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Finally, here is HUMANZEE! – 50% Human, 50% Chimp, 100% Abomination – the outrageous new web show from the guys who brought you PG PORN - in all its glory. Enjoy!

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Recently on my TWITTER page (and sometimes on MySpace and Facebook), I’ll post a Question of the Day, and get dozens of trippy, sometimes funny, and usually honest answers.  I seldom answer them myself, so I thought I’d do so here…

What song is your biggest guilty pleasure? It should be something you’re embarrassed to mention.

I’m really not that embarrassed by a lot of songs that might be considered “uncool” – songs like Britney Spears’ HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME and Bon Jovi’s LIVIN’ ON A PRAYER are songs I unapologetically love as they’re actually incredibly well-written, fairly well produced songs.

However, there are a few songs I kind of like when they come up on the radio – songs like Cher’s BELIEVE, which is rancid, but it holds a sort of sick enjoyment for me – like having sex with the sad, awkward, wall-eyed girl at the party after all your friends have left because you don’t want them to know .  But still I’ve never actively acquired the song.  It’s a song that happens to me and I go with it.

Right after I first posted this question, Garth Brooks’ I’VE GOT FRIENDS IN LOW PLACE came up on my iPod shuffle while I was working out, and my assistant Amanda was making fun of me for it.  Let me say that when I put on my iPod shuffle, I only do my top rated songs – it’s about 1,500 of 9,000 songs.  So not only is Garth Brooks on my iPod – I actively took the time to give it five stars as one of my favorites so I could listen to it more often.  And that is a little embarrassing.
I’ve been on dates as well where I put on the old iPod top-rated shuffle, and of course risked one of these beauties coming up:

-    They Don’t Know, Tracey Ullman
-    Digging Your Scene, the Blow Monkeys.
-    What About Me?, Moving Pictures.
-    The Rainbow Connection, Sarah MacLachlan
-    Little Black Backpack, Stroke 9
-    Let’s Pretend, The Bay City Rollers
-    Fat Lip, Sum 41
-    Cherry Pie, Warrant

But, of all of them, I’m probably most embarrassed by Garth Brooks.  But, hell, it could be worse – It could be Chris Gaines.

Would you have sex with someone who repulses you for 25 grand?  If not, would you do it for any amount?

I used Roseanne Barr (present day) as my imaginary test scenario.  I would definitely not do it for 25 grand, as I have the luxury of making that in much easier ways.  If she offered me 500 grand to do it, would I?  No, probably not.  Firstly, I would just feel bad about myself and secondly, I would be afraid it would get out, and I would be known as the Director Who Prostituted Himself to Roseanne Barr.  However, for 4.5 million dollars I would probably fuck the living shit out of her.  Happily. And blog about it.

If you’re in a relationship, would you be uncomfortable if your partner watches porn?

If my girlfriend’s jerking off to something that makes me feel weird – like face-farting videos or shit stuff – yeah, that would admittedly make me uncomfortable.  And I’m neurotic, so any porn watching might make me feel slight amounts of discomfort.  But in general it’s not a big deal if done in moderation.

Is this funny or stupid: (Kinda NSFW video, but not too bad)?

It’s stupid, but it’s very well shot.

If you could have sexual relations with any one celebrity, who would it be?

That would of course be Terra Naomi.  But if I wasn’t in a relationship, I would really enjoy having intercourse with Josie Maran.  Unless a time machine is involved, then it’s Olivia Newton John in the mid-seventies.

Who would win in a fight between Jesus, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Aquaman?  The fight takes place in a swamp, and team-ups are not allowed.

There’s actually a correct answer to this, and it’s Aquaman.  Firstly, Aquaman not only breathes underwater, he’s got fucking superpowers – he’s able to go to the bottom of the sea without being crushed.  Therefore, the Creature from the Black Lagoon is a complete non-starter.  Aquaman would punch a hole through his head in about two seconds.  As far as I know, Jesus Christ doesn’t have super-strength and his superpowers are very limited – he can bring people back to life, he can walk on water, and he can turn water into wine.  All that doesn’t really help much if Aquaman is crushing Jesus’s head between his hands like a Crenshaw melon in a vice.  Oh yeah, and Jesus can also resurrect himself – but only after three days – by that time A.M.’s kicked his ass.  So Aquaman is easily the winner here, and any argument besides that is kind of dumb and immature.  The slaughter would be even more horrific if it was the hardcore Aquaman-with-a-hook for a hand.

Who is the greatest movie BADASS of all time, i.e. Dirty Harry, Vader?

It’s Lee Marvin, especially in POINT BLANK.

What’s your favorite TV show of 2008?

LOST

What superhero or superheroine would you most like to fuck?

I was wavering between Ms. Marvel and Tigra, but I honestly think that Tigra being covered in a thin layer of fur would probably freak me out in reality.  So I’ll have to go with Ms. Marvel.  

The answers people gave for this one were fascinating – For women, the most common answers were Batman and Gambit (?), for men, it was She-Hulk (?).

What’s your favorite pop, rock, or hip-hop song of 2008?

Already answered in a blog, but it’s either The Second Band’s No Song or their The Killer Comeback Line.

If all of my MySpace Top Friends were put into a pit and forced to fight to the death, who would be the last person alive?

If it was a contest on pure strength and fighting skills alone, it would almost certainly be Stevie Blackehart (the final two would be him and Rooker).

If you haven’t answered on any of my pages, then answer below!  And, again, look for more Questions of the Day on my TWITTER page .

Oh -

And I posted this there too recently.  It’s the Masters of Horror Dinner Saturday, which was perhaps the most incredible one yet. 

Photo courtesy John Landis (and by "courtesy" I mean he sent it to me and I used it without his permission.  Thanks, John)

To be invited, you have to have directed a horror movie.  It was Tobe Hooper’s birthday, and regulars like Guillermo Del Toro and Wes Craven were there, as well as newbies like Michael Mann and Wim Wenders.  Like we do to all newbies, we made them strip down and crawl through the spanking machine and then do the elephant walk.

As for why Michael Mann and Wim Wenders belonged at the Masters of Horror dinner, Michael Mann directed THE KEEP and Wim Wenders is directing a horror movie now.  Additionally, they’re Michael Mann and Wim Wenders.

James

 

The first ever pics of SPARKY AND MIKAELA!

All photos by VANCE.  Poster by Marci Holmes.

With Mikaela Hoover and Sparky the Raccoon.

I know what you’re thinking.  Really, James?  Another sexy teen superheroine/puppet raccoon crime-fighting team in a world where raccoons have persecuted human beings for hundreds of years? 

What can I say?  Sometimes you just have to follow the trends to make a buck.

Especially when my brother Sean Gunn is out of a job, and roles of supervillains-who-wear-casual-clothes are hard to come by these days.

To save money, we put the rat on double duty: acting and craft services.  His chorizo pasta was almost as weak as his emoting.

Sparky was a lot better at the action sequences than he was at acting like he gave a shit about anything other than himself.  Raccoons aren’t known for their empathy.

Still, cinematographer/editor Pete!!! Alton’s hat was, to say the least, insensitive.

Mikaela’s father, Gregg Henry, warns his daughter that raccoons can’t be trusted.  She’s astounded that her father’s a bigot.

As on most sets, a little hanky panky between co-stars took place behind-the-scenes.

You SCREAM QUEENS fans will be happy to know it’s not only on reality TV where I make weird faces while looking at the monitor.

Speaking of SCREAM QUEENS, the casting folks wanted Mikaela to come in for the show.  She had no idea I was associated with it.  Can you imagine if I showed up the first day on set and saw one of the contestants was one of my friends?

I first met Mikaela when I auditioned her and cast her in HUMANZEE.  Here, we share a moment with SPARKY AND MIKAELA theme song writer, Terra Naomi..  Terra and I are also working on her 12 DAYS OF HAIR METAL series for her new web site, featuring a classic hair metal cover each of the twelve days leading up to Christmas day.

Gregg Henry was so funny in one scene that Pete and I ruined numerous takes cracking up.  Just like back in the days of LOLLILOVE.  We’re true professionals.

In all honesty, this was one of the most competent AND fun crews I’ve worked with.  Here I am with producer Dave Yarvo and 1st Assistant Director Tres Stamos.

FX master (and future PG PORN star) Vincent Guastini puts some final touches on Stevie Blackehart’s better half.

Here the dummy mocks Stevie’s’s ridiculous expression.

Near the end of the shoot the rat started complaining about only get paid SAG-scale, even though his name was in the title.  He was getting a pretty big head for someone I found eating trash in my backyard.  Still, here we are, working our shit out.

This is what directing looks like.

Surprisingly, Mikaela never killed an innocent dude with a piece of rebar before.  Here I am teaching her (R.I.P. Ben Simonetti).

A touching moment between two best pals…

Doesn’t last long in a GOOD BOYS PRODUCTION.  (Unfortunately for my sister-in-law, Michelle Martin Gunn).

SPARKY AND MIKAELA will debut on XBOX LIVE on December 24th.  That’s right, you can watch it repeatedly on loop Christmas day.

Don’t have an XBOX?  Don’t worry.  Just a few weeks after XBOX LIVE it will go to MSN.com and Zune, and will thereafter be available in numerous other places on the web, TV, and DVD.  Unlike the XBox version, some of these versions will be the Director’s Cut — uncensored, pure, and untouched. 

It’s part of the HORROR GOES COMEDY series, which features comedy shorts by horror directors, including SAW’s James Wan, HARD CANDY and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT’s David Slade, HATCHET’s Adam Green, MAY’s Lucky McKee, AMITYVILLE HORROR’s Andrew Douglas, and more.

I’m really happy with the way the show came out, and think you guys are going to enjoy it too!

Until then, make sure you watch the SCREAM QUEENS finale this Monday night on VH1!

Go fuck yourselves,

James

HUMANZEES

Let me tell you something about my friend Stevie Blackehart.  When Stevie was young, being raised by nuns in Hell’s Kitchen, he would get in trouble very often.  This meant countless hours of detention in the school library.  So how did Stevie amuse himself?  He would read the encyclopedias.  A to Z, cover to cover, the World Book, the Britannica, etc, over and over.  You would think this would make Stevie an especially interesting individual, full of fun facts about our world which he could throw into a conversation at any time.

You would be wrong.  Instead, although he is my best friend, Stevie is extremely boring.  Usually he’s like sitting next to a monotone cassette recording of the World Book encyclopedia, droning on and on about something you could give two shits about – like, say, how a fucking air-conditioner works.

So this Friday while we were doing a photo shoot for Femme Fatales (having to do with our secret project), Stevie surprised me – surprised us all, really –when he brought up the subject of Oliver the Humanzee.  For the first time in our ten-year friendship, Stevie was actually interesting.  The whole gang hung on his every word as he told us all about Oliver, a very human-like Chimpanzee who for years was believed to be a half-human/half-chimp hybrid.  Oliver walked upright like a human being, with his knees forward.  He had very little hair.  He was able to understand complex instructions.  He was only sexually attracted to human females (Oliver once bent over and raped his female owner – and she wasn’t even good-looking!)  It was no coincidence Stevie was telling us about Oliver on Easter weekend, as in my mind Oliver was quickly overtaking Jesus as the greatest being to ever walk planet earth.

Anyway, here’s a little video about Oliver so you can take in the awesomeness yourselves:

As DNA evidence later proved, Oliver wasn’t really a human/chimp hybrid, just a chimp that is very very much like a human being (an evolutionary leap, perhaps?), and who also RAWKED to a very great degree.

HOWEVER, Stevie went into great detail about how it actually WAS feasible to have such a hybrid, as human sperm could fertilize a chimp egg or vice versa.  He talked about a Russian scientist who did all sorts of breeding experiments between humans and apes, although he lost his government funding before any of them came to fruition (Communist pussies).  Stevie also told us about a secret team of scientists in Florida in the 1920’s who were rumored to have actually delivered a human-chimp baby.  Supposedly, the thing was so awful they had to destroy it.  I don’t know how they destroyed it, but I like to imagine that they smashed it with a rock, as that would be more dramatic.

That night I went out with my friends Michael Rosenbaum, Pete Alton, and Chris MacDonald.  Of course, we talked about nothing else but humanzees.  I told them how I was on the fence about actually having children, but if I could have a humanzee son I would do it in a second.  We all agreed it would be super cool if we each had a humanzee son who could hang out with us.  They would be the perfect compatriots – we could give them lots of love and teach them how to do complex tasks.  But we could also put them in a cage in the backseat when we were bored with them.  Maybe we’d cut up an apple and put it in there for them to eat.

While we were driving from party to club to party we would watch the Oliver YouTube videos on Rosenbaum’s iPhone.  I knew this wasn’t the safest thing, watching videos while I was driving on the 405 Freeway on a Friday at midnight surrounded by drunks.  But I also knew if we died in a fiery crash, my friends and family would understand if they knew we were watching humanzee videos, because humanzees are super-interesting.

While we were hanging out at a hip club in Hollywood, I looked at my friend Pete.  Pete’s a great friend, and I really love him, but I realized in that moment I would be a lot happier if he was a humanzee.

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It would be really incredible if it was me and Rosey and Chris hanging out with a humanzee instead of Pete.  It would be especially cool if the humanzee was wearing cool clothing – maybe he’d get a little suit custom made wherever midgets get their suits made.  The humanzee most likely wouldn’t have a lot of money, as humanzees are probably ridiculously stupid – whatever money they did make they’d spend on candy and glittery objects and human women who would overcome their disgust at having sex with them for large amounts of cash.  But, I swear to God, I’d GIVE the little fucker the money to buy the custom-made humanzee suit.  What would be better than that? First of all, EVERYTHING the humanzee would do would be interesting.  Even something boring, like drinking a martini or smoking a clove cigarette would be neat to see a humanzee do.  Secondly, he’d be great in a bar fight.  Chimpanzees have EIGHT TIMES the strength of human beings.  That means a humanzee has FOUR TIMES the strength of a human being.  But he’d be tiny, so it wouldn’t be expected.  Thirdly, I think we’d get a lot of attention with a humanzee.  Girls would definitely want their pictures taken with him, and I’m pretty sure they’d be amazed at the rapport I had with the humanzee.  I’d be like the hunky jock who’s really nice to his retarded little brother.  That’s a pretty attractive feature in a guy.

I don’t even know what a real humanzee would look like.  But it would probably be pretty cool and also would creep you out.

As I sat there in the club, I realized I’ve made so many of my dreams in life come true – I’ve written and directed movies, I’ve made a lot of money, I’ve had sex with beautiful women – that I am now fantasizing about really strange things, like having a humanzee as a best friend.

So be it.  At the very least, he’d never, ever, ever blather on about how a fucking air-conditioner works.  A humanzee would not have the slightest idea.  He’d just be like, “Wow, when I flick this button I’m not so hot anymore.  It’s magic!”

Actually, in that respect, I guess I am kind of like a humanzee.

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