Collegian (Hurst, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 21, Ed. 1 Wednesday, April 19, 1989 Page: 28 of 30
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B 14 Arts & Entertainment / Collegian
Wednesday, April 19, 1989
New arrival from 'Down Under[
Wild Yahoo Serious portrays Young Einstein
By Suzanne Reed
Entertainment Editor
Only one man with wild,
vibrant reddish-orange hair, wearing
gray and white reptilian-styled pants,
a green necktie and a psychedelic
pink blazer, can have a U.S. bound
movie that has already made more
than $ 10 million dollars in Australia.
His name is Yahoo Serious, and he is
set to win the hearts of millions.
Young Einstein is the new
epic comedy released by Warner
Bros., written, directed and produced
by Serious.
To promote his movie, due
for release in July, Serious made a
stop in Dallas last week to meet with
about 10 area college representatives.
Warner Bros, had arranged
for Serious and the student press to
see a sneak preview of the movie in
the Highland Park Village AMC
Theater and later have a private lunch
with Serious at the Hard Rock Cafe.
“I told Warner Bros, that I
wanted to meet with you (the college
students) first since this movie is really
about our generation,” the comedian
said. “It involves the great minds of
the 20th century.”
Young Einstein takes a look
at Albert Einstein growing up in a
valley of Australia, discovering that
he can make beer bubbles, discovering
the theory of relativity in 1905 and
rock ‘n’ roll in 1906 and saving the
world from the villian Preston
Preston.
Young Einstein was filmed
and produced entirely in Australia.
“It is an Australian film, but
it has a combination of Australian
humor, American humor and Monty
Python,” Serious said.
“Besides Einstein, I
implemented several other characters
like Sigmond Freud and his mother,
the Wright brothers and Charles
Darwin,” he said.
“The hero of my movie is a
pacifist,” he said. “He’s not a man’s
man who carries knives, guns or a
heavy ego. He carries a musical
instrument, and he’s not afraid to
show his intelligence—or lack of.”
Serious achieved his new
career by starting his Young Einstein
venture years ago.
The 35-year-old (though he
says he could be younger) actor/
comedian was bom and raised in the
sleepy Hunter Valley on the northern
coast of New South Wales, Australia.
His interests include epic-
style movies, music, photography,
surfing and architecture.
“I find Dallas’ architecture
incredible,” he said. “It is like a light
version of Blade Runner.”
After leaving school at the
age of 15, Serious began working as
a tire fitter to earn enough money to
pay five or six dollars. You want to
see something that will be worthwhile,
not something you could have seen
on television.”
With a creative personality
and a name like Yahoo Serious, his
future somehow did not fit in with the
profession of a tire fitter.
Serious eventually spent two
years in art school, dropped out and
found an interest in photography.
“I made some strange
documentary films as well as some
§§J
I did know that I wanted to make a
movie like Lawrence of Arabia with
Einstein the center of attention,” he
said.
Serious discovered that
Einstein was a young, radical, long-
haired man in 1905 when he
formulated the theory of relativity.
When Serious finally made it
back to Australia, he dived into every
creative, satiric idea he could.
The result was a 16mm
version of his script.
I AM SERIOUS: Actor/comedian Yahoo Serious,
recently in Dallas promoting his movie Young
Einstein, speaks to several college press
representatives at the private screening of the
movie which is due for a Warner Bros. Release in
July-_photo by Ken Avery
study art.
“By working as a tire fitter, I
learned a lot about myself and our
culture. It also gave me a chance to
stay fit,” he said.
.Serious grew up with
American television and came to
adore the movie industry.
“When I was a young boy,
my dad use to take me miles and
miles to go see a movie,” he said.
“Today, people make movies for the
wrong reason: money. Movies should
be a special event when you have to
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SINCE 1958 NATIONWIDE
music videos,” he said.
Like his idol, Errol Flynn,
Serious discovered he could not stay
in one place for too long.
Serious, while still in his
mid- twenties, set off on a
hitchhiking world adventure. From
the Red Square in Moscow to the
landscapes of Europe and from Paris
to South America, he stumbled upon
his first movie idea about Albert
Einstein.
“I was down at the Amazon
River, where several of us had drank
the boat out of beer in two days, when
I saw this native man. For some
strange reason, he was wearing a T-
shirt of Einstein sticking his tongue
out,” he said. “That photograph of
Einstein was taken on his seventy-
second birthday. He (Einstein) was a
wild sort of guy, and I wanted to
capture his spirit.”
“I knew very little about
Einstein then but later learned more
about him through a lot of research.
Serious sold everything and
scraped and borrowed money to make
the film.
“All of us (cast and crew)
were stuffed in my mum’s house. We
were all broke and sleeping on the
floor with my mum and my sister
cooking for us,” he said. “It was
great.”
“Most of our costumes came
from the Salvation Army and all of us
did everything we could to save
money and get this thing together,”
he said.
Serious said movie agents
thought his ideas were too radical,
but after Crocodile Dundee it all
changed.
By saving up money he
received from making a rock video,
he bought a plane ticket and flew to
Hollywood in search of a pre-sale
(trying to get an agent’s interest and
have him invest) for a later full-scale
35mm version of Young Einstein.
Serious, the bush boy from
down-under, earned his pre-sale and
was ready for filming.
Serious put together an all-
Australian team of “mates”. Warwick
Ross and David Roach, long time
friends of Serious, shared in
producing the movie; andLuluPinkus
joined as the creative consultant.
B it by bit the film progressed,
with Serious acting, directing and
performing all his own stunts. His
stunts include acrobatics, horseback
riding, catapulting, diving, surfing,
hot air ballooning, cliff climbing and
free falling. He even submited
himself to the harsh Australian
mountain snow while wearing only
shorts, boots with no socks and a thin
shirt.
The film has caused “a
Beatlemania effect in Australia,” he
said.
“Kids are imitating my
hairstyle and constantly walking up
to me with a big smile on their face,”
he said. “I think I got my hairstyle
from surfing.”
In the movie, Serious works
a lot with kids and animals.
“It was funny to think that at
an intense moment between Einstein
and his love, Marie Curie, that
animals and kids were bouncing
around behind the cameras,” he said.
“And those Koala bears make a
ferocious noise. At one point, we had
just finished a scene, and one of the
bears thought of me as a tree and
klung to my back with his sharp
claws.”
With all of this attention and
new fame, Serious says he will remain
the same.
“Everything is fun, like the
limousines and flying on the
Concord, but they are all toys for
me,” he said. “I wish I had a 1959
pink convertible with the big fins;
now that’s a toy. It’s too bad they
don’t make cars with strap-on fins.”
Serious resides on Sydney
Harbour in an apartment filled with
eccentric “toys”— like a leopard-
spotted sofa and his favorite three-
finned surf board.
Meanwhile, to keep him busy,
MTV, cable music television,
contacted Serious (while at the
screening in Dallas) to host a new
show for three weeks.
“They’re (MTV) going to
turn me loose on the screen,” he said.
“I get to invite guests and play the
latest videos and some of my own
favorites.”
He has plans for a second
movie, but no sequels. “Maybe when
I’m old and gray I will make a sequel
to Young Einstein, but my next movie
will be another creative venture,” he
said.
“I had too much fun doing
this one not to do another adventure.”
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Collegian (Hurst, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 21, Ed. 1 Wednesday, April 19, 1989, newspaper, April 19, 1989; Hurst, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1047673/m1/28/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Tarrant County College NE, Heritage Room.