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ADWEEK
I.Q. Interactive Report "Bullet Points", page IQ8
by Erik Gruenwedel

When several California state assemblymen were in need of jokes for a roast of Gov. Gray Davis, they called Mark Jonathan Davis. When NBC wanted a jingle for its summer reruns, it, too, called Davis. And when Nick-At-Nite needed a tune to promote I Dream of Jeannie, it called Davis.

Whether it's an ad campaign, catchy slogan for a website or clever name for a theme park attraction, now anyone can request humor or a tune from Davis's archive of talent at the Los Angeles-based Karma Creative.

Davis said that most good ideas usually write themselves into a joke or tune with little effort on his part. Yet, for the most part, being able to "think outside of the box" has its limits. "Now, people are calling looking for someone who 'thinks outside of thinking outside of the box,' " he said.

For example, when Davis was called to help create a fictional lounge singer named Johnny Chimes for NBC, he thought he'd only have to pen a few lyrics. Soon he developed the entire persona of a cheesy, swinging, lounge singer. "It was fairly successful, so we must have been doing something right," he said.

06/05/2000

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You're not funny? Pay someone to be funny for you. Hey, it's L.A.

Los Angeles-based Karma Creative is a creative services firm offering everything from advertising/copywriting, to joke writing, to song parodies, to developing product names, to punching up that screenplay.

Graphics are virtually nonexistent on the company's site, www.karmacreative.com, but it otherwise offers a perfect balance of professionalism and wit. Click on "frequently asked questions" and you get, "Why is the sky blue?" "Where do babies come from?" and "Donde esta la biblioteca?" Almost as an afterthought, it also includes frequently asked questions about the company itself.

Karmacreative.com even offers sample slogans for its company, such as "Sliced bread? That was ours" and "Big brains at bargain prices."

As for whether the company delivers what it promises, users can listen to sample promo jingles and admire a client roster that includes KROQ-FM 106.7, NBC Television, Nick-at-Nite, and even President Bill Clinton (the company has written jokes for some of the president's annual dinners, not his testimonies).

05/29/2000

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THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Some Successful Hollywood Careers Take Place Outside Spotlight's Glare"
Entertainment: These artists found niches in the industry by relying on their
voices, writing talents and imagination.
by Michael Knight


Beth Wernick's parents live in Houston and they wonder why, if
their daughter has been in more than 200 episodes of "Melrose
Place," they have never seen her on television. Mark Jonathan Davis
helps dream up ways to make theme parks more fun. Former NBC page
Mark Efman is a comedy writer working on high-profile promotional
projects for which he gets little or no credit. Steve Mackall talks into
a portable black box, recording commercials all over the country
without getting out of his pajamas.

Each of these artists makes a living doing an odd job that people in
the real world rarely hear about. They are part of an increasingly
specialized category of artists with unusual talents that can be sold in
the entertainment business. They have created their own market
niche and make a living below the glamour radar in Hollywood.

. . .

Mark Jonathan Davis is the proprietor of Karma Creative. He sells
ideas, concepts, solutions. Although he has sold jingles to television
networks and parody songs to radio networks, and would like to sell
you a suggestion for your vanity license plate, most of his work right
now is with the Walt Disney Imagineering crew.

Davis is helping put the creative finishing touches on Disney's
California Adventure, a new theme park due to open in Anaheim in
2001.

"I thought these people just built rides and roller coasters," he says.
"It never occurred to me there was a writing and conceptualizing
component that comes first."

But before Davis was allowed to play with the Imagineers, he had to
survive the crucible of Disney testing. His initial examination: come
up with a name for one of the new "lands" in the California
Adventure park. The land was a tribute to early 20th century beach
amusement parks. Davis suggested "Paradise Pier." The Imagineers
liked it. Next they wanted to know, can you name this ride, this
restaurant, this food stand?

As a consultant to the Imagineering gang, Davis helped create copy for set
decorations, new signs for the Midway and clever menu items. His
favorite is "the San Andreas Malt."

He also worked on a park basketball game where the backboard is a
surfboard with the brand name "Frankie." Next to Frankie, an
arrow points to the hoop with the sign "and-a-net." "That," says
Davis, "was a big day."

Once everything had been named, Davis thought he had worked himself out of
a job. But fortunately Disney is expanding its park in Paris, getting ready to
build a new facility in China, and opening a series of interactive
virtual arcades called Disney Quest in San Francisco, Chicago and
Philadelphia.

"Also, I'm the voice of a security guard who is chasing an escaped
dinosaur in the new 'Countdown to Extinction' attraction [at Walt
Disney World Orlando's Animal Kingdom]." You'll know it's Davis when
you hear him say, "Sector Two, do you see him yet?"

One day Davis' boss was looking at a scale model of California
Adventure and showed Davis a model of a two-story hamburger stand.
"He needed an idea of 'why' it was there, what was the story behind this big
hamburger?"

"We pitched a lot of suggestions," Davis says, including "The
CHP--the California Hamburger Patrol," with an animated officer
commanding visitors to "Stop...and eat!" But ultimately the giant
hamburger became an alien spaceship, with little exhaust pipes and
French fries for landing gear. The two-story alien burger stand is
now being built. "Soon to be serving Martian Mustard and Cosmic
Catsup," Davis says. "Take me to your eater!"

"I love it here," he says. "I'm surrounded by creative and
hard-working maniacs who think up theme parks--it's the coolest
thing."

09/26/1999

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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"Mock Menace"
by Jeff Jensen

"The Phantom Medley" - Comedian Mark Jonathan Davis scored
a radio hit two years ago with "The Star Wars Cantina," set to
the tune of Barry Manilow's "Copacabana." Now he's done
"Medley" (available via http://www.ideatown.com/swpm.htm), which borrows
from 16 different tunes. Davis is planning on a holiday follow-up,
"Let's Kill Jar Jar Binks for Christmas."
 

7/9/99.

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THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
"THE MAJOR-DOMO OF TV PROMOS"
NBC'S 'Jingle Boy' Got Start In Valley
by Dave Walker

Mark Jonathan Davis sings for the largest TV audiences of our time,
although lots of listeners likely hear his distinctive musical stylings
from several rooms away.

As the syrupy voice of "Johnny Chimes," Davis, a Valley
expatriate, writes and performs pop parodies that fill the
credits-squeezing promos linking NBC's prime-time programs.

Visit the bathroom between Seinfeld and Veronica's Closet and
you could miss Davis singing a zany Tea Leoni tribute to the tune of
La Bamba. Grab a cold beverage before NewsRadio and you'll
probably miss his nutty Born to Be Niles (sung to the tune of
Steppenwolf's "wild" open-road anthem, of course), or his inspired
series of 3rd Rock From The Sun promos, featuring that amazing,
we'll-try-anything-for-NBC cast.

It was hard to miss Davis's lengthy Jurassic Park promo, which
aired Thanksgiving eve. Actually a rerun from previous airings, the
spot was scored to corresponding clips from the movie. A zippy
medley of tunes including Hava Nagila and When The Saints Go
Marching In ("When T. Rex goes chompin' in!"), the original piece
won multiple awards from PROMAX, a trade organization of
promo professionals.

In fact, Davis's voice was heard repeatedly over the long
Thanksgiving weekend, singing the promotional praises of a string
of NBC holiday movies. More recently, he has sung a parody
promo--to the tune of You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch--for David
Spade's Just Shoot Me character, Finch. Davis also called the
oft-heard square-dance hoedown spot for Caroline In The City.

Delivered in a comfortably cheap, Bill-Murray-at-the-ski-lodge
voice, the Johnny Chimes song parodies help provide NBC's
between-show promotions an off-the-wall edge, combining left-field
rhymes with power-alley gags.

One memorable Leoni moment, for example, schooled viewers on
how to pronounce the star's name. Tea--rhymes with Princess Leia.

"He's very much like one of those writers you'd see in movies
about TV, like My Favorite Year," said Galen Herod, a former
promo alchemist at Channel 15 (KNXV) in Phoenix who has
worked with Davis at NBC 2000, the network's in-house promotions
department, for the past year. "He has his own rules of comedy.
When he throws in something that's unrelated to what the spot is
about--that makes it stick in your head."

Which is, after all, what the promo business is really all about.


RADIO DAYS

The Johnny Chimes saga begins--as you knew it would--on
morning radio.

While attending high school and working part time at a Phoenix
hobby store, Davis made it his own hobby to contribute--as a
volunteer audience member, calling in on the studio line,
collaborating with a hobby-shop buddy--to Jonathon Brandmeier's
morning show on KZZP-FM (104.7).

Brandmeier, who later went on to drive-time fame in Chicago, was
king of the local radio market at the time, which would be the early
1980's.

"People would call him up and do wacky characters and voices,"
Davis said. "We said, 'Let's do that.' So we'd go to the office and get
there at 7 or 8 in the morning and try to get through on the request
lines."

And Brandmeier would play the bits. It was a start. The money
wasn't great. The money was non-existent, actually.

"You would just call for the thrill of being on the radio," Davis
said.

But a career was cast.

Davis's family had moved to Phoenix when he was 8. (His
parents--dad's an engineer, mom's an executive secretary--now live
in the Los Angeles area). He attended Washington High School,
Phoenix College and Arizona State University, although he left
college well short of completing a course of study.

"I am very excited to say this: I don't have a degree," Davis said.
"In the entertainment industry, all the time you spend going to
college is better spent watching TV, reading books, reading
magazines, listening to music, traveling and getting worldliness, as
opposed to book smarts.

"The only musical training I had was singing in the car. My mom
sang in the choir, my sister and I were both in a lot of plays in high
school--there'd always be some sort of musical thing going on.

"But I never learned to read music. It seemed so arbitrary. Those
dots don't seem to have any relevance to the sound you're hearing!
I think you can either carry a tune or you can't."

While so enthusiastically attending college broadcasting classes,
Davis began to pester local radio stations. One, KLZI--the
forerunner of KESZ at 99.9 FM--gave in.


OPENING DOORS

Davis joined the station just before the launch of a new format,
which KLZI was teasing by running a continuous ticking sound until
the debut. So, Davis's first real radio job, as overnight board
operator, was to oversee the endless ticking tape.

"One Saturday at about 4:30 in the morning, I heard a loud
thumping noise outside," Davis said. "I go out of the second-floor
studio, walk down the stairs to the front door and look around. I
see some car peeling out. I look to see if I can get a license plate
number. Then, I look back and realize that the noise was the sound
of a newspaper hitting the front window. So, I pick up the
newspaper and, of course, have locked myself out.

"There's nobody else inside, just the ticking noise. So I use a
screwdriver from my car to break into a first-floor sales office."

From there, Davis called his boss.

"Then, it's the classic scene," Davis continued. "He pulls up in his
car. He's in his bathrobe. He throws his keys to me. I say, 'Hey,
I'm really sorry about this. And he says, 'This will never happen
again.'

"And he drove off and to this day I have never locked myself out
of anything ever again."

Soon, however, Davis drove off to Top 40 KZZP, where he was
assigned to produce the morning show for Bruce Kelly, then new to
the market.

"He was heavy," Davis said of Kelly, using the description with all
due respect. "He was cool. And he knew what he was doing.

"He was, and still is, Major Market."

With the encouragement of Kelly and his then-sidekick, Maggie
Brock, Davis bloomed, contributing nutty voices and wickedly
topical song parodies to the KZZP morning show.

It was a target-rich era for local satire: Ev Mecham, snowbirds
and the pre-Barkley Phoenix Suns.

"He was an obnoxious little creep, which makes for a good creative
type," said Kelly, now morning jock at KKFR-FM (92.3). "He
bothered me and annoyed me and generally lived at the radio
station. He did everything. He live-produced my shows and started
doing the parody songs. Some of what he produced was much better
than anything Weird Al (Yankovic) did."


MOVIN' ON UP

But as the 1980's wore down, Davis wore out. A morning-show
producer's schedule can be crushing, and the pay is--compared to
deejay star money, at least--poor.

"I didn't sleep very well," he said. "I had to get out of the
morning-show business."

So, he moved to Los Angeles, where he quickly found work with
Premiere Radio Networks, a company that syndicates packages of
song parodies and comedy bits to radio stations around the country.

There, he eventually reunited with keyboardist Rob "Iceman" Izenberg,
like Davis an alum of ASU's closed-circuit student radio station and
of KZZP.

"I wrote five parody songs a week, every week, for two years,"
Davis said.

One of them found fans at KROQ-FM in LA, so Davis went back
to morning radio, this time as creative director of KROQ's Kevin &
Bean wake-up team.

"I got to meet every celebrity you could imagine," he said. "It was
really fun and really cool."

From there, Davis worked a brief stint with the Nickelodeon cable
network, to which he contributed memorable promos for Nick At
Nite packages of I Dream of Jeannie and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

(If none of these resume entries moves you, check this: Davis has
appeared on CBS's Late Show With David Letterman, performing a
Stupid Human Trick, no less. "It didn't go as well as I had hoped,"
he said of his trick, which was to toss a bunch of M&Ms in the air,
have Letterman call out a color and then catch only M&Ms of that
color in his mouth. "I did it perfectly in rehearsal, but Dave messed
with me during the live show. Hopefully, one of these days when I'm
famous, I'll go back on Letterman and do the trick right.")

Davis got his job at NBC2000 by walking into the boss'
office--don't ask how he breached security to get onto the network's
tight-as-a-drum Burbank lot--and pitching himself. The boss
recognized some of Davis's radio work and Nick At Nite spots and
hired him immediately.

Now, Davis said, "I am jingle boy. They call me when they need a
jingle done."

Davis is not an exclusive NBC property, however. He still
contributes bits to KROQ, and earlier this year recorded a Star Wars
parody song ("The Star Wars Cantina" to the tune of Barry Manilow's
Copacabana) to accompany the re-release of the George Lucas
astro-trilogy.

The tune got wide airplay around the country and will be on an
upcoming Dr. Demento fan club compilation.

"He gets it," said Phoenix morning man Kelly. "He always got it.
He got what worked on radio and what would work on television.
Somebody finally found him."

Now 32, Davis typically works on the cheap, in a home studio with
musician friends, including "Iceman" Izenberg and
multi-instrumentalist Bryce Johnson, also originally from Phoenix.

"It's all very seat-of-the-pants, which is how we learned it," Davis
said. "It's weird calling people up and saying, 'Hey, do you want to
sing on TV Thursday night after Seinfeld?'

"That's our stage, and it's pretty cool."

1/2/98

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TV GUIDE
Cheers & Jeers, page 13

[this blurb about Karma Creative's NBC mascot character "Johnny Chimes" appeared in TV Guide; note the typo "the the"]

JEERS to a noisy bird. NBC has been hyping Mad About You with a promo that has the the network's computer-generated peacock, Johnny Chimes, imitating the world's worst lounge singer. It's like Bill Murray's old piano-bar spoof on Saturday Night Live, only Johnny Chimes isn't funny. We know NBC wants to get more mileage out of its multicolored mascot, but this commercial is utterly fowl.

09/06/1997