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Every Friday, we choose an alum who has been making headlines—for better or for worse.
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11/12/10: Phil LaMarr ’88

By the staff | 10:26am January 03 2012

You don’t have to look—or listen—very hard to find Phil LaMarr ’88 in television, movies, or video games. LaMarr, who helped found the Purple Crayon improv group as an undergrad, has had a busy career as a screen and voice actor. He was a regular on the sketch comedy show MadTV for five years, he’s done voices on Futurama and Family Guy, and he got shot in the face (click at your own risk) by John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.

But if you want to see LaMarr live on stage, now’s your chance. This weekend, LaMarr makes his Broadway debut in The Pee-wee Herman Show, a revival of Paul Reubens’s campy 1980 stage show (which itself inspired the cult favorite kids’ TV show Pee-wee’s Playhouse). LaMarr plays Cowboy Curtis, a role originated by Laurence Fishburne. Unlike some of his contemporaries, LaMarr says he didn’t catch Pee-wee’s Playhouse in its original TV run. “The Saturday morning television show came on when I was in my latter days of college,” he told TheaterMania. “I wasn’t smoking pot, so I really didn’t watch it!”

Filed under television, movies
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