Until TV knocked on his door, he was nothing but ’net.
Now in almost the blink of an eye, Lucas Cruikshank has taken a page from Justin Bieber and gone from Internet oddity to TV star, appearing in his own comedy series as a wacko alien teen on Nickelodeon’s tween hit “Marvin Marvin.”
It’s a role reminiscent of the one that turned Robin Williams into a star more than 30 years ago on “Mork and Mindy.” And just like Bieber, Cruikshank is a small-town kid who was discovered on YouTube.
“It’s been really crazy,” Cruikshank, 19, told the Daily News. “I was just a normal kid in Nebraska; now I’m on a TV show.
“I always wanted to be an actor and writer, I just never would have expected it would happen — especially like this,” he said.
“Marvin Marvin” follows the adventures of a teenage alien with special powers named Marvin (Cruikshank) who was sent to Earth by his parents in order to protect him from evil invaders on his home planet.
Under the supervision of his new human parents, Bob (Pat Finn) and Liz (Mim Drew), Marvin tries to adjust to life on Earth as a typical American teenager.
“It’s been so much fun,” said Cruikshank. “The cast is so much fun to a person, they’re all seasoned comedic actors and I’m this kid who had a YouTube channel.”
“This kid” has quite a history. When he was only 13, he started shooting videos of himself playing different characters, and dreamed up a fellow named Fred Figglehorn — a 6-year-old who has a dysfunctional home life and “anger management issues” — and posted video of Fred in a Halloween sketch on YouTube.
That attracted an audience, so he made more episodes. Soon a YouTube channel he started with his cousins had over 1 million subscribers, the first YouTube channel to hit that level.
Nickelodeon brass noticed and signed him up to make “Fred: The Movie,” which aired in 2010 and was a hit.
Since then he’s done a sequel and a series of 11-minute episodes for the network.
“I don’t know why so many people like Fred,” noted Cruikshank, “maybe it’s this naive way he sees the world. I’m just glad they did.”
From www.nydailynews.com
Source:
http://justinbieber.blog7up.com/2013/01/26/cruikshanks-out-of-this-world-on-marvin-marvin/