Tommy Button: A Few Of My Favourite Things

If you're a fan of nostalgic pop culture treats, prepare to get lost in Tommy Button's excellent selection of oddities.

The Boomshot editor, famed for his fast-paced NASCAR work, not only has an eye for animated trinkets but also has a fascinating and heartfelt story behind each.

So, if you've ever wondered what happens when a Simpson, a Hamburgerler and Godzilla walk into an edit suite, wonder no more...

The Simpsons Stuff

The Simpsons was the defining piece of pop culture for me as a kid. 

If I had to be pigeon-holed into any sort of “nerd” category (like Star Wars nerd, film nerd, etc.), 

I am a bona-fide Simpsons nerd — for the first nine or so seasons, if you want to get specific. And most Simpsons fans of a certain age do. 

While I enjoy the community, the bootleg merchandise, and the countless hours of entertainment the show has provided, I’ve found a well of inspiration from one of their most revered and prolific writers, John Swartzwelder. He would write an entire script in a single day and just fill it with bad jokes and boring dialogue. But the hard part of writing the actual script was done, albeit terrible, and all he had to do was fix it. 

The longer I’ve been working, the more I’ve come to embrace this type of creative process and try to take a similar approach to editing. 

Once I’ve screened and selected my footage, I try to throw something together as fast as I can. Is the music right? No, but it’s in the ballpark. Is that too many cuts? Probably, but I’ll figure out what to lose later. Is it :30 seconds? :30-ish. 

I like to call these first assemblies my “Swartzwelder Cuts.” And just like their namesake’s first crummy scripts, these slapped-together cuts could, one day, too, end up being some of my best work. 

That’s what I tell myself, at least.

The Hamburglar

If you had told me three years ago that I’d be writing a sentimental piece on the Hamburglar, I probably wouldn’t have believed you, but here we are…

My second kid was born with some pretty serious medical challenges (he’s doing great now!), and my family spent a lot of time at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

He was recovering from one of his surgeries, and my wife and I set up camp at the Ronald McDonald House. I was admittedly pretty bummed out on one particular day, as you might imagine. 

As I was walking through the lobby past this donation table full of toys and books for the kids in the hospital, I looked up and saw the Hamburglar staring at me with that goofy grin. We locked eyes, and I found myself smiling back at this little hamburger thief. 

Whatever it was about the absurdity of sharing a real human moment with a Hamburglar puppet sort of snapped me out of my funk. 

So I brought the Hamburglar puppet to my son, thinking he would find similar joy, but he was not nearly as interested. 

And now it lives here, in hopes that it’ll help to lighten the mood as he needs.

The Zines

I like short things that pack a punch. 

A good slow burn can be great, but something special happens when a piece of art or media hits you right in the gut. 

One of my favourite mediums for this is comics and zines; over the years, I’ve accumulated a decent number of them. 

I don't consider myself much of an illustrator or writer by any means, but I find a lot of creative fuel in seeing the way these types of artists tell stories or convey their ideas into a single panel or page. 

Working in commercials, I often only have 30 seconds to get an idea across, so any inspiration I can get is always welcome. 

Not to mention, thumbing through a good zine, or any piece of physical media for that matter, is always a nice respite from staring at a computer screen all day.

The Godzilla

It might look like an ordinary Godzilla action figure, but this is also a FireWire 400 hub. 

Impressed? 

It was gifted to me by my late uncle who was, among many things, a great storyteller. 

He was the first person I knew who actually worked in video production. He didn’t have some super-glamorous job, but to me, with my dad being a pastor and my mom being a history teacher, my uncle definitely had a “cool job.” And that was enough for me to think about what kind of “cool job” I wanted when I grew up.  

When he decided to stop working, he let me raid his closet full of random computer accessories, way out-of-date drives, and whatever else I could get my hands on, including the Godzilla FireWire 400 hub. 

At the time, I could actually use it, AND it was Godzilla, so I was psyched. 

My uncle passed away shortly after, and as the technology changed, I always kept Godzilla hanging around from college dorms to assistant bullpens and even in my own offices. 

Who knows, maybe FireWire will make a comeback.