This week’s artist’s spotlight is on @natemfpuppets

1.  Tell me a little about yourself.

“Hello world, I am Nate Puppets let’s see, I’m… 6.6, half black and half Jewish, use a wheelchair sometimes, love movies and spaghetti….. Wait wrong about you…….
Hello! I am an Artist from Cleveland OH.  Okay well obviously I’m an artist, this is an artist spotlight after all. I guess this is more about what I do as an artist so, let me get into that a bit. I’m a puppeteer and a cartoonist although I’m sure other people in the respected fields might possibly disagree with me. For the last decade and a half I’ve been roaming the city and country with my funky, furry, fabulous brain children, creating a true blue genuine what the actual fuck am I watching kind of experience that makes people say, “Oh my God, Helen! Grab the kids I’ll start the car!”

2.  What make you interested in pursuing puppets as an art form?

“I have always loved puppets, that is not an exaggeration I don’t remember a time I didn’t like puppets. My first puppet I got at 2 or 3 (maybe?) A lion ( more on him later) I even have a picture of me and him I sajd “Mommy I’m not taking a picture without my lion”. So ya know, I’m a true 90’s baby, I was a baby in the 90’s and man! Did they have a lot of puppet shows back then. We had Sesame Street, Barney (I fucking loved Barney and am no longer ashamed to admit it ) The Puzzle Place, Dudley The Dragon etc, etc but man,  specifically Nick Jr those where my favorites. Eureeka’s Castle and Allegra’s Window are the two that really stick out to me. I mean, look at them, they where so cool. These bright, soft, colorful, friendly creations that you just wanna hug, amazing’s.  It’s funny, a few years ago I was feeling rather uninspired and my friend had a tape with. an episode of Eureeka’s Castle and BOOM it was like I remembered exactly why I even picked this up in stuff the first place, they’re so cool, how could you not want to pursue this?  The actual pursuit of puppetry starts at 11 with Ventriloquism of all things. I got really into ventriloquism at that age because of The Night Of The Living Dummy, I was in a really bad situation at the point (Oh the tragedy of it all! ) and was reading super heavy, I read two and a half of the original three and just said, that’s it I’m becoming a ventriloquist. I did ventriloquism for a few years and got really good at it, then suddenly I see something from my childhood in the library… 

The Muppet Christmas Carol 
It’s been a good long while since I caught this flick so I grab it and HO-LEE SHIT I am blown away, that was it I no longer wanted to be a ventriloquist, I wanted to do that. I wanted to be a puppeteer (yes they’re different) so come hell or high water that’s what I was gonna do.  I built my first puppets at the end of my sophomore year of high school, the rest as they say is history.”

3. What are some of your favorite puppets that you created and why?

“Oh God it’s hard to choose without worrying that I’m gonna hurt feelings 
So… 

There’s Lion who’s really my lion from childhood who’s now grown up and a successful actor in the world of experimental underground theater.  I lost at an early age like 10, it really seemed like my life started falling apart at that time. So Lion is officially “The Long Lost Lion” we were separated for years and now we’ve reunited.  Lion is still very much the same soul he was when I was a little kid, it’s like having my buddy back in my life.

There is Rickety Rat a true fan favorite. The paranoid, bipolar conspiracy slinging, rat and his cryptic slogan VOTE RICKETY RAT. I designed him the day Disney announced they were buying Fox (Man that makes me angry) I was doing a lot of cardboard art at that time, so I’m at the old job getting angry that another conglomerate is growing bigger so I’m just thinking Mickey with a bullet in his brain. I come home, draw that up, cut it out and think wow, that’d be a sick puppet. I hadn’t made a puppet in years and at that point was actually back on Ventriloquism. Something took over and the rat was born 

Winkleperry the psychedelic Pegasus pony  ( NSFW) who’s Rickety’s best friend, who’s a generally kinda slurry fella. Winkleperry is love with Rickety Rat, Rickety Rat is not in love with Winkleperry but, will willingly have sex with Winkleperry (even though he is straight) for two reasons, one he’s his best friend and two Winkleperry has a very specialized ability. Winkleperry’s species produce a highly pyschoactive chemical to give them a better orgasm.  This chemical leaks from the nose , mouth and genitals for the most amazing trip of your entire life. Rickety is one of the few living beings that knows this. 

There’s Tubby who’s a shitty kid with a sandwich sticking out of bis mouth, that he speaks through. Tubby is the face of a of a terrible sandwich franchise that openly violates the health code. I love Tubby because his design is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever come up with and I really don’t know any other puppet like him.  

Finally my newest creation is Petey The Puppet. Petey is a marionette who cut his own strings so no one could Last year was rather crazy, I had a mental breakdown and the beginning of that I attended and participated in a black puppetry festival at UCONN.  At this festival we learned that the first true original American puppets were blackface minstrels. Fun fact, I’ve been studying blackface since I was 9, and had dealt with seeing blackface puppets my whole puppeteering life and they had been dealt with in a very shitty way “it was history” I ended up rabbit holing into blackface and even wrote a full very intense play. So a year goes that I’m working on by now I need healing and relief because this year is fucking NUTS already.  I really start to think about black puppets again, and how few there really truly are.  Then I think of all the black children back in the day and how they couldn’t see themselves in shows like Howdy Doody and other puppets on TV.  Then I start to what black puppets did I actually see on TV myself?  I came up with Cousin Skeeter and Leon from The Puzzle Place (also Clifford from Muppets Tonight) I also remembered the multiple hours I would spend on the internet looking for a black puppet of my own and not finding a single one I liked.  Enter Petey, a huge wave pf relief from this long struggle of identity within the puppet world and myself I felt like a kid all over again when he was done, I’m really looking forward to his future.”

4. What is “The Underground World”?

“The Underground World? The Underground World is The Nate Puppets extended universe! 
This is where all my puppets coexist even of they are not aware of it. There’s the two cities (at the moment) There’s ClEVE-Land where Rickety and Company live and theirs Rauppetsburg where The Slack Pack live (my Ventriloquist dummies) I could never truly give them up so I gave them territory. There is also the holy council which Lion actually sits on. The world itself exist both within the puppets and my cartoon work. 
CLEVE-Land is like the city of Cleveland on 100, a super fast bright colorful never ending landscape of chaos and silliness. 
The Current residents are Rickety Rat, Winkleperry, Peanut Butta an Elephant pinup and superstar, Odd Cat a singing Alley Cat, Chester Cheese a large corporate figure head , King Danny a monstrous murderous circus gorilla, Hoggie a Miss Piggy, Divinesque madame, Tubby,  DJ Octoid an octopus DJ, and Petey The Puppet .

Rauppetsburg is The home of The Slack Pack.  Rauppetsburg is like Cleveland loud and bright but a new drug has hit the streets called Liquid Sugar.  Liquid Sugar is there when life gets you down, the city is so chaotic and noisey it can actually bore you of it’s your everyday life and liquid sugar can take off that edge. Rauppetsburg is also infested with Clowns. Goblin creatures that are harmless scavengers that communicate with garbage and are actually what inspired the human Clown performers of today. 
The Slack Pack consists of 
Skylar who is a young aspiring film documentary maker and modern vaudevillian out to expose the truth of liquid sugar once in for all
Chipper who at 9 years old, is the worlds greatest juvenile delinquent and Rauppetsburg public enemy number 1. A child of two of the world’s greatest crime lords Chipper has established himself as the true Kingpin of Liquid Sugar, wanna stop him ? You can’t, you probably never will and if you try, good luck it ain’t ending pretty. One quick rummage through the toy chest and your ass is grass 
Then there’s Bendy, the sweetest, nicest, most vomit inducing little Clown you ever want to meet. Bendy spends his time with the garbage and couldn’t be happier. He just needs to look out for The Clown Squad, luckily Skylar’s got his back and gets him out of harms way when needed. 
Skylar and Chipper hate each other’s guts.  Skylar and Bendy are friends, but Chipper can’t stand Bendy, but Bendy is so sweet and kind he has no idea, so it’s up to Skylar to keep Bendy close to him and keep him safe. 
The Council consist of the most powerful beings. 
As was said, Lion is part of the council 
We also have Lobo who is my first real character.  A large, rude, loud mouth party monster. 
Sunshine Tea who is part of the aforementioned play is also part of the council. Sunshine is a Mammy figure that I created to put blackface in a proper context. She serves as an early seed in black American puppetry and spiritually as an earth mother figure. (I wonder about the La Madama spirit) *She really does not appear often in my work and never in my shows outside of the play , she is there as a reminder of a dark and painful past and how far black Americans and citizens of the world have come, and to fight and keep pushing forward 
And Brer Rabbit, a traditional character within story telling and puppetry. Stories that helped slaves survive Brer Rabbit belonged nowhere but the council.  
It’s still developing, but man I love it. I want it to go further, there’s so much in my head about it that I’ve gotta do something with it. 
5. If you had a chance to work with your top 3 icons in a puppet show: Who would they be and why? (Be as descriptive as possible)
Ugh this is hard!!!!

Okay, okay George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic.
  I think it would be amazing to create some kind of crazy bright, colorful, furry puppet world for them. I love Parliament one of my favorite bands ever 

PeeWee Herman
A Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Underground World crossover!!! Ahhh!!! I mean c’mon,  it’s PeeWee’s Playhouse one of the most artistic shows on television, it clearly had some kind of deep psychological impact on me. Even working with Wayne White on something would be a dream come true, I LOVE his puppet work, hell all of it but, c’mon, puppets.

  
The last on my mind is Kara Walker.  I got super into her work last year when I wrote my play, there’s supposed to be shadow puppets in it and in all honesty if she wanted to help, I would lose my mind. Her shadow and if I had the opportunity to work with her on the shadow portion of the play and staging and tone, ugh so good
This section was a little tough honestly, I didn’t want to leave it blank but, honestly I’m not sure I fully know anymore. I’ve had some real incredible opportunities to meet and work with some of my absolute heroes in puppetry. At this point I don’t know who I would want to work with because my work has become so much of it’s own thing.  I love seeing what gets made and what they’re coming up with but this is so personal it’s actually really hard to think who I want to include 
(You can do what you want with that 🙂 )

5. Do you have any exciting news or events that you would like to share

“Unfortunately due to the current COVID19 Pandemic I don’t have much to announce at the moment, but boy do I hope to in the future. I have a lot of projects in the pipeline that I’m ready to work on and produce, I’m ready full Spongebob mode “I’M READY!” If you’d clime to hear more please follow me on my social medias 
I’m Nate Puppets, thanks for having me! GOODNIGHT! “

If you like to learn more about Nate and his puppets the following contact information is below:

Instagram: @natemfpuppets

 

This week’s welcome to the Insta-hood is featured on Instagram account: @funwithFriday !

1. Tell me a little about yourself:

“My name’s Nicole Daddona, better known as Friday to me and probably no one else… I honestly don’t know what to call myself anymore. I’m an artist first and foremost, but also a comedian, filmmaker, cartoonist, fashion designer, and toy designer. I’m currently based in Los Angeles, but I complain about the lack of seasons here almost every day so I should probably leave. I’ve made live action and animated TV and film projects with Adult Swim, MTV, Amazon Studios, AbsoLutely Producitons, and Cartoon Network. I’ve made illustrations for BUST Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and The Los Angeles Times and I’m currently working on my second feature film with my directing partner and best friend Adam Shenkman. My work has been featured in Forbes, Buzzfeed, BUST Magazine, PAPER, the The New York Daily News.”

2.  What inspired you to make Magic Society? 

“I first started imagining what it would be like to have my own clothing and accessories brand during my plane ride out to Los Angeles from the east coast when I moved to LA for the first time in late 2012.

I wanted to make a brand that created clothing and accessories that I’d want to wear. Because I was broke at the time, the only thing I could afford to make when Magic Society was starting out were enamel pins and patches. In 2013 I started up an Etsy store for Magic Society and the brand gained the attention of Urban Outfitters when I created Buff Benernie: A Coloring Book for Berniacs during the 2016 election. Urban Outfitters ended up carrying the coloring books and some of my pins. In late 2019, Magic Society expanded into other accessories as well as original clothing and toys. Magic Society was born out of a desire to share my art with the world in an affordable and wearable way. Magic Society is inspired by pop culture, underground comics, childlike wonder, and surrealism.”

3. What/Who are some of your current inspirations when creating your items? 

“I’m always inspired by Andy Kaufman, Salvador Dali, Sid & Marty Krofft,

Dolly Parton, Andy Warhol, and Keith Haring.

I’ve been revisiting a lot of 90s films during quarantine because the fashion is so inspiring. Patrick Kelly, the famous fashion designer from the 80s, has been someone I’ve been learning a lot about lately and I’m very inspired by the colorful and bold choices he made in his fashion. 
I’ve been watching a lot of videos on candle making and metal detecting lately while I pack orders for Magic Society. I’m not sure if these are inspiring the creative work I’m doing as much as they’re making me want to start a new hobby. I can see myself getting deeply committed to metal detecting, which could either be a really good look for me and make me mysterious and interesting or take me over the edge into crazy aunt territory.
I rewatched Twin Peaks recently and the mood of that entire show has been a big influence on many of the items I’ve been creating lately for Magic Society. Noel Fielding and Mitch Hedberg have been inspiring my comedy writing lately. 2020 was the year I planned to start doing stand up comedy in front of a live audience for the first time and that sort of went out the window with COVID, so I’m currently working on a comedy special that’s part stand up and part documentary that I plan to film later this year and release in early 2021. My directing partner Adam Shenkman and I are working on a quarantine feature film and we watch a movie almost every night, so we’re constantly absorbing great cinematic influences. We’re really inspired by Charlie Kaufman and lately I’ve been obsessing over the films of Quentin Dupieux.”

4.  Can you talk about your mag Friday Magazine for those who aren’t aware what it is?

“FRIDAY Magazine is a quarterly lowbrow art and culture magazine. It’s been described as “What it would look like if John Waters made Teen Beat”. It’s definitely inspired by the teen magazines of yore (do people even say of yore? Cut that out if it sounds weird lol) I grew up in the 90s and early 00s and was obsessed with J14, YM, Seventeen, and Teen Beat and would spend HOURS pouring over the colorful pages. I loved the quizzes and horoscopes and interviews with celebrities. I really try to capture the vibe of these magazines with every issue of FRIDAY. I was also obsessed with Nickelodeon growing up and always wanted a Nickelodeon Magazine subscription because the issues came with extra gifts like do not disturb door hangers you could cut out and use and cut out board games. I always include bonus gifts with each issue of FRIDAY, which makes the magazine really fun to get in the mail. The magazine features interviews with amazing comedians, musicians, artists, and a lot more. Past issues have featured Oliver Tree, Dorian Electra, John Early, Chris Fleming, Johnny Ryan, and so many amazing people I’m forgetting. The upcoming issue comes out in September and features Eric Andre, Wham City Comedy, and Seth Bogart. Each issue honestly gets better and better. I hope some day that advertisers will want to advertise in the magazine because right now it makes negative money, but that’s not the reason I do it. I make FRIDAY to give a print platform to all of the incredibly talented people out there in the world. “

5. Do you have any exciting news or events that you would like to share?

“When quarantine first hit I was pretty bummed out because a major art show I had planned with a big LA gallery got postponed indefinitely. I soon realized that everyone had big plans that were being cancelled, so I pushed myself to get over that and shift my creative energy into other projects. 
I’m really excited to finish up that quarantine feature film I mentioned, which features a ton of talented people including Maria Bamford. It’s a unique format I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and quarantine has ended up being the perfect time to do it. I also just finished up post production a short film Adam and I made with AbsoLutely Productions that I’m really excited to finally share with the world. Adam and I are also almost done editing our first feature film that we shot in 2018 for $10K. I’m excited to get all these back logged projects completed and out. Post production is hard!
Besides that, quarantine has been a great time to focus on growing my brand Magic Society. My Etsy shop was suspended at the end of 2019, which was actually a blessing in disguise because it pushed me to start up an online shop outside of that platform and learn how to market myself and my creations. I really dove into growing Magic Society into the brand I’ve always wanted it to be in the last few months.

I launched a blow up doll purse line called the Blow Me Bag, which is everything I love in a product. It’s both extremely weird and high fashion. I was excited that Forbes picked up on this piece and wrote about it recently. You can read the article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/susannahbreslin/2020/07/21/meet-the-artist-turning-blowup-dolls-into-fashion-designs/#38850b18233c

I’ve also been making a ton of plush toys for my toy brand Sexy Furby – if you can even call it a toy brand..it’s honestly more like a cathartic exercise where I cut the faces off of stuffed animals and replace them with other faces (usually Furby faces). Sounds incredibly creepy when I write it out, but people seem to like what I make and want to buy it so I keep making more and more and put them up for adoption. This is either a brilliant business idea or cry for help. 

Oh man! I’m working on something else. Wow, No wonder I get chronic migraines. I’m working on a music album that I plan to make into a rock opera film next year in the realm of Forbidden Zone and Tommy and that comedy special / documentary hybrid I mentioned. I have at least twenty Trello boards with a million other projects I want to do on them. Everything is so exciting right now!”

If you like to know more information about Nicole the following contact is below:

@funwithfriday

@magicsociety

@fridaymag

@sexyfurby69

Her store:

https://shopmagicsociety.com/

Thank you so much for the interview!

This week’s artist’s spotlight is on @charlesclary !

1.  Tell me a little about yourself.

“My name is Charles Clary and I am a paper artist currently living and working in SC. Im currently the Foundations Coordinator at Coastal Carolina University where I teach a wide range of class including 2D Design, 3D Design,  Drawing I, Drawing II, and Concepts in the Artistic Process. I grew up in Tennessee and received my BFA in painting with a minor in illustration at Middle Tennessee State University and then went on to get my MFA in painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design.”

2. What made you interested in paper cutting as an art form? 

” I got into paper cutting by pure happenstance. i was awarded a residency in NYC when i was going to Grad school and got to live and work in the city for 4 months. I was still exploring painting at the time but found that my work was moving in a more 3 dimensional avenue. I started doing these large scale wall drawings that incorporated cut out illustrations of characters I was creating at the time but found that they were just the tip of iceberg of what was to come. Since the studio I was working in didnt have a woodshop I had to find creative avenues to explore this new venture. On a trip back home from my internship at Pierogi Gallery I happened upon a paper store just outside the fashion district and decided to stop in. Martha Stewart at the time was making beautifully colored scrapbook paper that measured 15″ x 15″ and I was taken. I grabbed as much as I could and went back to the studio to play around. I was hooked from that moment on. The work started out small due to the restraints of the paper I was using but eventually evolved into the large scale installation work I do today. There is a sense of delicacy and fragility with the work but also stability and an overwhelming quality as well.”

3.  What are some of your current inspirations in creating your art?

” I find inspiration in the strangest of places. As a child I really wanted to become a microbiologist but after being subjected to movies like Andromeda Strain and Outbreak I moved on. That imagery stuck with me though. The complexity of viral and bacterial colonies, mold, mildew, necrotic flesh eating diseases, anything of the sort really resonated with me. I also find inspiration in fungi, computer generated sound waves, and topographical land formations. I also find a lot of inspiration in the practical effects of horror films. i guess you can say I love macabre imagery. Any kind of mourning jewelry or mementos are also inspiration and have a direct correlation to my frame installation work. Music, any genre metal, symphonic, rockabilly, 90s alternative,  is a big inspiration as well and informs a lot of the shapes i use in the work.”

4.  Can you talk about the first art piece you created.

“So I think the first major piece I created that put me on the path I am on today is “Triple Radimacue Infestation”. This was a piece I created immediately when I got back from my residency in NYC. It was my first exploration into large scale installation. It was 6′ x 45′ and was comprised of over 100 paper towers, 6 large panels, and 3 smaller panels. It was my break out piece and was exhausting to create. Since the paper was 15″ x 15″ to 12″ x 12″ it needed support structures to live on so I derived a system of cutting out panels, made of wood, in very organic shapes mimicking that of bacteria or fungal growths. I ebbed and flowed off the wall creating rythmic undulations that made the work come to life. It was an exhilarating experience that I never looked back from. “

5.  Do you have any exciting news or events that you would like to share?

“It has been a whirlwind summer especially dealing with COVID ant the necessary shutdown, but shows still went on. I work in multiple different bodies of work at a time so different iterations of the work was shown this summer. In June I had the privilege of having a solo exhibition at my gallery Paradigm in Philadelphia where I showed “Be Kind Rewind” an exhibition that dealt with the nostalgia and escapism of film by creating paper sculptures from 1000 found vhs boxes. the show will have come down by the time this comes out but the work will still be available at https://www.paradigmarts.org/collections/be-kind-rewind?page=1  I also have solo show that is up now at The Jones Carter Gallery in Lake City SC. this exhibition is titled “Memento Morididdle” and consists of 355+ frame works that explores the notion of trauma, loss, and healing.

This will be up until November of this year. I’ve also been included in several group shows at my other gallery RO2 in Dallas Texas exploring. Up now is a group exhibition that explores current conditions and contemplations of a world in the midst of a pandemic. Along with exhibitions Im also very active with conferences and will be speaking at The Death and Culture Conference with my paper “Transforming Memento Mori: A Contemporary Lens” and the annual SECAC conference with my paper “Memento Mori: A Struggle With the Past. “

If you like to know more about Charles Clary and his work. This is his contact information:

https://charlesclary.com/

Instagram: @charlesclary

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/charles.r.clary

Located somewhere in Mexico City where the Laguna de Teshuilo is. There is a place called “La Isla de las Munecas” (The Island of the Dolls).

Why is there a place that has thousand of dolls just randomly hung everywhere? Well it all stemmed from an urban legend. A local resident named Don Julian Santana Barrera was living a normal life during the 1950’s. He had a wife and family but one day decided to leave them for unknown reasons and moved into an island close that was on Teshuilo Lake and purely isolating himself from not only his family but from everyone. He claimed the island as his own and decided to not only lived there but to take care of it.

Between the time frame of himself living in total isolation on the island and leaving his family he came across a disturbing find near his island and the Teshuilo Lake. He found the body of a young lady that had seem to have drown in the lake. While he found the body he also noticed a doll near it. Then it clicked in his mind that the two correlated with each other and started an obsessed behavior pattern for almost fifty years. He took the doll and hung it from a nearby tree because he believe it would make the spirit of the young girl he found in the lake happy.

From there he decided that in order to live on that island and not to anger the spirit of the young girl he found any doll he found he would hang it up on his island. Over the span of decades he every surface of the island was cover with some kind of doll or doll parts:

He said he kept adding the dolls to the island because he would hear whispers or footsteps near his hut and was terrified that if he didn’t obey the young girl’s spirit then there would be deadly consequences. This destination became so well known that people would come to visit the island bring dolls as a peace offering to appease the young girl’s spirit wishes. Some would even brings dolls in hopes that the young girl’s spirit would blessed them or offer a miracle on their behalf.

Unfortunately Don Julian drowned in 2001. Some say that his body was found in the same spot that he found the young girl almost 50 years ago. There are some people that believed that Don Julian was mentally not all together there and think that the experienced of him finding the young girl did not happen at all. Even his family that he left behind did not believe his story.

I have never visited this location but I would imagine just getting there would be an experience. Walking through an entire island with decades worth of dolls hanging from every surface would be unsettling during any time frame of the day.

Would you want to take a trip to Doll Island? Comment yes or no below!

Until Next time!

Source: Discovery.com and Wikipedia

This week’s Welcome to the Insta-hood is on IG account @no_thriller

1. Tell me a little bit about yourself:

“I was born, raised and still reside in Canada, practically right on the Canada/USA border, allowing for my childhood to be heavily influenced by both Canadian AND American pop culture.

As anyone can see from my Instagram account, I’m a nostalgia enthusiast/self appointed 80s and 90s pop culture curator – preserving and archiving bits and pieces (primarily toys, movies and cartoons) from the era of my childhood and teen years.

Honestly, I think I am the biggest fan of my Instagram feed – which makes total sense to me; I’ve had no other motivation on Instagram than to post things I really like because I like them.  The No_Thriller account is purely about sharing what makes me smile with anyone and everyone. Our world (current state of affairs notwithstanding) could use more smiles.”

2. Can you explain the process of how you came up with your IG name : @no_thriller and the theme of it?

“I have been using the “No_Thriller” handle for over 20 years now.  I believe it was influenced by a song that was playing on the radio (can’t remember which, pretty sure I misheard the lyrics anyway haha.) while I was trying to come up with a cool password for an Instant Messenger account.  After a while, it evolved from just a password to my regular handle and just sort of took over becoming my primary pseudonym for all things online.”

3. What are your three favorite themes you have posted on IG and why?

“Originally my IG account was a place to photograph and preserve my collection of action figures and toys from the 80s.  Over time it morphed into an all out 1980s pop-culture fan page.  Eventually themes did start to emerge beyond just toys. I started digging deeper than my own personal collection and found I really enjoyed deep-diving through the internets and posting photos and clips from movies, cartoons, TV toy commercials, magazine/comic book ads and pretty much anything else I could get my hands on from the 70s, 80s and 90s. 

Typically if you watch my feed for a couple of weeks you’d see that I often stick to posting something relevant to the specific day of the week, and then other randomness in between.  

Probably my favorite theme is the Saturday morning cartoon posts I try to do each week.  I spend the week looking for different cartoons that I fondly remember, or in some cases only recently discovered, and upload an IGTV video of that cartoon’s opening intro.  It’s pretty great to see the follower response each week from individuals who had completely forgot about some of these shows and comment that they were transported back to their 5 year old selves!  Like I mentioned earlier, that pretty much sums up the purpose of the No_Thriller account: make people smile.”

4. If you had to make a top five movies to watch list based on the theme of your Instagram. What movies would be on the list and why?

“I’ve always been a bit of a sci-fi nerd, so that genre would strongly influence any top 5 list relating to my Instagram account. 

That being said, the fantasy, super hero and horror genres also play serious roles in what I post.

As well, if anything even resembles a “crossover” (for example: the Fraggles and Sesame Street gang showing up in A Muppet Family Christmas) I’m all over it!

For all the aforementioned criteria, I’d have to give the top spots to these 5 films (in no particular order):

Back to the Future

The Last Starfighter

Better Off Dead

Terminator II

Gremlins

War Games

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure

The Karate Kid II

A Muppet Family Christmas

Transformers (1986 – Animated)

Ghostbusters & Ghostbusters II

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

The Goonies

E.T.

Batman Returns

Hook

Thrashin’

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Beetlejuice

Robocop

Tron

Blade Runner

Labyrinth

A Nightmare On Elm Street III – Dream Warriors”

5. Do you have any exciting news or events that you would like to share?

“In the past I’ve worked on promoting podcasts, collaborating on sticker/pin/web designs, writing the occasional retrospective article etc.

I’m always open to collaborating on different projects with other groups/individuals, but currently I don’t have anything on the horizon. 

Although, I have been considering doing another wave of stickers and or pins for the upcoming holiday seasons… AND I’m often playing around with new seasonal updates to my IG avatar (but that’s probably more for my own entertainment, haha).”

If you would like to know more about @no_thriller here is the following contact information:

Instagram: @no_thriller

Twitter: @Nthriller