Savage Steve Holland | |
---|---|
Born | 1959or1960(age 63–64) Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | Film director, writer, producer, animator, voice actor |
Years active | 1983–present |
Children | 2 [1] |
Savage Steve Holland (born 1960) is an American film and television director, writer, producer, animator and voice actor most known for directing Better Off Dead (1985) [2] and One Crazy Summer (1986), starring John Cusack. He also directed the film How I Got into College (1989), and animated the "Whammy" on the game show Press Your Luck . He later went on to create and produce Eek! the Cat and The Terrible Thunderlizards for Fox Kids.
Holland now manages his own studio, Savage Studios Ltd., and directs shows for Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.
From a young age, Holland had an avid interest in animation, and went to the California Institute of the Arts. While there, he became more interested in filmmaking and made a semi-autobiographical short titled My 11-Year-Old Birthday Party, which played at some minor film festivals and ended up opening the LA Film Festival. Another one of his student projects, Going Nowhere Fast (1980), was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art show Tomorrowland: CalArts in Moving Pictures. Through Henry Winkler, who saw his work and liked it, Holland soon landed a deal to direct his first feature. [1]
In 1985 and 1986, Holland directed the teen comedy films Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer respectively, back-to-back. Both starred John Cusack before he rose to fame. Upon release, they were financial bombs but quickly found an audience through television reruns on HBO and home video rentals. [1]
Subsequently, Holland struggled to find work in Hollywood and took on a work-for-hire job directing How I Got into College (1989), after the original director had dropped out last minute. According to Holland, the film "seemed a little doomed from the start", and ended up doing poorly as well. [1]
How I Got Into College was the last film Holland made that had a theatrical release. He instead turned his attention toward television production; directing children's shows such as The New Adventures of Beans Baxter , Encyclopedia Brown and Lizzie McGuire . He would return to his roots in animation with Fox's Eek! The Cat . [1]
In 2007, Holland wrote a script for a new film called The Big 1-3, and was attached to begin production that fall. [3] [4] [5] Unfortunately, he wasn't able to successfully "sell" the film at the time, but hopes to make it in the future. "That's kind of my dream script," he said. "That's the one I wanna make and then I just wanna, like, go off into the sunset." [1]
In 2016, he was reportedly developing a potential semi-sequel to One Crazy Summer with Bobcat Goldthwait, one of the film's original stars, but was unsure if Cusack and Demi Moore would return to reprise their roles. [1]
Films
Television series
Frederick Aaron Savage is an American actor and director. He is best known for his role as Kevin Arnold in the American television series The Wonder Years (1988–1993). He has earned several awards and nominations, such as People's Choice Awards and Young Artist Awards. He is also known for playing the Grandson in The Princess Bride, and voiced the title protagonist in Oswald. Savage has worked as a director, and in 2005 later starred in the television sitcom Crumbs. Savage returned to acting in the television series The Grinder, as well as the Netflix series Friends from College.
Press Your Luck is an American television game show created by Bill Carruthers and Jan McCormack. Contestants answer trivia questions to earn "spins" on a randomly cycling game board. The board's spaces display cash, prizes, extra spins, special items, or the show's mascot, a cartoon creature known as the Whammy. Landing on a Whammy eliminates any cash and prizes accumulated while also displaying a short comedic animation. Its format is a revival of an earlier Carruthers production, Second Chance, which was hosted by Jim Peck and aired on ABC in 1977. The original version of Press Your Luck aired on CBS between 1983 and 1986. This version featured Peter Tomarken as host, Rod Roddy as announcer, and Carruthers as both director and voice of the Whammy. The original incarnation of the show gained significant media attention in 1984 for contestant Michael Larson, who won over $100,000 after memorizing the original pattern of the game board.
John Paul Cusack is an American actor. He began acting in films during the 1980s, starring in coming-of-age dramedies such as Sixteen Candles (1984), Better Off Dead (1985), The Sure Thing (1985), Stand by Me (1986), and Say Anything... (1989). In the 1990s, he then started appearing in independent films and had leading men roles in Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Con Air (1997), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Anastasia (1997), The Thin Red Line (1998), Being John Malkovich (1999), High Fidelity (2000), America's Sweethearts (2001), Max (2002), and Runaway Jury (2003).
The Fairly OddParents is an American animated television series created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon. The series follows the adventures of Timmy Turner, a 10-year-old boy with two fairy godparents named Cosmo and Wanda who grant him wishes to solve his everyday problems.
Better Off Dead is a 1985 American teen black comedy film written and directed by Savage Steve Holland. It stars John Cusack, David Ogden Stiers, Diane Franklin and Kim Darby. The film was released in August 1985.
Whammy! is an American television game show that aired new episodes on Game Show Network (GSN) from April 15, 2002, to December 5, 2003. The series was produced by Fremantle North America, in association with GSN. The main goal of the game is to earn as much money and prizes as possible through collecting spins by answering trivia questions correctly, then using those spins on a gameboard to win various prizes and cash amounts while attempting to avoid the show's eponymous character, the "Whammy." Contestants who do land on a Whammy lose all their prizes accumulated to that point; four Whammies eliminates a contestant from the game. The program is an updated version of Press Your Luck, which originally aired on CBS from September 19, 1983, to September 26, 1986. The series was taped at Tribune Studios and was hosted by Todd Newton, with Gary Kroeger announcing. The show aired in reruns on GSN until 2017, and came back on May 11, 2020, up until October 1, 2021.
David Silverman is an American animator who has directed numerous episodes of the animated television series The Simpsons, as well as its 2007 film adaptation. Silverman was involved with the series from the very beginning, animating all of the original short Simpsons cartoons that aired on The Tracey Ullman Show. He went on to serve as director of animation for several years. He also did the animation for the 2016 film The Edge of Seventeen, which was produced by Gracie Films.
Eek! The Cat is an animated series, created by Savage Steve Holland and Bill Kopp, produced by Fox Kids, Savage Studios and Nelvana, it is outsourced by Wang Film Productions. Broadcast from 1992 to 1997 on Fox's former Saturday morning children's block Fox Kids, it aired in Canada on YTV from 1992 to 1998.
Zachary Thomas Moncrief is an American artist, producer, director, and writer in the animation industry. He's currently a co-executive producer on Netflix's pre-school series Ghee Happy. His titles have included supervising producer, writer, supervising director, storyboard artist, designer, and songwriter. In 2009, an episode from Phineas and Ferb, which he directed entitled "The Monster of Phineas-n-Ferbenstein", received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in the category for Outstanding Special Class Short-format Animated Programs.
Raymond Herbert Wise is an American actor best known for his role as Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks and its prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). He has appeared in films such as Swamp Thing (1982), The Journey of Natty Gann (1985), RoboCop (1987), Bob Roberts (1992), Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), X-Men: First Class (2011) and God's Not Dead 2 (2016).
One Crazy Summer is a 1986 American romantic comedy film, written and directed by Savage Steve Holland, starring John Cusack, Demi Moore, Bobcat Goldthwait, Curtis Armstrong and Joel Murray. The original film score was composed by Cory Lerios.
William H. Carruthers was an American television executive who gained his first fame as the director of The Soupy Sales Show at Detroit television station WXYZ-TV. He also directed the Ernie Kovacs-helmed game show, Take a Good Look, for ABC from 1959 to 1961.
William Kopp is an American animator, writer and voice actor.
Timothy Björklund, also known as Timothy Berglund, is an American artist, animator, story writer, art director, and director of animated film and television from the United States. His sole movie to date, Teacher's Pet, was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award in 2005.
Klutter is an animated segment that ran on Eek! Stravaganza's fourth season from 1995 to 1996 on the Fox Kids block. It was created by David Silverman and Savage Steve Holland. The segment was animated by the same people who used to work for Fox's The Critic, which was canceled that year. The executive producers were David Silverman, Savage Steve Holland, and Phil Roman. Unlike the Eek and Thunderlizard segments, this was a Fox Children's Productions and Savage Studios co-production in association with Film Roman for animation. Eight episodes were produced.
Nathan T. Wang is an American music composer and director. He graduated from Pomona College in California and received an Ambassadorial Scholarship from Rotary International to study at Oxford University. He is the winner of the Cable Ace award for the soundtrack to the documentary The Lost Children of Berlin. He also composed the acclaimed soundtrack for the aviation film, One Six Right.
A Fairly Odd Summer is a 2014 American live-action/animated comedy television film. It is the sequel to A Fairly Odd Christmas and was released on August 2, 2014. It is the third and final installment in The Fairly OddParents live-action film series beginning with the first film A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner!, and continuing with its first sequel.
Pacific Bay Entertainment is an American film and television production company based in Santa Monica, California and launched in 1997 by Scott McAboy and Amy Sydorick. Their slate of film and television projects Include: Jinxed, Big Time Movie, The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, Swindle, Rags, Saved, Son of the Beach, A Fairly Odd Summer, Santa Hunters, Splitting Adam, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Rufus, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and Malibu Rescue.