Mike Myers (Not the Scary One) Does Everything

Many of my older readers will remember comedian Mike Myers form his work on NBC's Saturday Night Live and subsequent film spin-offs Wayne's World and the appropriately titled Wayne's World 2. Myers' more contemporary filmography includes the animated Shrek series, which debuted in 2001 starring Myers in the eponymous role. The first Shrek film did well at the box-office, which prompted a sequel called Shrek 2. The second Shrek film used all of the same jokes as the first film but still managed to outperform it at the box-office. With their coffers full, DreamWorks had nothing to lose by green-lighting a third Shrek film titled Shrek the Third: Cash Grab, which again featured all of the same jokes from the previous two films but included more B-list voice actors. After the considerable box-office success of this third film, the bean counters at DreamWorks realized that releasing another Shrek film would be all benefit and, with the same material as your morning bowel movement, pinched off a fourth film called Shrek Forever After, which is exactly how long the movie-going public will hate Mike Myers and everyone else associated with this franchise.


Thankfully, we don't have to rely merely on the Shrek movie franchise to see Myers' comedic talents. For those of you that have Shrek curtains, Shrek sweatshirts, an undoubtedly soil your Shrek pajamas while you sleep, you may remember these other Shrek-themed titles: Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party video short; Shrek 4-D short; Shrek: Smash n' Crash Racing video game; Shrek the Halls video short; Donkey's Caroling Christmas-tacular short; Scared Shrekless TV short; and finally, no one can forget the Larry Flynt production of A Deliverance Tribute: Shrek Sodomizes Donkey DVD.

Fortunately for the movie-going public, Mike Myers has done more than just The Love Guru, I mean voice work. In 1997 Myers played both of his most famous roles as British secret agent Austin Powers and Powers' nemesis Dr. Evil in the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. If memory serves me correctly, Man of Mystery finds Austin Powers frozen in ice on Antarctica. Once thawed, Powers kills and then replicates all of the people aboard the Nostromo. The film ends with an extended fight sequence between Keith David and Roddy Piper until both are blasted out of an airlock onto the surface of Mars... Anyway, Myers could take credit for Man of Mystery's modest success since he wrote it and played the film's two starring roles. In the sequel, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Myers again played both leads and wrote himself a new character who ate stuff called Fat Bastard. Finally, in 2002, proving that he could take more jobs that the EPA, Myers wrote, did the grip work, catered all the food, reprised his three earlier roles, and played the other title role in Austin Powers in Goldmember. Scotty don't!

For those of you that can't get enough of Myers' narcissism, it's been announced this week that he'll start writing a prequel to the Austin Powers franchise for Broadway. No word on how many different roles he'll play, but I'm betting it's no less than five. Anyway, I'm sure it's all just a warm-up for another Austin Powers film, or maybe another Shrek film, or possibly even an Austin Powers versus Shrek film. Whatever the case may be, Myers will surely add more characters that he can play himself to whatever new movie or project he does. My hope is that the result more closely resembles Lee Marvin's Oscar performance as Tim Strawn and Kid Shelleen in Cat Ballou rather than Keanu Reeves' Non-Oscar performance as Ted Logan and something called "Evil Ted" in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

Perhaps the most annoying bit that will come out of all of this will be the new catchphrases. Just when you thought you'd heard the last utterance of a fourteen year-old boy (or a thirty year-old man, for that matter) tell something or someone to behave or to get in his belly, along comes Myers, shifting focus from important political and social issues to shagging, bad teeth, and God forbid, maybe even blogging.

Jean-Claude Van Damme's portrayal of twins Alex and Chad Wagner did not
earn him an Oscar nomination, contrary to popular belief.