Optimus Prime is a thoroughly nice bloke

A bit of back story required for this: Over the past couple of years, with the Transformers movie entering development, Don Murphy, one of the producers, set up his forums to get feedback from the fans about what they really wanted to see in the upcoming movie.

One thing stood out - about the only thing nearly everyone agreed on.

Peter Cullen, the original voice actor for Optimus Prime, should revisit the role.

There followed a movement by the fans to get this to become reality, and as Michael Bay came on board to direct, the fans and Don Murphy kept pushing this request.

A few months ago, after a superb audition, Cullen was once again cast as Prime. And there was much rejoicing. A few of us from Don's site banded together to get him one of the "Stooge shirts" that a large number of us had bought (stooge being a term of affection for members of Don's site which had been appropriated from one of his crazier critics).

Anyway, Snarlaboo AKA Dave, who organised the Stooge shirts, just posted a letter he received from Peter:

Dear Dave,

I thank you for the Stooges shirt, all all who contributed. Yet there is more than just thank you, for I have deep appreciation and grateful feeling for all of you.

To know that after all these many years, you care, leaves me quietly humbled.

There is more however. In your acceptance of Optimus Prime, all of you share with me a mutual respect for what we think a hero should be. That simple bond ties a multitude of meanings together. Of hope, respect, integrity, honor and courage. I am proud to be one of you.

Honorary Stooge. It sounds somewhat odd, but I understand the significance and lighthearted intention. I suppose Curly, Moe, Shemp or Larry is in all of us sometimes, and reminds us not to take life too seriously.

Please send along my gratitude to Robert Scott, Billy Edwards, Nancy Smythe, Nadja Tegen, Miles Ritchings, Albert Lee, Drew Early, Perter Verdi, Mike Holdcroft, Brian Leichtnam, Kev Johnson, Ollie Hurd and Matt Noades.

There is quite a lot of activity here in Hollywood. Sightings of car chases in the valley, and dry river beds filled with Transformer activity. I can only imagine the emmense work that Michael Bay is accomplishing. He is a gifted and talented man, and judging from the way he treated me in our couple of meetings, I am poised with confidence and eager anticipation to work with him.

I recieve some feedback from some internet hounds, and learn of your enthusiasm and continued support. I share the same hopes for dear friends Frank Welker to join the team, and bring full circle the ultimate dream. "Hold onto your dreams, The future is built on dreams".

I sometimes dream of restoring an old Freightliner, and painting it up like Optimus Prime, to drive among the hills and dirt roads of my liitle town. Perhaps I will. You have all certainly inspired me to do such things.

Well Dave and friends, "Till all are one." I remain your indebted friend, and keep you all in my thoughts as we count down to what I believe will be more than meets the eye!

A proud honorary Stooge,
Peter Cullen

I thought that was a really sweet gesture from a lovely man.

Oh, and a little late, but here's another review of my play:

Players delight in classic comedy

by George Willey

A black comedy written long before the term was coined, Arsenic and Old Lace broke new ground when it arrived in Britain from the US in the 1940s.

I saw it on its first tour and have never forgotten it. The film with Cary Grant was good but the play is better, though overlong. With a magnificent set - a rambling, New York turn-of-the-last-century house and some consummately good acting, the Purbeck Players gave us a memorable evening.



Peter Gutteridge and Matthew Noades designed and built the amazing set, the slightly sinister house where gentlemen lodgers mysteriously disappeared. Jean Rickard and Jacqui Chater beautifully played the guileless, endearing old ladies who helped those lonely lodgers to a better place by way of lethally charged elderberry wine.

Their serene way of life (and death) is interrupted by a visit from their nephew Mortimer (Tony Bailey), brilliant in a highly demanding role as the ghastly secrets of the house are revealed. His occupation as a drama critic led to many in-jokes in the witty script. Gail Green brought a refreshing note of sanity to the crazed household as his fiancée Elaine.

Nick Clarke was suitably horrific as the murderous nephew Jonathan, a Boris Karloff look-a-like; Frank Rickard was his sinister henchman, and the two made a hysterically flesh-creeping double act.

Matthew Noades contributed a side-splitting turn as the third brother, Teddy, a take-off of turn-of-the-last-century president Teddy Roosevelt; he made show-stopping entrances in various costumes, riotously roaring.

The long, involved farce was studded with gems of comic character studies, some of them police officers myopically unable to spot the mayhem going on in the Brewster household: Tom Holmes, John Murphy, Bob Fellows, Chris Gutteridge and Phil Frost played these roles with gusto. Only slight pauses for prompts in the second act slightly hindered a truly amazing production.