Beck Bennett, the guy from the AT&T commercials with the kids.

[MattinSTL]

I'm a total fan of this guy. What surprises me is how few views his stuff has on youtube... and yet AT&T found him and decided to do a whole ad campaign around one of his crews' ideas, Fresh Perspectives.

It's one thing to go viral... and never see a dime from it... but I never considered that a video could have a good enough idea that it would only take a small number of views to launch somebody's career(?)

The Colbert Report and/or The Daily Show should be headhunting this guy to be a reporter. Back in the day... I always said that Colbert should have his own show... he was easily the best reporter that The Daily Show had on-hand... of course the other guys from the show have done well too. Beck is SO dead-pan that it's nuts... he's even drier than Colbert.

Anyone else digging this dude's style?

Check out some of the Fresh Perspectives from youtube... there's a good idea that made a guy w/o even going viral. :thumbsup:

 

[groveChuck]

Love him, he's great with the kids. Seems to be able to think with kid logic...

Edit- turns out ATT knew nothing of Fresh Perspectives. Bennett just showed up at an audition:

The ads' creators said the idea for them began not with "Fresh Perspectives" but as a reaction to the "clutter" in the wireless market: "We thought, why not simplify things to the point where even kids would understand? … We found out about 'Fresh Perspectives' after we'd already come up with the idea. It just solidified in our minds that Beck was the perfect guy for the campaign."

And as far as Colbert/Daily:

Bennett and his partners in the Good Neighbor comedy team have just turned in a first cut of a series pilot to Comedy Central. "The Good Neighbor Show," about a disintegrating local late-night talk show, is being made by Gary Sanchez Productions, the company run by Ferrell and former "Saturday Night Live" head writer Adam McKay.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...0130130_1_ad-campaign-at-t-ads-bbdo-atlanta/2

 

[MattinSTL]

Thanks for the post and link, Chuck... AT&T, or rather, the ad agency... sure lucked out when they visualized something exactly like Fresh Perspectives... and if you watch them, you'll see at least one of the same kids featured in both.

I'm sure we're going to see a lot more of Beck. I agree with the statement in the article that for some reason you can't take your eyes off his performance... I think it's in the eyes... and "ultra-deadpan" is spot on. He's even more deadpan than Colbert.

 

[hscully]

Cool, thanks! I didn't know about fresh perspectives. I saw this guy on the commercials and I thought that it was really funny and great advertising. I didn't know that it was a thing he was doing that they co-opted. I loved it when I saw those commercials, the dead pan, the interaction with the kids ("hold on, I'm watching this" hilarious) and that great voice.

 

[groveChuck]

You get invited to join the cast of SNL, you accept... it's not complicated.

AT&T's stone-faced funnyman Beck Bennett just received one of the highest honors a comedic actor can hope to obtain: a cast member spot on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," according to Deadline Hollywood. Mr. Bennett is a Chicagoland native, graduate from the University of Southern California's acting program and a regular performer at sketch and improv comedy club the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. But Mr. Bennett is probably best known for his role as the straight man in AT&T's wildly popular "It's Not Complicated" ads.

The campaign -- which features Mr. Bennett discussing AT&T's network capabilities with various groups of talkative first graders -- has become a sensation among ad industry professionals and TV viewers alike. Social analytics firm BlueFin Labs consistently ranked the ads as some of the most talked about in social media in early 2013. At one point in late January, 16% of the tweets about "It's Not Complicated" ads included the word "love."

Mr. Bennett is a member of sketch comedy group Good Neighbor, which currently has a development deal with Viacom-owned Comedy Central. Mr. Bennett's Good Neighbor cohorts Kyle Mooney and Dave McCary, Deadline Hollywood reported.

In a late January interview with The Chicago Tribune, Mr. Bennett worried the ads might ultimately hurt his career.
"At this point, this is amazing. It's like a dream job for an up-and-coming actor," Mr. Bennett said in The Tribune interview. "But I am also getting nervous. Sometimes, I'm like, 'Oh, this good thing, is it really a bad thing for me?'"

There's no indication at this time whether Mr. Bennett's addition to the SNL cast will have any effect on his role in "It's Not Complicated." Mr. Bennett's agent, AT&T and AT&T's creative agency BBDO, the team behind the campaign, were not able to return requests for comment at time of press.

While SNL decided to take all three Good Neighbor members, Mr. Bennett's role in the "It's Not Complicated" commercials make him by far the most recognizable of the three.

Mr. Bennett's signing isn't AT&T's only connection to SNL. The "It's Not Complicated" campaign is directed by Caviar's Jorma Taccone, a member of the Lonely Island comedy troupe that has regularly appeared on the show. Mr. Taccone had also been a writer at SNL and with Lonely Island co-created more than 100 of its Digital Shorts.
For a taste of what to expect from Mr. Bennett and his fellow Good Neighbor members, below is a sketch the group produced and posted to its YouTube page.

http://creativity-online.com/news/atts-funnyman-beck-bennett-is-snls-newest-cast-member/243846