Crackle Blog

You've met the Countee brothers, now meet Marc Gilbar, another mastermind behind Decisions, Decisions.

Decisions, Decisions is the brainchild of the comedy group Handsome Donkey. This week Crackle is getting to know them. Earlier we met the Countee brothers, Brendan and Adam, Now we'll turn to "speed checkers champion" and one of the chief architects of this show, Marc Gilbar, who is quite possibly too smart for his own good.

Crackle: Marc, since you've already explained how Handsome Donkey came together, can you tell about where the show Decisions, Decisions came from?

Marc Gilbar: Well, Brendan and I were roommates at Georgetown, and when you're in college there's a lot of "down time" I guess you could call it, you're sitting around, you're drinking beers, you're just sort of ... bored. Out of that boredom came our own sort of bizarre version of a game that a lot of people play, "Would you rather do A or B?" The great thing about "Would You Rather" is that it's almost like a Rorschach test of what your personality is. Some people would be like, "Would you rather have sex with so-and-so or eat feces," but for us it became more about funny and bizarre situations.

One of the first ones that we talked about was, "Would you rather shower with Chargers head coach Marty Schottenheimer every day for the rest of your life, or sleep in a sleeping bag with Dirk Nowitzki immediately after he finishes a double overtime loss to the Spurs. For me, coming up with the scenarios was always more fun. The great thing about Brendan is that his answers were always so in depth, for example, "I'll shower with Marty Schottenheimer because I think over time I feel like I could learn enough from him, in the shower, that maybe I could become an offensive coordinator." Years later when we were coming up with ideas and fun stuff to shoot, being able to visualize these these scenarios was took them to a different level. In dreaming up what the consequences are there really are some hilarious results and you can show them instantly.

Crackle: So between the above example, and a few others it seems like you guys have a lot of sports related ideas, any particular reason?

MG: Well, initially when we first pitched the series, which we developed with Disney, there was talk of doing it with ESPN, so we did 20 or 30 of them that were just sports related. They got to be really strange. Some of our favorites stuck in there, but we didn't want to make the show 100% sport related, some of the favorite ones remain, but we just took it into other directions when we realized that it would probably live on a "normal" video site.

For example, one of the current Decisions is that you have to beat Napoleon in a game of Risk to earn the right to go to sleep, originally it was that you had to beat Arvydas Sabonis in a game of checkers.

Decisions, Decisions: "Napoleon or Larry King?"

Crackle: So then, what's your favorite episode?

MG: For me I really like the "Tin Man or Studio Audience". When we pitched that episode, it was actually that you had to dress like Paddington Bear. I think it would have been funny. We kept on talking about Brendan dressed as Paddington Bear in a pea coat and upturned rain hat and galoshes. But we actually got a note from the studio, often times we disagreed with them, but they told us that we needed to broaden that reference. So we landed on the tin man.

From there we realized that there were other jokes and references we could use, and one of our production assistants, Joe Rogan (not that Joe Rogan), pointed out the fun of steam coming out of his head. Of course we took that to a sexual situation immediately. Brendan was a great sport to get into that costume, and we had a great costume designer, who was actually this metal guy and jewelry designer. He's this Japanese guy name Taka Mizuno, who literally went to the hardware store, got all this metal, and fashioned that thing from scratch.

On the day when Brendan is humping the girl in bed, it was actually our director of photography because we shot each side separately, and then you have another production assistant with like a bucket of dry ice with a tube, and I'm on the other side of the camera cuing the orgasm, then the PA blows smoke into the tube, and it comes out of his reverse funnel ...  it's like the most bizarre scene, but it was par for the course on Decisions.

Crackle: It's time for us ask you a series of questions secretly submitted by your fellow Handsome Donkey cast mates. Let's see if you can guess who asked what ...

(From Aaron Greenberg): If you could re shoot your squib scene, would you do anything differently?

MG: That's Greenberg. When they wired me with the squib I asked the guy if we could have blood. He said that the explosion is so great and that we're in an uncontrolled environment ... we were shooting in a friend's house -- that the blood would get everywhere, and that we shouldn't. My regret is that I should have just said, we'll figure it out later, or we'll clean it up because the blood would have been a lot of fun. I just love the image of the gun going off and looking around and all of the extras and the camera guy and the crew just covered in blood that has spurted out of my heart. That would have been awesome.

Decisions, Decisions: "Salty Old Sea Captain or Doc Holliday?"

(From Adam Countee): Which character from The Lord of the Rings did you dress up as on the opening night of The Return of the King?

MG: For The Return of the King I didn't dress up as a character, but if I had it would have been as the Liv Tyler Princess ... or Cate Blanchett? One of the two. I get the two confused, but I definitely would have dressed up as one of them.

(From Adam Countee): Is it true you once ate 56 In N' Out Burgers and 18 boxes of Yum Yum  Bavarian Cream in one weekend so that you could submit an audition tape for The Biggest Loser? If so, how did that work out?

MG: That is true. I'm a pretty skinny guy, if I'd been on The Biggest Loser I didn't think I would stand a chance. I couldn't loose more than five pounds of water weight before being taken to the hospital, so I knew I would really have to pack on the lbs if was to stand a chance, and it didn't end well. I didn't make it on the show, and my doctor said my cholesterol had reached potentially fatal levels and I needed to detox for a couple of weeks. I've been a vegetarian ever since.

(From Brendan Countee): You have a law degree. What kind of law do you want to practice?

MG: I want to practice maritime law. Pirates have become a big problem, for people who enjoy sailing and exploring it's become a dangerous time. I'd like to bring back the rule of law to the sea.

(From Brendan Countee): Do you think your leadership skills as a director have anything to do with your experience as a coxswain for the freshman crew team at Georgetown?

MG: Absolutely. On the set, in the middle of giving directions, sometimes I would tell Brendan or Adam to make sure they were "laying into their front stroke" and to "give me a power 10," and they would just look back at me not having any clue what I was talking about. Then I realized that I was just giving them rowing instructions.

(From Aaron Greenberg): You have several hundred Pez dispensers at your home. If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only choose five Pez dispensers to take with you, which five would they be?

MG: That is a great question. Huh ... usually the Pez dispensers come out in sets of five, like five characters from the same movie, and I'm a purist. I would hate to break up a set, so I think I would take the Disney Princesses set which is the five princess from Disney classics. There's, like, Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Sleeping Beauty ... I don't think I can name all the Princesses, but there are five. They would be great company I imagine. I could give them all names and play out certain .... scenarios.

(From Brendan Countee): Who was the 11^th president of the United States?

James K. Polk. I wish I could say I'm a Presidential trivia wonk, but it is actually a clever, and thinly veiled reference to a joke, that cane be found in episode nine of Squeegees, in which Adam's character has fallen off of a skyscraper and has miraculously survived, even though he has just made a crater into the sidewalk. My character is trying to figure out if he's okay, so I ask him a couple of basic questions, but the questions become more and more difficult. They go from from, "Who was the 11th President?" to, "Can you name the offensive line of the 1972 Houston Oilers?" to, "How do we address America's growing health care crisis?", and Adam's answers are dead on. So, if I can remember one President for as long as I live, it'll probably be the 11th -- James K. Polk.

With that, there's still one Donkey left to go. He's the mastermind behind questions involving both Pez dispensers and erectile dysfunction. He answers questions like, "If the other members of Handsome Donkey were WWF wrestlers, who would they be?" He also delivers the real story of working with Courtny Cox. He is Aaron Greenberg, and he is one Handsome Donkey.

CJ - Crackle Blog Editor