The Loons
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The Loons were a Phoenix, Arizona based improvisational comedy troupe and creative collective, made up of filmmakers, writers, musicians, artists and performers who worked together for largely comedic purposes during the 1980s.
The core of The Loons consisted of Mike Sortino (later M. C. Brennan and Eric Paul Johnson, who met at Constitution Elementary School in 1977 at age 8. Sortino was already a precocious published writer and performer who made regular weekly appearances on "Let's Talk" with Bob Reidy on KARZ-AM 960 in Phoenix. Their joint creative efforts began in earnest in early 1981 when they turned a shared interest in Jonathon Brandmeier's radio show on KZZP into a series of phone-in appearances on the show, as well as other KZZP programs including those of Steve Goddard, "Crazy" Dave Otto and later KUPD's Dave Pratt. Their shared "outsider" status and creative energy attracted many others, including fellow teens Kim Darling, Richard Boland, Melissa Wilmot, Leon Keith, Bill DiFilippantonio, Rich Whitver, Ralph Rogers, Tracy Mertens, and Mychele Dee. Role playing game writer/creator Jim "Bear" Peters became something of a patron to the group through the auspices of his Paperback Paradise bookstore. Then in his early 30s, Peters provided the fledgling group with encouragement, cash, film equipment, and meetings with underground luminaries such as Tunnels and Trolls creator Ken St. Andre and burgeoning author Michael Stackpole, both of whom figure prominently in chief Loon Mike Sortino's Dastardly Communist Plot series of books.
During their peak output in the 1980s, The Loons created a significant amount of work individually and collectively, including the satirical newspaper the Loon News, several albums of satirical (and occasionally bizarre) music, a series of novels and short stories, a long-running comic strip by Eric Paul Johnson which later evolved into Mike and Eric, plays, numerous short films including The Man Called Bear: Hero At Large!, and a series of large-scale pranks and comedic performance art that garnered local attention in the Phoenix area. The scale and ambition of their efforts was particularly notable considering the bulk of their group work came prior to age 16; by 1987, when the bulk of the group graduated from high school, The Loons had informally disbanded.
Many of the Loons continue to work together on an occasional basis in film and print. Brennan is a writer and performer with numerous music and screen credits. Johnson continues to write and draw the Mike and Eric comic. Dee, Wilmot and Keith have both gone on to national success as writers. Johnson initiated a massive book project on the history of The Loons which drew participation from virtually all of the original group (including Jonathon Brandmeier), but as of August 2006 the project has yet to see formal publication.
