Len Cella-Moron Movies

i am no expert on this guy. i remember seeing Moron Movies in the video store but never watched it.  all i know is that i stumbled upon him the other day, and now i am mildly obsessed. Len Cella is a director/actor/artist who started making videos in his 40’s. all of them are short. the longest videos last about a minute. he stars in almost all of them too. each one is absurd, and hilarious if you are not too uptight to laugh at silly things.

his delivery is pretty stoic until he delivers the punch each time with a sly smile. after you watch a few back to back you will start laughing at that cue, even if you didn’t think the clip was funny.

Len Cella’s punchline smile from “World’s Worst Comedian”

the really amazing part is that all of this happened in the ’80’s. he shot, edited, and starred in each video. they must not have cost a lot, but that doesn’t take away from their fun. what impresses me the most is how these made their rounds. he sent them everywhere. eventually they aired on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson!! from there they made their way into everyone’s home. this was years before the internet so the fact that these tapes got out “into the wild” is pretty amazing.

check him out for yourself and see if you don’t find many parallels between what he was doing in the 80’s and trends that have become canon is today’s video art and comedy circles.