The Character Guy: FIG NEWTON: "The Cookie That Thinks It's a Fruit"

Bio

A Brief History Part I

MY LA STORY

I was in an elevator in Century City up to my nose hairs in boxes of China for Jon Voight, to whom I was personal assistant in 1999 right out of college, when he says “Kid, you can barely seal an envelope. What do you really want to do with your life?” I told him I wanted to be the second coming of Bill Murray but would settle for being a successful comedy writer. The Midnight Cowboy looked me in the eye and said “then write every day for the rest of your life.” And with that, I spent my last day scouring Voight’s storage room for reel 2B of “Anaconda.”

From 1998- 2004

I wrote and performed stand up everywhere from The Laugh Factory to the Improv. I eventually penned sketch comedy at the Second City Theater in LA. By 2001, I landed writing gigs at VH1, Cartoon Network, and the prestigious naked news for Playboy TV. Eventually, in 2003 I pitched an original animated pilot based on my stand up called "Kip's Trip." It ended up in the hands of an animation house in NYC called Noodle Soup.

THE MAKING OF A MAD MAN:

From 2004 - today

I was hired to write animated webisodes for MSN.com in New York City in 04’. This led to a serendipitous interview at Saatchi and Saatchi in 05’, which I was sure was a sushi bar. Since I lacked actual ads in my book, a creative showed me a plethora of work from Miami Ad School.

In Spring of 06’, I quit my day job as a page at David Letterman and headed due south to Miami Ad School. In 2007, I took home a One Show Gold, Silver Clio and graduated in Spring of 08’, portfolio in hand. Since then I’ve scripted lines at New York agencies (Y&R, JWT, Chiat) for the likes of Combos, Skittles, Snickers, NHL, and Klondike Bar. I’ve come along way from the days of shredding Voight’s fan mail. I’m still writing every day and hope to see my ideas grace screens of all sizes. In the meantime, it’s time to get my next script in the hands of Spike Jonez, “Being Jon Voight.”

Check out my weekly advertising blog entries:

http://andjuniorshakers.com/?page_id=131

Monday, April 14, 2008

FIG NEWTON: "The Cookie That Thinks It's a Fruit"