Height: 6' 2"

Weight: 185 lbs. (On Jupiter)

Age: 11 (dog years)

Assorted pictures of John Horrigan in action!

Horrigan Ironing	John w. fish tie!	John picks up Lauren	John gets nit-picked!
Make up!	Scene 30 w director	Phil & John	John at bar

Bickernicks/Horrigan CHRONOLOGY

John began recording his voice on audiotape when he was 12 years old after hearing his older brother Jim do it. He was banned from the Dedham High School Drama Club as a Sophmore. During a performance of "MacBeth", while he was playing the role of Banquo, he signaled touchdown (just a referee would) after stabbing Macbeth. In 1983, he called his first high school football game on the local Dedham channel.

At the Thanksgiving Day game between Dedham and Norwood in 1984, he met the film's director Eric Bickernicks. Bickernicks heard Horrigan say something that he took to be funny - and encouraged Horrigan to make a mockery of the game if possible - a philosophy that Horrigan still takes into each broadcast today. The next year, Bickernicks and Horrigan made a comedy video entitled "The Town Pond". It was simply Bickernicks following Horrigan around in the woods in his light blue polyester suit and bowl haircut. That led to Horrigan appearing on Norwood cable television's "Sportstalk" in 1985 and "Local Gumbo" in 1986.

How Eric remembers it:

Christ, I can't believe Horrigan remembers this shit. Yes, around this time I had won one of the original Sony 8mm camcorders as a prize for some award. What better way to create something funny than to make Horrigan walk out into the middle of no where and try to be funny to a bunch of foliage. Jeez.

Horrigan and Bickernicks would not work together again until 1989 in Dedham, Mass. Bickernicks' new show ("Livewire") starred "Alt.Sex" cast member Martin Hanley. Bickernicks had Horrigan irritate Hanley whenever possible. It created a controversial interaction between Hanley and Horrigan. They would "kill-off" Horrigan in a later episode. From there, Bickernicks drafted two shows that Horrigan would have a major role in: "Nightime Talk Television" and "Klownhare".

Nightime Talk was a live, all-night radio show on cable TV! It featured a mouse running around a transistor radio in the glow of a television set. The gang took phone calls and made fun of anything and everything. Horrigan played "John Portable", the roving correspondent. He would phone in reports about cattle stampedes, flying saucer crashes and nursing home jailbreaks. In 1990, "Klownhare" featured Horrigan with a Robert Plant-type hairdoo and using a silly cartoon voice, while Bickernicks flashed a multiple of random images behind him. Fueled by live phone calls and cheap beer, the series ran throughout 1990. It's spin-off, "Have We Gone Too Far", brought the first trouble to Bickernicks, Horrigan and innovative Program Director Mark Gallagher. Horrigan co-hosted one show while sitting atop a toilet! Bickernicks and Gallagher then directed Horrigan in Jim Anderson's video comedy troupe called "The Gene Pool", which was nominated for an "A.C.E." award.

Eric's take on all this:

Cripes, not "The Gene Pool." (Did you have to bring that up?) Yea, we did all sorts of kooky shit back in the Dedham cable days. Ummm, and it wasn't my idea to put John on a toilet. (maybe at first.)

In 1991, Bickernicks got a "steady cam" and created another cable TV show. It was called "The Really, Relentless, Irrelevant and Redundant Program Show". The show was wildly popular in Dedham. The teenagers loved it! It was aired on Friday nights, and even the Police Chief commented that crime in the town had significantly diminished during the show's broadcasts. Everybody was watching. It was originally filmed unedited, with Bickernicks, Horrigan, Gallagher, and new member Larry Nobile driving around town making fun of everyone. Because the show would always end "en route" - Bickernicks developed "the transporter" (a modified TV remote clicker) that instantaneously transported the gang to different venues.

During the show's run, they picked up an anti-drug hitchhiker, met a gay court magistrate (after breaking into the county courthouse) and went looking for Peter McGowan's lemonade/urine stand. "Alt.Sex" star Johnny MacLeod appeared in a miniature golf episode. When the guys came upon a group playing the course in front of them, Horrigan blurted out "let's not share a hole - it's not safe these days". Horrigan played "Phillippe Alu", an out-of-key guitarist who would be found dying and covered in ketchup at the beginning of each episode. Horrigan would then scream out "character change" and become his regular self for the rest of the episode. Bickernicks would lock Horrigan in car trunks, put him in a bed outside in the parking lot and smash a pumpkin over his head during the series' run.

In the "Jeffrey Dahmer" episode, Bickernicks made Horrigan climb into three adjoined boxes that allegedly came from Dahmer - via UPS. With the temperature in the high 90's, Bickernicks covered Horrigan in ketchup and styrofoam peanuts and then sealed the three boxes, as Horrigan lay uncomfortably across the bottom. He then had Nobile crash into the boxes with his car, just after Horrigan secretly sprawled away. "I thought that I was going to suffocate", Horrigan recalls.

Around that time, they had disrupted Martin Hanley's "James Joyce Ramble" road race. Horrigan, wearing red long underwear, black patent leather shoes, with a dishtowel on his head and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, played "John Who-Sane?", a terrorist from the mythical country of Irab who cheated in road races. It was a geo-political response to the recently concluded Gulf War. Who-Sane stole a cab, cut across lawns, trashed water stands and tripped up runners with golf balls playing "Persian Golf".

The "Relentless" show gathered national attention, culminating with Bickernicks appearing on NBC's "Today" show and some interested tire-kickers from Fox bringing them to New York for an interview. Then the ax fell. Gallagher was fired and Bickernicks quit in protest. The end of a creative team......

More more time from Eric:

Yup, we'z shore did have sum fun back then! (We got paid shit, wadda ya want fer nuthin'?) Check out these links to read more about what happened:

	The Daily Transcript - December 6, 1991 Cable TV renegades were not afraid to take risks
	The Boston Phoenix - December 6, 1991 Broken cable
	The Patriot Ledger - Nov. 26, 1991 Program director fired over content

Horrigan went on to hone his broadcasting and acting careers throughout the nineties. He even got into television production and paranormal radio broadcasting. See http://www.bighoax.com/ - Then try this link: http://www.aberrations.net/acting.html

In August of 1998, Eric called up John and offered him a role in "Alt.Sex"......