| Owner of the most famous thumbs in history, Steve Oedekerk has perfected the art of riding coattails to achieve his 15 minutes. Combining his disturbing sense of humour with the talent of the likes of Jim Carrey and others, he's developed a unique brand of comedy that can be seen everywhere from the internet, to the silver screen, to small, poorly lit comedy clubs everywhere.
Born on November 27, 1961, Oedekerk started his career as a stand up comic and writer. In 1979, he founded "Bald Spots", a comedy radio commercial ad production company. He wrote, produced, and performed radio spots in collaboration with that obscure hippie genius Tom McGann.
His real break came after meeting Jim Carrey, when they both joined Fox's "In Living Color," Steve as a writer, and Jim as the most popular actor on the show. It was during this time that he got the idea for Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. His successful collaberation with Jim led to a sequel that (amazingly) outsold the original - this is almost unheard of! From here, he helped Eddie Murphy with The Nutty Professor and it's sequel, The Klumps, as well as the beautiful Patch Adams.
Steve never lost sight of his own goal, however. "'I want to make my own stuff. I'm just going to make my own stuff.' And that's how it all started for me. 'I'm going to make my own low budget films. I'm going to shoot my own five minute short.'" And he did. Several, in fact - creating the internet meme, Thumb Wars, as well as Thumbtanic, and the more recent The Blair Thumb.
His two most recent flicks, however, show him at both ends of the spectrum - cute and colourful, followed by extreme and incomprehensible. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is certainly an entertaining film, but stretching 30 minutes worth of material into eighty-two minutes tends to lose the target audience (ie, kids with short attention spans). Kung Pow: Enter the Fist on the other hand, was an example of why an idea that sounds good at 3 in the morning is not necessarily worthy of production. Despite that, he spent years (and about $50 it looks like) merging new and old footage, surrounding the two good jokes in the entire film with another hour of bad acting, poorly concieved characters and desperate attempts to capitalize on poor production values of an old kung-fu flick. They had an excuse to look that bad - Steve doesn't.
Despite this horrendous piece, Steve has many other projects in the works, and looks to have a long successful career ahead of him. He currently lives in Southern California with his wife, two children and a badger, pound for pound known to be the most vicious mammal on the planet.
Steve Oedekerk's Productions:
- Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002) (writer, producer, director, Chosen One / Dubbed Voices)
- The Blair Thumb (2002) (Video) (producer, voices of Vic, Frankenthumb, Hick Fisherman)
- Juwanna Mann (2001) (executive producer)
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001) (screenplay writer, producer)
- Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000) (story)
- Thumb Wars: The Phantom Cuticle (1999) (TV) (writer, producer, director, voice of Loke Groundrunner)
- Thumbtanic (1998) (writer, executive producer, star)
- Patch Adams (1998) (screenplay writer, co-producer)
- Santa vs. the Snowman (1997) (TV) (executive producer)
- steve.oedekerk.com (1997) (TV) (executive producer, director, star)
- Nothing to Lose (1997) (writer, Security Guard Baxter, director)
- The Nutty Professor (1996) (screenplay writer)
- Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) (writer, director)
- Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) (project consultant)
- High Strung(1991) (writer, Thane Furrows)
- "In Living Color" (1990) TV Series (writer)
- Casual Sex? (1988) (Joey)
- "Full House" (1989) playing "Steve Butler" in episode: "Star Search" (episode # 3.6) 11/3/1989
Sources:
IMDB - http://us.imdb.com/
The O-Channel - http://www.ochannel.com/
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