From "The Wizard of Oz" to "The Cheese Whizard" (VLOG)

Last year I wrote a post about DJ Gregory's (W'03, Off the Beat) involvement in the (now San Francisco) company of Wicked as well as provided you a sample from his very tv-episode-soundtrack friendly music.

Before he was a wicked awesome musician, DJ was actually a sports nut; he was a left-handed pitcher in baseball, recruited to play at a few division I schools, the quarterback of his high school football team, and a member of the Philadelphia Junior PGA as a kid.

And, now, with the performance experience he has gained, and the passion for sports grabbing a hold of him once again, he has made a move into sports broadcasting...



Check out these 2 impassioned vlogs DJ recently published:

1) (Below) This week's piece concerns the upcoming NFL season and the impending blackouts that many clubs will face. Due to the semi-socialistic revenue sharing model that the NFL operates under, blackouts are used to punish teams who don't effectively market the product locally. But, with the recession putting a strain on ticket sales, journalists across the country criticized the NFL, and commissioner Roger Goodell for threatening to stick to league policy. The Cheese Whizard chimes in to disagree.

2) (Below) On a more Philadelphia-related note, after the announcement that Michael Vick was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles, the Cheese Whizard struck back at protesters of the NFL and the Eagles organization

Per DJ:

"Technology has made it possible for anyone to do what they love - especially in entertainment - whenever they want to. I'm glad to have the means to write, produce, edit and promote my sports ramblings from the comfort of my home."

Incidentally, how did DJ come up with name, "Cheese Whizard"?

"The Cheese Whizard is a play on words...The "High Cheese" is a baseball reference having to do with a high, hard, fastball, sometimes pitched inside to a batter who is crowding the plate. It's a pitch that makes a statement.  And, Cheese Whiz is the traditional cheese of choice for a Philly Cheesesteak...Put 'em together and you have The Cheese Whizard"

Get in touch with DJ at thecheesewhizard at gmail.com




More from DJ's blog HERE

More DT Vlogs HERE!

More DT "Sports" related posts HERE!

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Babies, Superglue and Heinz Ketchup: Their Funny Contest Submissions (VIDEOS)

In wrapping up our "Penn Foodies" series for this week, today is all about fun food related videos.

Earlier today I posted two videos about a Penn alum being hired to impersonate Emeril Legasse.

Now I want to share with you two randomly and separately received submissions from Alex Petrovitch (C'01) and Matt Russak (SEAS '03) for the Heinz "Take 2" commercial competition last year.  While neither of them won, these are both very entertaining!

Videos after the jump...

Alex Petrovitch (C'01) in "It's What's Inside"
Dad is left alone with his crying baby- See how he cheers him up!

Matt Russak (SEAS '03, in blue shirt and tie) in "Superglue"
Tale of buffoonery between Mike and Will involving superglue and ketchup at the office.  Note the "The Office" parody of this commercial.  Matt does a good Jim, no?

On a related note, Alex tells me he has booked an appearance on the upcoming season of "24". Check out THIS Penn alum who appeared on "24" last year!

All my "Penn Foodies" variety pack of goodies HERE

Check out my other Funny Friday posts HERE

More posts about Penn Alumni Actors HERE

Headshot Hotties HERE / Penn Actor Reels HERE (upload yours!)

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She's Roasting Joan Rivers and It's Harsh! (NSFW VIDEO)

Last year I did a post about Whitney Cummings (C'03) being one of Entertainment Weekly's "12 Future Stars of Comedy". 

As you'll see in the above preview clip from this Sunday night's Friar's Club Joan Rivers roast, it is apparent why Whitney was given this title!

The video above is hysterical and definitely a not-safe-for-work video ...and Whitney pulls no stops when it comes to Joan's face!





Check out my other Funny Friday posts HERE!

More of my not-safe-for-work posts HERE!

More Penn stand-ups!

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3 Penn Alumni Win Facebook Competition With Their Free New Web Service

More news of Penn alumni working together.

If you're ever overwhelmed by all the email you get and have to check different accounts multiple times a day, the following 3 Penn alumni have solved the problem with NutshellMail:

• Mark Schmulen (left), Co-Founder and CEO (C '03, SAM/Theos Fraternity, SCUE),  
• David Lyman (center) Co-Founder and COO (Engineering '03, SAM/Theos Fraternity, Penn Engineering in Ghana)
• Nirav Batavia (right), VP of Business Development (Wharton and Engineering '03, Mask and Wig, Penn Engineering in Ghana)

How?

Nutshellmail is a free web-based service that enables users to manage and access all their email and social networking accounts through any email inbox. NutshellMail is designed to help you manage your online life through the place where you spend most of your computing time - your primary inbox. The solution works by sending recurring email updates to any email address on a schedule you choose. Each update provides a snapshot of new messages and activity in your Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and email accounts. Through the Update, a user can retrieve any message directly into their primary inbox without having to access their account provider's website. In addition, the solution is designed to provide a compliant way for employees to retrieve messages when restricted from email and social networking sites at work.

Also, these guys have a popular Nutshellmail facebook app HERE which helps you to keep up with all your Facebook activity including status updates, friend requests, messages, birthdays, and much more directly through your email inbox. It's so popular that it was selected as one of the winning companies of the Facebook Fund competition and have received an investment from the fbFund and are now in Palo Alto participating in the fbFund REV incubator program for 10-weeks.

Per Mark,

"We also closed on our Series A financing. With a healthy balance sheet and an incredible opportunity to work directly with Facebook, David, Nirav and I are very excited about our prospects."

Visit www.nutshellmail.com

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She Made Entertainment Weekly's 12 Future Stars of Comedy

Another alum just made another Hollywood list.

Stand-Up Whitney Cummings (C'03) just made Entertainment Weekly's Top 12 future stars of comedy.

Per Entertainment Weekly,

"Why We Think She'll Be Big: Behind her model-like smile is a filthy, filthy mouth. The wickedly raunchy comedian — she wrote for the Bob Saget roast — finds time between incessant gigs for films (Made of Honor) and TV (MyNetworkTV's The Tony Rock Project).

Why She Thinks She'll Be Big: ''If I don't, I'm gonna make a sex tape with Aziz [Ansari]. There are no shortcuts, so I tend to be a workaholic. My hobby is my job. I'd be doing it for free. Which I think a lot of us do anyway.''"

Recently, I asked Whitney about which activities at Penn helped put her on the road to becoming a stand-up...

Per Whitney,

"I had a show on the Penn tv station that was a goofy cooking show with a friend of mine. I took Carolyn Marvin's class on the first amendment at Annenberg and it made me want to challenge taboos, and I tend to do that in my work as a stand up -we had a bunch of discussions and classes on Carlin's words you can never say on television-it got me really into carlin, even more so than i already was -that had a huge impact on me-and it made me want to push the envelope in whatever I ended up doing in my life. That class really made me interested in taboos and if you've seen my stand-up [see video above] you know I tend to explore and play with a lot of them. I tend to push the boundaries on network television and dive in to topics that society deems inappropriate - and whenever I deal with censorship it makes me think of that class I took at Penn.

More on Whitney's website here

Other Penn alumni and undergrad Stand-Ups

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DT Hollywood Bits and Pieces

A bunch of Penn Hollywood news happening in film to report...

Click here for this week's scoopage.

Check out our October Contest and win cool swag!

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Mike Karz (C'89, W'89) will be producing Sorority Row, a remake of the 1983 horror film The House on Sorority Row.

Per the Hollywood Reporter,

"The plot sees a group of sorority sisters try to cover up the death of their house-sister after a prank gone wrong, only to be stalked and killed by a serial killer."

The film will star Carrie Fisher (still in negotiations), Rumer Willis, Julian Morris, Leah Pipes, Margo Harshman and Briana Evigan.

Past posts about Mike here

More of my Penn "Film Producer" posts here

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Today, the film Blindness comes out.

Do you remember when Felisha Liu (W'09) our "Penn in Cannes" correspondent reviewed the film from Cannes back in June 2008?

Read her review from back in June here!

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Todd Lieberman's (C'95, Mask and Wig, AEPi) film Beverly Hills Chihuahua comes out in theathers today.

Past posts about Todd here

More of my Penn "Film Producer" posts here

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Set your DVR's for Friday, October 10 when Elizabeth Banks (C'96) will appear on The Letterman Show most likely to promote her Zack and Miri Make a Porno and W films.

Liz also appears in this new trailer below for The Uninvited, a horror film which comes out in January 2009. Per shocktillyoutdrop.com, the film's synopsis is as follows:

"Based on Kim Jee-Woon's 2003 Korean chiller, A Tale of Two Sisters, the story revolves around a pair of siblings who return home to their father after spending time in a mental institution. Their recovery is hindered by their cruel stepmother's obsessiveness and an interfering ghost."

My past Liz Banks posts here

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Another Penn Alum Featured On One Amazing Reality Show

So I was on the eliptical yesterday trying to catch up with all the new Fall TV shows that are on my Tivo.  I began to watch The Amazing Race 13 and realized that I went to Penn with one of the contestants!

A half hour after I was done with the elliptical (okay 20 minutes), I checked out cbs.com and after a few google searches realized that Penn alum Sarah Leshner (C'98, W'03) does indeed appear on this season's The Amazing Race 13 with her boyfriend Terence.  They are billed as the "opposites attract" couple.

Check out minute 0:26 of the inro clip above

Join Sarah and Terence's facebook fan page here

Other Penn alumni on Reality TV here!

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His Entertainment Job Sucked So He Took Matters Into His Own Hands

Every Penn success story in Hollywood has an interesting beginning and the following is another must-read for ambitious undergrads and alumni looking to stand out and charter the entertainment waters.

Get the details on how Sonny Lee (C'03) became a TV staff writer for a popular show premiering this week!

Two years ago Sonny Lee’s (C'03, PennSix, Full Measure, Penn Admissions) job “sucked” so he took matters into his own hands which jump started his Hollywood writing career and soon began writing as a staff writer for It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. (he also acted in an episode called "Mac and Charlie Die: Part Two," where he played Quan, Danny DeVito's new potential roommate -see image below.)

Season Four premieres this Thursday, Sept. 18th on FX with Sonny's episode airing in the second back-to-back episode (10:30 pm) titled "The Gang Solves The Gas Crisis":

"Charlie, Mac and Dennis decide that since gas prices have doubled over the last year, why not buy up a bunch of gas now, store it in the bar for a year, and then sell it back for a huge profit? Meanwhile, Dee and Frank are convinced that Dee's biological father, Bruce Mathis, is funding terrorists when he donates to a local Muslim community center."

Click here to find out how Sonny took his career into his own hands!

...Then get Sonny's tips on being a TV writer here!
and more of my Tuesday Tips here!

Other Penn writers here!

Sonny's blog here

Catch up on all 3 seasons available for free here

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DT Hollywood Bits & Pieces

Lots of Penn news happening this week on-campus and off!...

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Catch This Alum's Film on DVD!

Jon Hurwtitz's (W'00) Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay now on DVD

My past posts about Jon here

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He's On a New Show and He's Looking for an Agent

Tom Christensen (W'03, Mask and Wig) just landed a co-starring role on the new series, Leverage, an Ocean's-11-Meets-A-Team series set to air on TNT in the next 6 months. Tom will play a "sweet, corn fed" guy from the Midwest" He is marrying a mob-boss's daughter, and that wedding is the setting for the episode. 

When Tom arrived in LA five years ago, fellow Mask & Wig member Brian Appel (C '01) introduced him to the show's casting director. After cutting his teeth with M&W, Tom still performs sketch and improv several improv groups around LA. You can see his upcoming shows on his website, http://www.tom-christensen.com

He is currently looking for an agent. Any alumni agents out there who will take a meeting? Contact Tom via his website!

Tom's Headshot
More Penn Actor Headshots!

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Another Reality Show Debuts for This Alum

Mark Cronin's (Eng'86) next VH1 reality show, New York Goes to Hollywood premieres on Monday, 8/4.

More here
My past posts about Mark here

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This Alum Counterchecks Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus, star of the Disney Channel mega-hit, said in an interview the other day that the upcoming season of “Hannah Montana” could be the last one. “We’re thinking this is our last season,” she told E! Online.

Rich Ross (C'83), president of Disney Channels Worldwide, told the New York Post, “I fully expect we will continue production (beyond this season)—and I can stand by that.” Ross said Disney has a option for a fourth season of the show.

More here

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Wish They Had This When I Was an Undergrad!

The Kelly Writers House and the Fine Arts Department of the School of Design (at the University of Pennsylvania) are pleased to announce ArtsEdge, a new collaborative residency project to encourage the careers of emergent writers and artists.

Through ArtsEdge, the Kelly Writers House and the Fine Arts Department will subsidize the rent of a shared live/work space near Penn’s campus for an emergent writer and artist.

More here and here

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