F.A.Q. about Artie, the Strongest Man in the World:
Todd Ristau, on Artie, the Strongest Man in the World:Q. I grew up watching Pete and Pete, and I always thought Artie was a fantastic character. I'm really intrigued by the concept of the original "darker" one. I didn't see any mention of the scripts in the Iowa City script index...are any of the original Artie script accessible on-line?
A. I emailed Toby about this, and his reply was:"Scripts? You got to be kidding."
As I remember, and the old brain box ain't what it was, the basic format of the Artie pieces was that he would come out, dressed pretty much like he was on the tv show, and he would get a big laugh from the costume, and ignore it, being very focused on the tale of heroic prowess (though always somewhat absurd) and amazingly, even if you had seen one of these before, always at just the point where the narrative drew you in and forced a kind of suspension of disbelief another actor, Patrick Nimmo, would come out with white shirt and pants, and a mop bucket, and say something like, "Aww, Artie, how'd you get out again? Come on, you know you're not supposed to be out of your room after lights out." and lead him off the stage, so there was this basic pattern, laugh, wonder, sucker punch, sadness.
Not unlike the basic pattern of childhood to adulthood.
I don't think he did a lot of the New York No Shames, I had to really twist his arm to do them, mostly because he was so opposed to the idea of HOME charging any money at all, let alone $8 a ticket...and that was in 1989 dollars. Almost all his pieces were done in Iowa either in the truck or on the Theatre B stage.
Artie sound clip from "The Adventures of Pete & Pete"
Toby Huss appeared at No Shame as "Artie, the Strongest Man in the World" during the 1986-87 season, (with Patrick Nimmo).
"Artie, the Strongest Man in the World" appeared at New York No Shame during the 1989-90 season.
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