La La Land, Terminator Salvation, Westworld, SWAT. Those are just a few of the productions David Douglas has appeared in during his over twenty years in the acting industry. He loves creating.

 

The usual routine for Jeff and I goes like this. . . he calls me up about three months before the show and asks me if I’d like to help him this year . . .”well, when is it . . ?”

 

      “We moved it to January.”

 

      “Well, what are we going to do? I may be too old to act like an ass in front of everybody, man.”, which he knows will never be the case if I live to be 89, but this is the way the conversation plays out. ”Man, I’m too old to do this. Nobody’s gonna laugh, WATCH!  We’re gonna get out there and completely bomb! How long can we keep fooling these nice people? We’re morons!” This will be what I sound like up until the last day before the show.  . Oh, and I think it’s important to note that we wont have ANYTHING even close to a “show” until the last day before we step out onstage.

 

       He, then, will purchase my ticket for me and it’s done. The show has already started. Of course the next time I see my buddy will be at the Phoenix airport, and once we see each other the madness begins. Voices, impersonations, “riffs” (as I call them), and colorful sequences of profanity (which we clean up later for the kids!) all spill forth as we drive to his martial arts school in Chandler, Arizona. It literally never stops! Ask his wife and their three kids. Every time we do the show, the pressure is always there, “OH CRAP! What are WE gonna do this time!! We have NOTHING!. . But really all we need to do is hang out for awhile and then feel comfortable enough to let 800 plus people watch what we do and enjoy themselves. .but getting to that place can be kind of weird.

 

      “Everybody’s real excited this year”, he tells me. “We gotta come up with something that tops what we did last time, you know.”

 

      “Oh my God . . .” I think to myself. Last year involved us dressing up, with me as an overweight Elvis Presley (my idea!) and him as Walker Texas Ranger star Chuck Norris. I think I even ate a sandwich that I cleverly tucked into my fat suit offstage.. . .a hard act to beat. I feel my stomach tighten just a little.

 

      We stop into the karate school to check in on the students. The classes stop and everyone turns and bows to us. “Say hello to Mr. Douglas everybody”, a warm welcome every time. It’s like a second home here in Chandler.

 

After a great dinner and beating my host in at least eleven games of FIGHT NIGHT on XBOX (even when he threw cheap elbows to my face!”, we still have no show idea, no gags, no plot, no characters in mind, well that’s not true exactly. If you hang around the two of us long enough you will notice that we hardly ever speak to each other in our “own voices”, the characters are always there. They’re always running around and interrupting what we’re saying to each other, but nothing sounds good enough to develop into a whole show . . . yet.

 

      See Jeff and I quickly gained a reputation for being morons. When we were both competing as nationally ranked martial artists on various circuits, when they needed a “halftime-like” show to entertain the crowd, it was us that stepped forward voluntarily and said, “YES!. . I will put on the wig. Step out of my way, sir!”, and the rest was history. Soon after that we were being flown all around by the promoters to the over twenty national tournaments across the country. California, Kentucky, New York, Florida, we rode in limos, signed autographs, kissed babies, slapped grandfathers on the back and broke hearts,(the promoters’!). It was a great time. Many times for me, it was a lot more fulfilling then actually competing. Sad, since that was what I was being sponsored for, but it’s true. We could go up onstage and for 10 or 15 minutes capture everybody’s attention and make them laugh, and unlike competition you weren’t pitted against your buddy to prove who was “better”. Just a good time, no pressure, no beating yourself up afterward, just idiocy, perfect.

 

       One night after an especially bitter, ego stomping battle of FIGHT NIGHT on XBOX, I cant remember if it was I, bored with my unworthy opponent, who retired upstairs to the computer and was watching a clip of an event that one of our good friends (who also owns a karate school in another part of town) held for his students involving “fat suits” or “sumo suits” Aha!. . . all of a sudden there were ideas, a rough outline of gags, one liners, “lift your chin up . . .which ONE!”, physical comedy, ways of moving within the costume. OH, it this was great! Immediately we started looking for the suits. We had no idea where we could find them. I think we tried three different places in the area and nobody seemed to sell or rent these wondrous and awesome tools of imbecility.

 

We tried this place, but they weren’t fat enough, then we tried this place and they told us to try here, but finally, eventually, we had them. They were ours. We only had a day to master them. Could we do it?