "The Web watcher: Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine; Mediocre Films," The Times (London, England), June 16, 2008.
  8. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. "Beginner filmmaker wins Amazon Theater/Tribeca Film Festival Short-Film Competition with his second film: Jack Paccione, Jr. took second place in inaugural competition last July with his first-ever film," Business Wire, November 3, 2005: "Other finalist films included ... 'Coming Home,' written, directed and produced by Greg Benson: Inspired by Woody Allen, Spike Jonze and Monty Python, this comedy was based on a dream and shot in one evening with a budget of $10. No one expects to come home to this."
  10. Evil City Film Fest 2006: Winners List. Retrieved 2008-01-21.

External links