Mark Valenti | |
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| Born | June 29 United States |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Alma mater | Strasberg Theatre Institute |
| Years active | 1985 - present |
| Notable works | Menno's Mind, Like Father, Like Santa, A Honeymoon to Remember, Deadly Debutantes, The Christmas Pageant |
| Spouse | Kristen |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| www | |
Mark Valenti is an Emmy-nominated American writer known for movies, TV series and novels.
Valenti began his entertainment career as an actor with the St. Louis theatrical troupe, The City Players. [1] Moving to Los Angeles, he studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute [2] under Sally Kirkland and Marc Marno. During this period, Valenti appeared in several LA stage productions, and took roles on sitcoms and soap operas, including NBC's The Facts of Life.
In 1986, Valenti became a production assistant for Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. Spielberg had initiated a program whereby assistants would be given an opportunity to learn as much a possible in two years, identify a career path, and then move into their chosen field. Valenti segued into a role as Vice President of Development for John Hughes. During his three-year tenure, Hughes produced ten films, including Home Alone, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Uncle Buck.
Having been intimately involved in Hughes' screenwriting process, Valenti left the executive ranks and began writing film scripts himself. His first produced movie, Menno's Mind, [3] starring Billy Campbell and Robert Vaughn, was seen on the Showtime channel. The script was based on a short story he had written as a high school senior. This was followed by a flurry of screenplay spec sales to DreamWorks (Planet Fred), Nickelodeon Movies (Bob the House), ABC Family (Like Father, Like Santa), Hallmark (The Christmas Pageant), and many more.
Valenti was Creative Manager for a team tasked with re-imagining Disney's California Adventure theme park in Anaheim. He also served as Creative Manager for Disney Interactive.
In 1999, Valenti was recruited as Story Editor at Nickelodeon Studios, working with the writing staff of shows like Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, CatDog, Angry Beavers, and Rocket Power.
In 2000, Valenti was awarded a Platinum record for writing the spoken-word portion of Mannheim Steamroller's "The Christmas Angel," signifying over one million units sold.
By 2003, he was back in the role of screenwriter, becoming Head Writer for the Nickelodeon TV show LazyTown. Shot in Iceland on a sound stage in the middle of a lava field, LazyTown debuted as the #1 show for Nickelodeon, and went on to produce more than 75 episodes, seen around the globe. Valenti also wrote and co-wrote lyrics for many of LazyTown's popular songs. For some of the episodes, Valenti was credited as "Noah Zachary", a name he used in honor of his two sons.
In 2022, Mark Valenti was nominated for an Emmy award for STEM Explorers, a PBS show aimed at bringing science concepts to young viewers.
In 1995, Valenti published "The Wonderful Wisdom of Oz - A Stupendous Compendium of Adages, Aphorisms and Axioms," a collection of curated quotes derived from the work of Oz author L. Frank Baum. His next book was "The Hannibal Twist [4] " featuring a now-adult Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in their continuing adventures. In 2004, he wrote Mannheim Steamroller's "The Christmas Angel, [5] " a novelization of the NBC Christmas special of the same name. 2010 saw the publication of the coming-of-age dark comedy, "Last Night at the Monarch Motel," [6] which was optioned by a film production company.
In 2018, Valenti wrote the YA novel trilogy, "The Wolf and the Warlander," [7] published by Chip Davis' American Gramaphone. It captures the incredible adventures of two unlikely friends – Seti the wolf and Ghost the Warlander horse. Brought together by unusual circumstances, these natural enemies grow up alongside one another, facing the challenges that arise from their opposing instincts. Somehow, through the hardships of life in the wild and vicious attacks by predators, they forge an unforgettable, inspirational alliance.
In 1992, Valenti and his wife Kristen created a fundraiser, "Heart of the Matter," held at Pasadena's Ambassador Auditorium, for their friend Barbie York, then-wife of acclaimed classical guitarist Andrew York. [8] Barbie had suffered a severe head injury in an automobile accident, sending her into a months-long coma. The concert they produced was a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of the classical guitar world's greatest players, among them Christopher Parkening, the LA Guitar Quartet, Leona Boyd and The Romeros. The concert netted $25,000 in one night.
In 2016, Valenti's friend and colleague Stefan Karl, who played the villain Robbie Rotten on LazyTown, was diagnosed with Cholangiocarcinoma. Stefan was forced to cancel all work-related activities during his treatment, so Valenti created at GoFundMe [9] campaign which eventually raised nearly $170,000. Valenti also engineered an AMA on Reddit, featuring Stefan - with the help of his wife Steinunn Olina - which led to a live YouTube event in December of that year. The video featured Stefan and others singing "We Are Number One," the song (written by composer Mani Svavarsson) that had become a worldwide meme. The video has subsequently been seen millions of times, and Stefan's YouTube channel has generated more than a million subscribers.
| Film | Year | Cast |
|---|---|---|
| Menno's Mind | 1997 | Billy Campbell, Bruce Campbell, Robert Vaughn, Corbin Bernsen |
| Like Father, Like Santa | 1998 | Harry Hamlin, Megan Gallagher, William Hootkins |
| The Christmas Angel | 1999 | Olivia Newton-John, Dorothy Hamill |
| The Christmas Pageant | 2011 | Melissa Gilbert, Robert Mailhouse, Edward Herrmann, Candice Azzara |
| My Wife's Secret Life | 2019 | Kate Villanova, Jason Cermak, Matthew MacCaull |
| Santa's Squad | 2020 | Aaron Ashmore, Rebecca Dalton, Michael Therriault |
| A Honeymoon To Remember | 2021 | Edward Ruttle, Rebecca Dalton, Brendan Taylor |
| Deadly Debutantes | 2021 | Angelina Boris, Revell Carpenter, Natalia de Mendoza |
| The Heiress of Christmas | 2023 | Katerina Maria Vitkoff |
| Series | Year | Episode |
|---|---|---|
| Back to the Future | 1992 | "St. Louis Blues" |
| Totally Spies | 2002 | "The Soul Collector" |
| Rugrats | 2003 | "Gimme an A" |
| LazyTown | 2004 | 75 episodes |
| Kid Fitness | 2006 | 5 episodes |
| Olivia | 2010 | "Olivia Takes a Hike" |
| Gaspard & Lisa | 2011 | "The Magicians" |
| Julius Jr. | 2014 | "The Gummiest Bear" |
| STEM Explorers | 2022 | 13 episodes |
| Award | Project | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Humanitas Prize | "Hand Me Downs" - Rugrats | 1999 |
| BAFTA | LazyTown | 2006 |
| Emmy nomination | STEM Explorers | 2022 |
Mark Valenti is a member of The Writers Guild of America and The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Rugrats is an American animated television series created by Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó, and Paul Germain for Nickelodeon. The series focuses on a group of toddlers, most prominently Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil, and their day-to-day lives, usually involving life experiences that become much greater adventures in the imaginations of the main characters.
Stephen Sommers is an American film director, screenwriter and producer, best known for big-budget action films, such as The Mummy (1999), its sequel, The Mummy Returns (2001), Van Helsing (2004), and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009). He also directed The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993), Disney's live action version of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1994) and the cult classic horror film Deep Rising (1998).
Are You Afraid of the Dark? is a children's horror anthology television series created by D. J. MacHale and Ned Kandel. The original series aired on Nickelodeon from 1992 to 1996; the pilot episode aired respectively on YTV and Nickelodeon in 1990 and 1991. It led to two revival series, with the first airing from 1999 to 2000, and the second airing from 2019 to 2022.
Gremlins is a 1984 American comedy horror film directed by Joe Dante, written by Chris Columbus, and starring Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Polly Holliday, and Frances Lee McCain, with Howie Mandel providing the voice of Gizmo, the main mogwai character. It draws on legends of folkloric mischievous creatures that cause malfunctions—"gremlins"—in the British Royal Air Force going back to World War II. The story follows young man Billy Peltzer, who receives a strange creature as a pet, which then spawns other creatures that transform into aggressive, imp-like monsters that wreak havoc on Billy's town during Christmas Eve.
Mannheim Steamroller is an American neoclassical new-age music ensemble founded and directed by percussionist/composer Chip Davis in 1974. The group is known primarily for its Fresh Aire series of albums, which blend classical music with elements of new age and rock, and for its modern recordings of Christmas music. The group has sold 28 million albums in the U.S. alone.
Frederator Studios is an American animation television production studio founded by Fred Seibert in January 1997. It is a division of Frederator Networks, Inc., itself apart of Kartoon Studios' Canadian holding company Wow Unlimited Media. The studio's slogan is "Original Cartoons since 1998."
LazyTown is an English-language Icelandic-British-American preschool children's educational television series created by aerobics champion Magnús Scheving. The show was designed to encourage healthy lifestyles. The series was based on Scheving's stage plays Áfram Latibær!.
Go, Diego, Go! is an American children's animated television series that aired on Nickelodeon from September 6, 2005 to September 16, 2011, with 80 episodes across five seasons. Created and executive produced by Chris Gifford and Valerie Walsh Valdes, the series is a spin-off of the animated television series Dora the Explorer and follows Dora's cousin Diego, an 8-year-old boy whose adventures often involve rescuing animals and protecting the environment. The series also aired in reruns on Nick Jr. on CBS from September 17, 2005 to September 9, 2006.
Stefán Karl Stefánsson was an Icelandic actor and singer. He was best known for portraying Robbie Rotten, the antagonist of the children's television series LazyTown.
Beginning with the release of an eponymous video game in 1984, Barbie, a fashion doll manufactured by American toy and entertainment company Mattel and debuted on March 9, 1959, has been featured in a media franchise predominantly consisting of a film series and media formats across technologies like television and the Internet. Since then, it has become one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time and has been referred to among fans as the "Barbie Cinematic Universe".
Huckleberry "Huck" Hound is a fictional cartoon character, a blue anthropomorphic coonhound dog that speaks with a North Carolina Southern drawl. He first appeared in the series The Huckleberry Hound Show. The cartoon was one of six TV shows to win an Emmy Award in 1960 as an "Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming"; the first animated series to receive such an award.
Arnold "Arnie" Roth is an American conductor, composer, and record producer, known for his expansive career in the music industry. Roth began his career as a professional violinist before founding AWR Music, where Roth became more involved as a producer of orchestral concerts and recordings. Roth is perhaps best known as the co-creator and Music Director of Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY, produced in collaboration with the video game company Square Enix. Distant Worlds has performed hundreds of sold-out concerts around the world and has produced six full-length albums of orchestral Final Fantasy music. Roth's son Eric is also a famed conductor.
Matthew Tishler is a Canadian songwriter and music producer who has written and produced songs for film, television, radio, stage, and theme parks. He is known for his work with teen pop artists such as Olivia Rodrigo, Dove Cameron, Sabrina Carpenter, Ashley Tisdale, Olivia Holt and JoJo Siwa, as well as popular K-pop/J-pop artists like BTS, TWICE, EXO, NCT Dream, Enhypen, Taeyeon, Red Velvet, Namie Amuro, Kumi Koda, EXILE Atsushi, P1Harmony, and Stray Kids. His projects have combined sales of over 25 million units.
Band of Robbers is a 2015 American crime comedy film written and directed by brothers Aaron and Adam Nee, based on Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It stars Kyle Gallner as Huck Finn and Adam Nee as Tom Sawyer. Matthew Gray Gubler, Melissa Benoist, Daniel Edward Mora, Eric Christian Olsen, Hannibal Buress, and Stephen Lang also star.
"We Are Number One" is a song from the English-language Icelandic children's television series LazyTown, composed by Máni Svavarsson. The song was featured in the twelfth episode of the show's fourth season, entitled "Robbie's Dream Team", which is the 76th episode overall.
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