Worlds Collide

For reasons I can't fully articulate now, as a kid, I was a huge fan of actor John Houseman. I considered him the epitome of talent and class. His commercials for Smith Barney just impressed the hell out of me. I'll admit I was kind of a weird kid, but see for yourself. The guy has... gravitas.



I also remember a series of commercials promoting a kids' art workshop called, "You Gotta Have Art." Various celebrities of the day would face the camera and say, "You gotta have art!" Only when it was John Houseman's turn, he said, in his perfect, clipped diction, "You've got to have art," as if the idea of uttering the grammatically suspect phrase so offended him, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

He also delivers the opening monologue to John Carpenter's The Fog, a movie that scared the devil out of me as an 11-year-old. (If you can't remember it, or if you've never seen it, you can watch the scene in question here.)

And even though I've known my buddy Rick Dalton (Sherrif Dalton on "Ragged Isle") for almost three years, I did not know until this weekend that he does a killer John Houseman impression. On Friday night, a few "Ragged Isle" cast members (some of whom you won't meet until season three) gathered to put together a shot-for-shot recreation of that opening scene from The Fog as a fun Halloween promo for "Ragged Isle."

You can watch the result below, and marvel (as we all did Friday night) at Mr. Dalton's dazzling gift for mimicry, while he somehow still makes the performance his own.

This was a ton of fun to shoot, and kudos to director Barry Dodd for getting it so amazingly close to the original.