Jim and Amon sort of go off the rails talking about Wonder Showzen, PFFR, Bert’s Tit, Underground Comics, almost drowning, the Mystery of Picasso, food fights, Federico Fellini, Chuck Jones, puppets, sharpening your eye, sewing machines, Chewties and a bunch of other stuff.
More About Jim Tozzi
Jim Tozzi grew up in Everett, a city to the north of Boston. The most distinctive thing about this town was the smell of freshly roasted peanuts due to the Teddie Peanut Butter factory. The factory’s emblem, a grinning cartoon bear with a bucket, would be one of the first influences of advertising on Jim. He went to Everett public school: always an outsider, he preferred drawing weird cartoons and watching monster movies to playing sports.
In his early teens, Jim borrowed a super 8 camera from his Aunt and began experimenting. Lacking a tripod, he would tape the camera down onto the kitchen table and animate various toys, Star Wars figures and clay monsters. He also created a live action series starring his little sister as “Chico” the heavily mustachioed drug dealer who would meet an unlikely demise in every episode. Jim went on to study film and illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. He continued doing both animated and live action films creating a short film parody of an after school special called “Sunday School Girls” which tackled the subject of what Jesus really looked like.
Jim moved to New York and started working at Broadcast Arts inking and painting animation cels. He also started directing music videos for obscure alternative bands. One of the first was for Mercury Rev and featured Ron Jeremy as a floating space traveler. Jim approached Nick at Nite with his reel and some promo ideas; he was brought on to TV Land to come up with a new promo campaign. This campaign conceived, written and directed with his wife Vezna, developed into the award winning “Twip” series. “Twip” was an imaginary product in which it’s evolution was traced in commercial parodies from the early 1950′s through the 90′s. Now as a directing team, the “Tozzi’s” signed on to Bob Giraldi’s company and began directing spots for Miller Lite, Sprite and Florida’s anti-tobacco campaign. The “Tozzi’s” split up and Jim went solo; joining M-80 he directed an award winning campaign for Kellogg’s Rice Krispie Treats for Leo Burnett. He went on to direct comedy spots for Sony Playstation, Nick at Nite and Miller. In his free time Jim likes to draw, paint, take long quiet walks and is a member of the art collective PFFR. Jim is now signed with THEM and living in New York.
Part One Show Notes
- The Pinball Song
- Pointer Sisters
- Joe Raposo
- People in Your Neighborhood
- C is for Cookie
- Looney Tunes
- Sesame Street
- What’s 52 like?
- Gumby
- Little Rascals
- Jim Henson
- Caroll Spinney
- Frank Oz
- Big Bird
- Mr. Hooper
- The Muppet Movie
- Creature Double Feature
- “Weird Al” Yankovic – UHF
- Spatula City
- PFFR
- Final Flesh
- Chill Will
- Wonder Showzen
- Hate Mail
- Social Commentary
- Exquisite corpse
- The Spewing
- Moby Music Video
- TWIP Commercials
- Mercury Rev
- Broadcast Arts
- Pee-wee’s Playhouse
- Saturday Morning Cartoons
- Soul Train
- RISD
- NYU
- Please Look Away
- Bert’s Tit
- Tenacious D
- Wizard Skull
- Robert Crumb
- Underground Comics
- Wierdo Comic
- Zap Comics
- Dennis Warden
- Full Sail
- Swimming Stories
- Surf Documentary
- Beat Kids
- George Clinton
- Parliament Funkadelic
- HIM
- Getting Release Forms
- Xavier: Renegade Angel
- Verbal Acrobatics
- SacSix
- Kenny Scharf
- Phoebe New York
- Molotow
- Hand Mixed Paint Stick
- McNally Jackson Store
- Rat Fink
- Tom and Jerry
- Mickey
- Rick and Morty
- Chuck Jones
- Dan Harmon
- Adventure Time
- Bo Jack
- The Mystery of Picasso
Part Two Show Notes
- New York Said Shuffle
- Moo
- Food Fight
- SAG
- That’s Racist Gif
- Getting kicked out
- Don’t follow any trends
- Sleep is Important
- Business Hours
- Getting to Creative Flow
- Taking Walks
- Sharpening your eye
- Postive Mental Attitude
- Gratitude is Huge
- The Ad vs Street Art
- Sewing Machines
- Making puppets
- Gimp Rabbit
- Joann Fabrics
- Michaels
- M&J Trimmings
- Bring Out the Gimp (Pulp Fiction)
- PFAFF
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Purely made to make
- Mozart
- Federico Fellini
- 8 1/2
- La Dulce Vita
- Star Wars
- George Lucas
- I wanted to be a Storm Trooper
- JJ Abrams
- Psychological Horror Movies
- The Ring
- Holy Mountain
- Toilet Paper Magazine
- Art Basel
- National Lampoon Magazine Dog Ad
- Faces of Death
- Disturbing Comics
- Chewties
- Be in the Present Moment
- Shout Out to Coffee
~~~
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