Jim Martin tells the story of how Gary changed from a distinguished Gnu, into the wild and crazy Gnu we all know and love today
“When I first performed Gary, I looked at him, and he seemed rather distinguished and had a rather small mouth, and the producers really just wanted him to sit behind the desk and read the gnews report. Based on that, I saw the character as having a Walter Cronkite demeanor and personality. This meant he was quite reserved and spoke without opening his mouth too far (because he physically could not open it too far!).”
“One particular shoot, they kept asking for Gary to be crazier and louder. Out of frustration, I channeled Howard Beale from the 1976 movie “Network”(played by Peter Finch and most famous for saying “So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’”) and just had Gary start ranting like crazy.”
