John Moschitta, Jr.
Encyclopedia
John Moschitta Jr. is a spokesperson and performer best known for his rapid speech delivery. He appeared in over 100 commercials as "The Micro Machines
Man" as well as an award winning 1981 ad for FedEx
.
Moschitta was credited in The Guinness Book of World Records as the World's Fastest Talker, with the ability to articulate 586 words per minute. Raised with five sisters, he often remarked that he needed to talk fast "just to get a word in edgewise."
, where he studied theater and appeared in over 14 shows in two years, including a production of Room Service alongside Nassau alum Billy Crystal
. Moschitta was also a contestant on the game show The $25,000 Pyramid
, in which he was paired with comedian Joan Rivers
and won $10,500. He returned to the show on a number of occasions as a celebrity guest.
After several years working in television production in New York City, he was hired by Warner Communications
as a producer and performer for QUBE
, the world's first 2-way interactive cable system. QUBE premiered on December 1, 1977 in Columbus, Ohio
, with eleven hours of live programming per day. Besides his local duties, Moschitta also hosted Nickel Flicks for the brand new Nickelodeon Network. The show aired nationwide three times per day, every day. In 1979, he moved to Los Angeles
.
TV series That's Incredible!
Patrick Kelly and Michael Tesch, employees of the Ally & Gargano
ad agency, hired Moschitta after seeing him on the show. In the ad, "Fast Paced World" for Federal Express
, directed by Joe Sedelmaier
, Moschitta played a fast-talking executive named Jim Spleen. Considered to be the most award-winning commercial in the history of advertising, it garnered six Clio awards
, including Best Performance–Male award for Moschitta. Turn-of-the-century polls named it the Most Effective Campaign in the History of Advertising and named Moschitta the Most Effective Spokesperson. The 40th-anniversary issue of New York Magazine (10/06/2008) crowned it "The Most Memorable Advertisement Ever" Advertising Age
ranked the ad number 11 among the top-100 advertising campaigns of the 20th century.
, Quality Inn, Northwest Airlines
, Olympus Camera
, Mattel
, Post Cereals, Tiger Games
, Continental Airlines
, Burger King
, ABC
, NBC
, CBS
, PBS
, HBO, and Jet Blue. The "Great Cable Comparison" spot for HBO, in which he played a dozen characters, earned him his second CLIO recognition and a Silver Medal from the International Film and Television Festival of New York (1985). He played "The Micro Machines
Man" in over 100 commercials that ran worldwide. Each one ended with the memorable tagline "Remember, if it doesn't say Micro Machines, it's not the real thing." Moschitta and various spots featuring his performances have won dozens of prestigious advertising awards. In 1996, Moschitta was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (the Emmy organization) for his contribution to outstanding commercials.
Along with partners Jim Becker and Andy Mayer, John "Mighty Mouth" Moschitta recorded a pugnacious take on ten classic novels in which he summarizes each book's entire story in approximately one minute. Included in this collection, entitled Ten Classics in Ten Minutes, are Herman Melville
's Moby-Dick
; William Shakespeare
's Romeo and Juliet
; F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
; Margaret Mitchell
's Gone with the Wind
; and John Steinbeck
's The Grapes of Wrath
. Soon after, the team produced a second recording, Professor John Moschitta's Ten Minute University. It promised a traditional four-year college education in just ten minutes, and came with a mini-diploma. It featured rapidly-delivered, humorous, 60-second lectures on various subjects, such as comparative literature, physics, economics, psychology, and football. Both were originally released on audio cassette in the 1980s; they were released on CD in 2004, with accompanying books.
's GSN Radio station in December 2008. The advertising depicted him slowing down after introducing himself, then losing the game to family members due to a buzzer.
Moschitta has had regular, recurring or starring roles in many television shows, including Saved by the Bell
; General Hospital
; Madame's Place
; Matt Houston
; Trapper John, M.D.
; Zorro and Son; The Half-Hour Comedy Hour; The Smothers Brothers Show
; Sesame Street
; and Callahan. In addition, he has made many guest-star appearances on shows such as Ally McBeal
, Chicago Hope
, The Big Easy, Caroline in the City
, All That
, Cousin Skeeter
, The A-Team
, Sisters
, Spencer, 3-2-1 Contact
, and Square One TV. He can be seen in the films Farce of the Penguins
, Queerspiricy, Blankman
, Dick Tracy, Going Under, Dirty Laundry, Starchaser: The Legend of Orin
, Ratboy
, and The Transformers: The Movie
.
He read the rules on the 55th Annual Academy Awards
, sang and danced on the Emmy Awards with other commercial icons (Dick Wilson
—Mr. Whipple, Jane Whithers—Josephine the Plumber, Jesse White (actor)
—the Maytag Repair Man, Virginia Christine
—Mrs. Olson, Patsy Garrett
—the Chow Chow Chow woman, and others) and appeared on television specials and news shows such as Motown 25, Bloopers, Disneyland 30th Anniversary, 60 Minutes
, 20/20, Most X-treme, Real People
, and co-hosted TV Land
's Greatest Commercial with David Leisure (Joe Izusu). He was featured on VH1
's 101 Favorite Stars and on I Love the 80s 3-D, for which he very quickly summarized each year's events. Celebrity game show appearances include The $100,000 Pyramid
, Family Feud
, Win, Lose or Draw
, Family Challenge
, Balderdash
, Identity
and Hollywood Squares
. He has been a Jeopardy!
answer and a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
question.
Moschitta has made appearances on over 1,000 television and radio talk shows including The Tonight Show
(with both Johnny Carson
and Jay Leno
); Oprah; and Good Morning America
. In the corporate world, Moschitta has filmed videos or made personal appearances for over 350 of the Fortune 500
companies as well as many other companies. Moschitta has met and performed for eight US Presidents.
as the Autobot
Blurr
, a role which he reprised more than 20 years later for the Cartoon Network
series Transformers Animated. He has also provided voices for characters on Family Guy
, Garfield and Friends
, Pinky and the Brain
, Bobby's World
and several episodes of Robot Chicken
. As an announcer, he was the voice of TLC
's Your Place or Mine?
, PAX Network's Balderdash
, Game Show Network
's Scrabble
and the final season of Hollywood Squares in syndication.
Moschitta's first love is theater and his favorite shows and roles include The Pirates of Penzance
(Major General), Never Gonna Dance
(Pangborn), Sweeney Todd
(Pirelli), The Last of the Red Hot Lovers
(Barney), Rock and Roll Heaven: The Musical Comedy (Satan), The Music Man
(Harold Hill), and Arsenic and Old Lace
(Dr. Einstein)
For many years, he has been involved in several charities and not-for-profit organizations. Besides working hands-on with many groups, he often volunteers his time to conduct live auctions at their gala events. The Los Angeles Times states that, as far as celebrity auctioneers go, "no one can suck money out of a room like John Moschitta Jr." To date he has raised over 20 million dollars for charity using his fast-talking talents.
Moschitta also voices a one-time character named "Key-per" from Adventure Time
in the episode "The Enchiridion".
Micro Machines
Micro Machines: The Original Scale Miniatures were a line of toys originally made by Galoob in the mid 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Galoob licensed the idea behind Micro Machines from Clem Heeden, a toy inventor from Wisconsin...
Man" as well as an award winning 1981 ad for FedEx
FedEx
FedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee...
.
Moschitta was credited in The Guinness Book of World Records as the World's Fastest Talker, with the ability to articulate 586 words per minute. Raised with five sisters, he often remarked that he needed to talk fast "just to get a word in edgewise."
Early work
At an early age, he acted in local community theater and school productions. In the 1970s, Moschitta attended Nassau Community CollegeNassau Community College
Nassau Community College is a two-year college. It is located in East Garden City, New York, USA. The school is in Nassau County on Long Island. NCC maintains a nationwide reputation for academic excellence and ease of transferability to four-year institutions.- History :Created as part of the...
, where he studied theater and appeared in over 14 shows in two years, including a production of Room Service alongside Nassau alum Billy Crystal
Billy Crystal
William Edward "Billy" Crystal is an American actor, writer, producer, comedian and film director. He gained prominence in the 1970s for playing Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom Soap and became a Hollywood film star during the late 1980s and 1990s, appearing in the critical and box office successes...
. Moschitta was also a contestant on the game show The $25,000 Pyramid
Pyramid (game show)
Pyramid is an American television game show which has aired several versions. The original series, The $10,000 Pyramid, debuted March 26, 1973 and spawned seven subsequent Pyramid series...
, in which he was paired with comedian Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...
and won $10,500. He returned to the show on a number of occasions as a celebrity guest.
After several years working in television production in New York City, he was hired by Warner Communications
Warner Communications
Warner Communications or Warner Communications, Inc. was established in 1971 when Kinney National Company spun off its non-entertainment assets, due to a financial scandal over its parking operations and changed its name....
as a producer and performer for QUBE
QUBE
QUBE was a cable television system that played a pivotal role in the history of American cable television. Launched in Columbus, Ohio in December 1977, QUBE introduced viewers, and the international press, to several concepts that became central to the future development of cable television:...
, the world's first 2-way interactive cable system. QUBE premiered on December 1, 1977 in Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
, with eleven hours of live programming per day. Besides his local duties, Moschitta also hosted Nickel Flicks for the brand new Nickelodeon Network. The show aired nationwide three times per day, every day. In 1979, he moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
FedEx commercial
In 1981, after appearances on several television shows, Moschitta appeared on the ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
TV series That's Incredible!
That's Incredible!
That's Incredible! was an American reality television show that aired on the ABC television network from 1980 to 1984.-Synopsis:In the tradition of You Asked For It, Ripley's Believe It or Not! and Real People, the show featured people performing stunts and reenactments of allegedly paranormal events...
Patrick Kelly and Michael Tesch, employees of the Ally & Gargano
Ally & Gargano
Ally & Gargano was an American advertising agency, which Advertising Age named agency of the year in 1982. Famous clients included Volvo, Saab, Federal Express , and Dunkin' Donuts ....
ad agency, hired Moschitta after seeing him on the show. In the ad, "Fast Paced World" for Federal Express
FedEx
FedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee...
, directed by Joe Sedelmaier
Joe Sedelmaier
Joe Sedelmaier is a director and producer of television commercials.Sedelmaier is best recognized as the director of some of television's best known, and most honored commercials through humorous spots like Fed Ex’s "Fast Talking Man" and Wendy’s "Where's the beef?"...
, Moschitta played a fast-talking executive named Jim Spleen. Considered to be the most award-winning commercial in the history of advertising, it garnered six Clio awards
Clio Awards
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world....
, including Best Performance–Male award for Moschitta. Turn-of-the-century polls named it the Most Effective Campaign in the History of Advertising and named Moschitta the Most Effective Spokesperson. The 40th-anniversary issue of New York Magazine (10/06/2008) crowned it "The Most Memorable Advertisement Ever" Advertising Age
Advertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
ranked the ad number 11 among the top-100 advertising campaigns of the 20th century.
Other commercials
In addition to his commercials for Federal Express, he completed over 750 television and radio commercials, including national campaigns for Minute RiceMinute Rice
Minute Rice is a brand of instant rice. The product was introduced in 1949 by General Foods, who merged with Kraft in 1990 and became Kraft General Foods, which became Kraft Foods in 1995. The product recently was sold to Riviana Foods in the United States, and to Ronzoni Foods Canada Corporation...
, Quality Inn, Northwest Airlines
Northwest Airlines
Northwest Airlines, Inc. was a major United States airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines by a merger approved on October 29, 2008, making Delta the largest airline in the world...
, Olympus Camera
Olympus Corporation
is a Japan-based manufacturer of optics and reprography products. Olympus was established on 12 October 1919, initially specializing in microscope and thermometer businesses. Its global headquarters are in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, while its USA operations are based in Center Valley, Pennsylvania,...
, Mattel
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
, Post Cereals, Tiger Games
Game.com
The Game.com is a handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics in September 1997. It featured many new ideas for handheld consoles and was aimed at an older target audience, sporting PDA-style features and functions such as a touch screen and stylus...
, Continental Airlines
Continental Airlines
Continental Airlines was a major American airline now merged with United Airlines. On May 3, 2010, Continental Airlines, Inc. and UAL, Inc. announced a merger via a stock swap, and on October 1, 2010, the merger closed and UAL changed its name to United Continental Holdings, Inc...
, Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, HBO, and Jet Blue. The "Great Cable Comparison" spot for HBO, in which he played a dozen characters, earned him his second CLIO recognition and a Silver Medal from the International Film and Television Festival of New York (1985). He played "The Micro Machines
Micro Machines
Micro Machines: The Original Scale Miniatures were a line of toys originally made by Galoob in the mid 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Galoob licensed the idea behind Micro Machines from Clem Heeden, a toy inventor from Wisconsin...
Man" in over 100 commercials that ran worldwide. Each one ended with the memorable tagline "Remember, if it doesn't say Micro Machines, it's not the real thing." Moschitta and various spots featuring his performances have won dozens of prestigious advertising awards. In 1996, Moschitta was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (the Emmy organization) for his contribution to outstanding commercials.
Along with partners Jim Becker and Andy Mayer, John "Mighty Mouth" Moschitta recorded a pugnacious take on ten classic novels in which he summarizes each book's entire story in approximately one minute. Included in this collection, entitled Ten Classics in Ten Minutes, are Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
's Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
; William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
; F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
; Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell was an American author and journalist. Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937 for her epic American Civil War era novel, Gone with the Wind, which was the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.-Family:Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta,...
's Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind
The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
; and John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
's The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962....
. Soon after, the team produced a second recording, Professor John Moschitta's Ten Minute University. It promised a traditional four-year college education in just ten minutes, and came with a mini-diploma. It featured rapidly-delivered, humorous, 60-second lectures on various subjects, such as comparative literature, physics, economics, psychology, and football. Both were originally released on audio cassette in the 1980s; they were released on CD in 2004, with accompanying books.
Television work
In 1990, Moschitta created the board game "Motor Mouth" with partners David Fuhrer and Mark Setteducati for Tiger Games. The game featured tongue twisters, a pair of plastic red lips that were passed around like a hot potato and an ever-ticking timer; the fast-paced game can also be found in other countries as "Tongue Tangle". An on-air radio version of the game was launched on the Game Show NetworkGame Show Network
The Game Show Network is an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite channel dedicated to game shows and casino game shows. The channel was launched on December 1, 1994. Its current slogan is "The World Needs More Winners"...
's GSN Radio station in December 2008. The advertising depicted him slowing down after introducing himself, then losing the game to family members due to a buzzer.
Moschitta has had regular, recurring or starring roles in many television shows, including Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell is an American television sitcom that aired between 1989 and 1993. The series is a retooled version of the 1988 series Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which was itself later folded into the history of Saved by the Bell...
; General Hospital
General Hospital
General Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....
; Madame's Place
Madame's Place
Madame's Place is an American sitcom that featured the misadventures of Madame, a puppet in the form of a bawdy old movie star with a naughty sense of humor....
; Matt Houston
Matt Houston
Matt Houston is an American crime drama series that aired on ABC from 1982 to 1985. Created by Lawrence Gordon, the series was produced by Aaron Spelling.-Synopsis:...
; Trapper John, M.D.
Trapper John, M.D.
Trapper John, M.D. is an American television medical drama and spin-off of the film MASH, concerning a lovable surgeon who became a mentor and father figure in San Francisco, California. The show ran on CBS from September 23, 1979, to September 4, 1986....
; Zorro and Son; The Half-Hour Comedy Hour; The Smothers Brothers Show
The Smothers Brothers Show
The Smothers Brothers Show is an American fantasy sitcom featuring the Smothers Brothers that aired on CBS on Friday nights at 9:30 p.m. ET from September 17, 1965 to September 9, 1966, co-sponsored by Alberto-Culver's VO5 hairdressing products and American Tobacco...
; Sesame Street
Sesame Street
Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...
; and Callahan. In addition, he has made many guest-star appearances on shows such as Ally McBeal
Ally McBeal
Ally McBeal is an American legal comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. The series was created by David E. Kelley, who also served as the executive producer, along with Bill D'Elia...
, Chicago Hope
Chicago Hope
Chicago Hope is an American medical drama series created by David E. Kelley that ran from September 18, 1994, to May 5, 2000. It takes place in a fictional private charity hospital.-Premise:The show stars Mandy Patinkin as Dr...
, The Big Easy, Caroline in the City
Caroline in the City
Caroline in the City is an American situation comedy that ran from September 21, 1995 to April 26, 1999 on the NBC television network. It starred Lea Thompson as cartoonist Caroline Duffy. The series premiered in the two-hour Thursday night block led by Friends.-Premise:Caroline Duffy is a...
, All That
All That
All That is an American live-action, sketch comedy-variety show that aired on the Nickelodeon cable television network featuring short comedic sketches and weekly musical guests. The theme song for All That was performed by TLC...
, Cousin Skeeter
Cousin Skeeter
Cousin Skeeter is a television show which ran on Nickelodeon from 1998 to 2003. It starred Robert Ri'chard as Bobby, a young boy, whose life changed when his strange cousin Skeeter comes to live with his family. With Skeeter's help, Bobby learns life lessons and tackles the general ups and downs of...
, The A-Team
The A-Team
The A-Team is an American action adventure television series about a fictional group of ex-United States Army Special Forces personnel who work as soldiers of fortune, while on the run from the Army after being branded as war criminals for a "crime they didn't commit". The A-Team was created by...
, Sisters
Sisters (TV series)
Sisters is a television drama which aired on NBC for six seasons, from 1991 to 1996. The series was created by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, who also created the Showtime series Queer as Folk and wrote the acclaimed Emmy and Peabody Award winning drama An Early Frost, also for NBC...
, Spencer, 3-2-1 Contact
3-2-1 Contact
3-2-1 Contact is an American science educational television show that aired on PBS from 1980 to 1988, and an adjoining children's magazine. The show, a production of the Children's Television Workshop, teaches scientific principles and their applications. Dr. Edward G...
, and Square One TV. He can be seen in the films Farce of the Penguins
Farce of the Penguins
Farce of the Penguins is a 2007 American direct-to-video parody of the 2005 documentary March of the Penguins. The motion picture features Samuel L. Jackson as narrator, with the two main characters being voiced by Bob Saget, who also wrote and directed the film, and Lewis Black...
, Queerspiricy, Blankman
Blankman
Blankman is a 1994 superhero parody film starring Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier, who are both of In Living Color fame. The film was directed by Mike Binder and written by Damon Wayans and J. F. Lawton, whose biggest success was writing Pretty Woman.-Plot:Darryl Walker is a clumsy nerdy...
, Dick Tracy, Going Under, Dirty Laundry, Starchaser: The Legend of Orin
Starchaser: The Legend of Orin
Starchaser: The Legend of Orin is a 1985 animated movie. It was written by animation writer Jeffrey Scott and was originally released in 3-D by Atlantic Releasing. Starchaser was one of the first animated movies to mix traditional and computer animation. It is the only 3-D film distributed by...
, Ratboy
Ratboy
Ratboy is a film released in 1986 and directed by and starring Sondra Locke. Though the film had a troubled production and was both a critical and commercial failure , it has maintained somewhat of a cult status throughout the years due to its make-up effects designed by Rick Baker.Ratboy did...
, and The Transformers: The Movie
The Transformers: The Movie
The Transformers: The Movie is a 1986 animated feature film based on the animated series of the same name. It was released in North America on August 8, 1986 and in the UK on December 5, 1986....
.
He read the rules on the 55th Annual Academy Awards
55th Academy Awards
The 55th Academy Awards were presented April 11, 1983 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore, Richard Pryor, and Walter Matthau.Louis Gossett, Jr...
, sang and danced on the Emmy Awards with other commercial icons (Dick Wilson
Dick Wilson
Dick Wilson, born Riccardo DiGuglielmo , was a British-born American character actor who played the role of finicky grocery store manager Mr...
—Mr. Whipple, Jane Whithers—Josephine the Plumber, Jesse White (actor)
Jesse White (actor)
Jesse White was an American television, film, and stage character actor. He is best remembered for portraying the Maytag repairman in television commercials, a role he played from 1967 to 1988.-Life and career:...
—the Maytag Repair Man, Virginia Christine
Virginia Christine
Virginia Christine was an American film and television actress and voice artist. Christine had a long career as a character actress in film and television. She played "Mrs...
—Mrs. Olson, Patsy Garrett
Patsy Garrett
Virginia "Patsy" Garrett is an actress best known for her recurring roles asnosy neighbor Mrs. Florence Fowler on TV's Nanny and the Professor , school secretary Miss Hogarth on Room 222 and as Mary Gruber in the Benji series of motion pictures beginning in 1974.-Career:Active on stage, screen...
—the Chow Chow Chow woman, and others) and appeared on television specials and news shows such as Motown 25, Bloopers, Disneyland 30th Anniversary, 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
, 20/20, Most X-treme, Real People
Real People
Real People is an NBC reality television series that aired from 1979 to 1984, on Wednesday and then Sunday nights. Its initial episodes aired live in the Eastern and Central Time Zones.-Synopsis:...
, and co-hosted TV Land
TV Land
TV Land is an American cable television network launched on April 29, 1996. It is owned by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, which also owns Paramount Pictures, and networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon...
's Greatest Commercial with David Leisure (Joe Izusu). He was featured on VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
's 101 Favorite Stars and on I Love the 80s 3-D, for which he very quickly summarized each year's events. Celebrity game show appearances include The $100,000 Pyramid
Pyramid (game show)
Pyramid is an American television game show which has aired several versions. The original series, The $10,000 Pyramid, debuted March 26, 1973 and spawned seven subsequent Pyramid series...
, Family Feud
Family Feud
Family Feud is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Two families compete against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to a survey question posed to 100 people...
, Win, Lose or Draw
Win, Lose or Draw
Win, Lose or Draw is an American television game show that aired from 1987 to 1990 in syndication and on NBC. It was taped at CBS Television City, often in Studios 31, 33, and 43 at various times...
, Family Challenge
Family Challenge
Family Challenge is an American game show that aired on The Family Channel from October 2, 1995 to September 7, 1997, lasting for two seasons. Reruns aired on GSN from April 3 to September 25, 1999....
, Balderdash
Balderdash (game show)
Balderdash is an American television game show that aired on PAX TV from August 2, 2004 to February 4, 2005 with repeats airing until April 22. It was hosted by Elayne Boosler and announced by John Moschitta...
, Identity
Identity (game show)
Identity is a reality/game show, hosted by Penn Jillette and produced by Reveille where contestants could win money by matching 12 strangers one-by-one to phrases about their identities.-Format:A contestant is introduced to twelve strangers...
and Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The "board" for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants...
. He has been a Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
answer and a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US game show)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an American television quiz show which offers a maximum prize of $1,000,000 for correctly answering 14 consecutive multiple-choice questions of random difficulty. Until 2010, the format required contestants to correctly answer 15 consecutive questions of increasing...
question.
Moschitta has made appearances on over 1,000 television and radio talk shows including The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
(with both Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson
John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
and Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
); Oprah; and Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
. In the corporate world, Moschitta has filmed videos or made personal appearances for over 350 of the Fortune 500
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...
companies as well as many other companies. Moschitta has met and performed for eight US Presidents.
Other appearances
Moschitta appeared in the 1980s animated series The TransformersThe Transformers (TV series)
The Transformers is an animated television series depicting a war among giant robots who could transform into vehicles, other objects and animal-like forms. Written and recorded in America, the series was animated in Japan and South Korea...
as the Autobot
Autobot
Autobot, a faction of sentient robots from the planet Cybertron, are usually the main protagonists in the fictional universe of the Transformers, a collection of various toys, graphic novels, paperback books, cartoons and movies first introduced in 1984. In all but one Transformer story, the...
Blurr
Blurr
Blurr is the name given to five different fictional characters in the Transformers universes. He frequently appears as a blue Autobot who transforms into a swift car...
, a role which he reprised more than 20 years later for the Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
series Transformers Animated. He has also provided voices for characters on Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
, Garfield and Friends
Garfield and Friends
Garfield and Friends is an American animated television series based on the comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis. The show was produced by Film Roman, in association with United Feature Syndicate and Paws, Inc., and ran on CBS Saturday mornings from September 17, 1988 to December 10, 1994, with...
, Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain is an American animated television series.The characters Pinky and the Brain first appeared in 1993 as a recurring segment on the show Animaniacs...
, Bobby's World
Bobby's World
Bobby's World is an American animated television series, which ran from 1990 to 1998, on FOX Kids. It was about the daily life of Bobby Generic and his very overactive imagination on how he sees the world. The show was created by Canadian actor-comedian Howie Mandel...
and several episodes of Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken
Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. Green provides many voices for the show...
. As an announcer, he was the voice of TLC
TLC (TV channel)
TLC is an American cable TV specialty channel which initially focused on educational content. Since 1991 TLC has been owned by Discovery Communications, the same company that operates the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and The Science Channel, as well as other learning-themed networks...
's Your Place or Mine?
Your Place or Mine?
Your Place or Mine? was a television game show that ran for 6 weeks on TLC. It was hosted by Cameron Mathison.Each episode featured two families competing to win several completely furnished rooms for their respective homes...
, PAX Network's Balderdash
Balderdash (game show)
Balderdash is an American television game show that aired on PAX TV from August 2, 2004 to February 4, 2005 with repeats airing until April 22. It was hosted by Elayne Boosler and announced by John Moschitta...
, Game Show Network
Game Show Network
The Game Show Network is an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite channel dedicated to game shows and casino game shows. The channel was launched on December 1, 1994. Its current slogan is "The World Needs More Winners"...
's Scrabble
Scrabble (game show)
Scrabble is an American television game show that was based on the Scrabble board game. The show was co-produced by Exposure Unlimited and Reg Grundy Productions. It ran from July 2, 1984 to March 23, 1990, and again from January 18 to June 11, 1993, both runs on NBC. A total of 1,335 episodes were...
and the final season of Hollywood Squares in syndication.
Moschitta's first love is theater and his favorite shows and roles include The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
(Major General), Never Gonna Dance
Never Gonna Dance
Never Gonna Dance is a Broadway musical featuring the music of Jerome Kern. The musical was based on the 1936 Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film Swing Time. Lyricists include Oscar Hammerstein, Ira Gershwin, P. G...
(Pangborn), Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...
(Pirelli), The Last of the Red Hot Lovers
The Last of the Red Hot Lovers
This article is about the Broadway production. For the film adaptation see Last of the Red Hot Lovers .Last of the Red Hot Lovers is a play by Neil Simon....
(Barney), Rock and Roll Heaven: The Musical Comedy (Satan), The Music Man
The Music Man
The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...
(Harold Hill), and Arsenic and Old Lace
Arsenic and Old Lace (play)
Arsenic and Old Lace is a play by American playwright Joseph Kesselring, written in 1939. It has become best known through the film adaptation starring Cary Grant and directed by Frank Capra. The play was directed by Bretaigne Windust, and opened on January 10, 1941. On September 25, 1943, the...
(Dr. Einstein)
For many years, he has been involved in several charities and not-for-profit organizations. Besides working hands-on with many groups, he often volunteers his time to conduct live auctions at their gala events. The Los Angeles Times states that, as far as celebrity auctioneers go, "no one can suck money out of a room like John Moschitta Jr." To date he has raised over 20 million dollars for charity using his fast-talking talents.
Moschitta also voices a one-time character named "Key-per" from Adventure Time
Adventure Time
Adventure Time was a local children's television show on WTAE-TV 4 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1959 to 1975. It was hosted by the late Paul Shannon, with guitarist Joe Negri and puppeteer Jim Martin...
in the episode "The Enchiridion".
See also
- TachylaliaTachylaliaTachylalia or tachylogia is extremely rapid speech. Tachylalia occurs in many clutterers and many people who have speech disorders.Tachylalia is a generic term for speaking fast, and does not need to coincide with other speech problems...
, term for extremely rapid speech - Fran Capo (fastest female speaker)Fran CapoFran Capo is a motivational speaker, adventurer, comedian, voice-over artist, 15-time author and holder of 5 world records.Fran Capo was born in Greenwich Village in New York City...