What “American Made” Means to John Ratzenberger
This article was originally posted in HuffPost Business by Stacey Alcorn. Click here to read the full article. There’s a good chance you know him as Cliff Clavin, the know-it-all postman onCheers. Or maybe you know him from his hit show Made In America on the Travel Channel where he showcased the people behind the products made in the USA. He has worked on feature films like Superman and Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, as well as independent films like The Woodcarver. He’s also the only actor to voice a role in every Pixar film with such beloved characters as Mack the Truck and Hamm the Piggy Bank. John Ratzenberger has been listed as the 6th most successful actor of all time in terms of box office receipts and there’s no slowing him down. In addition to an average of 5 speeches a month, regular visits with Congressional leaders on issues that affect American manufacturers and another Pixar film release this summer, he’ll be launching 1-2 minute syndicated vignettes called “It’s a Little Known Fact” on radio stations nationwide starting this month. Successful? No question. Self-made? You bet. He started his acting career while working part-time as a carpenter to pay the bills. Ambitious? Let’s just say that in between his acting, vocal talents, and screen writing, he is also an avid entrepreneur with his hands in several businesses. Ambitious is an understatement. Passionate? Without a doubt. And that’s what brings us to today and this article.John Ratzenberger loves acting, writing, and entrepreneurship. But his absolute passion is America. He’s a fascinating person to talk to, rich with knowledge of history and how things work. He could talk for hours about the infrastructure of America and how highways, tunnels, and cities were meticulously built during a time when the only manpower was true man power; the blood, sweat, and tears of laborers. Ratzenberger is an aficionado of learning, a connoisseur of understanding the mechanics of how things work, and an advocate for re-introducing trade, mechanics, shop, and carpentry skills back into schools so that we can truly marry human talent and skill to today’s innovative society in order to create a better America. He says that he hopes his legacy, when people fall upon his name one hundred years from now, is not that he was Cliff from Cheers, or Mack the Truck in a Pixar film, but that he was that guy who advocated for empowering individuals to leave America better than it was found. Here are John Ratzenberger’s four simple strategies for putting the most powerful brand in the world back into the hands...
John Ratzenberger Reunites with Cheers Cast Members
This article was originally posted on people.com, click here to view the full article. Kirstie Alley is going back to where everybody knows her name. The actress, 64, lost 50 lbs. with Jenny Craig and has kept off the weight for the past year – and now she’s celebrating her success with some familiar faces in a Cheers-themed commercial for the diet program. “When they asked me to do the commercial, I had a lot of consideration that it was an iconic show – I didn’t want to walk onto some set that looks artificial,” Alley tells PEOPLE. But her fears were put to rest when she saw the set, which perfectly recreated the bar from the popular 80s sitcom. “Honestly, when John [Ratzenberger] and George [ Wendt] and I walked on, it was a little bit like The Twilight Zone because it was an exact duplicate,” she says. “It was crazy. I didn’t think anybody would ever be able to replicate that set like...
John Ratzenberger Filming Shifting Gears in North Carolina
Written by Owen Covington, Reporter – Triad Business Journal Click here to read the full article online >> A star from his days as Cliff Clavin in the TV hit “Cheers,” and later as the voice of Hamm the Piggy Bank in the “Toy Story” trilogy, John Ratzenberger is used to everyone knowing his name no matter where he goes. “I go to strange places I’ve never been before, and somebody walks up and all of a sudden you’ve got an instant friend,” Ratzenberger told the Winston-Salem Journal during an interview Thursday. Ratzenberger, 68, has been in the area for the filming of the film “Shifting Gears,” directed by Jason Winn and also starring R. Keith Harris. He visited the Journal Thursday to provide national commentary for Fox Business Network and took time to talk with a reporter with the newspaper while there. The movie, which has been in production since mid-March, tells the story of a man who tries to reconnect with his family by taking over his late father’s business — an old service station in rural North Carolina — and also gets involved in his father’s side business of dirt track racing. Ratzenberger plays Conrad Baines, a rich local who plans to buy the property and tear down the garage so he can build a retail superstore. He told the Journal he’s enjoyed his time in the Triad, and named among his favorite restaurants in the area Mary’s Gourmet Diner and Sweet Potatoes in Winston-Salem, Undercurrent Restaurant in Greensboro and Phil’s Bar-B-Que Pit in...
“Inside Out” to Premiere in June 2015
“Inside Out” is an upcoming American animated fantasy-comedy film, which follows a girl named Riley and the characterization of five human emotions – Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness. The emotions live in the control center in Riley’s brain and they help her by giving advice in everyday life. Adjustments must be done since Riley’s family moved to a new home in San Francisco as her father starts a new job. The film voice cast stars Amy Poehler as Joy, hyllis Smith as sadness, Bill Hader as fear, Lewis Black as Anger, and Mindy Kaling as Disgust. Kaitlyn Dias stars as Riley Anderson, Diane Lane as Riley’s Mom, Kyle MacLachlan as Riley’s Dad, and Richard Kind as Bing Bong. John Ratzenberger has an unrevealed role. The film is produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios. It will be distributed by Walt Disney Studios and Motion Pictures. Meet the little voices in “Inside Out”, which is slated to premiere in the theaters and cinemas in the United States on June 19,...
John Ratzenberger Visits Atlanta, Georgia
Journalist Rodney Ho wrote the following article, published on AJC.com. Click here to view the full article online. John Ratzenberger (‘Cheers,’ Pixar, DWTS) pushes ‘Made in America’ John Ratzenberger, best known as know-it-all postal worker Cliff Clavin on “Cheers,” swung through Atlanta earlier this week to push his long-running “Made in America” campaign, highlighting manufacturing jobs and vocational training. This is just the type of program patriotic know-it-all Clavin would have embraced. Ratzenberger’s Travel Channel show ‘Made in America,” which debuted in 2003 and went for five seasons, paved the way for Mike Rowe’s “Dirty Jobs” and a raft of similar shows. Ratzenberger, a trained carpenter before he pursued acting, linked up recently with the Made in America stores (www.madeinamericastore.com) to create gift boxes that consist solely of U.S.-created items, one of women, one for dudes and one for children. “The entire package is sourced and made here in America,” he said over lunch at Roxx Tavern off Cheshire Bridge Road. “Even the boxes and ink used to print the boxes. It’s turned out to be really popular.” He notes that environmentalists should note that China, where many manufacturing jobs have gone, pollutes far more than we do and a lot of that air pollution makes it to California shores. Manufacturing jobs, he notes, have disappeared by the millions. “A welder can make $80,000 a year,” he said. When factories shut down in many small towns in America, the people left behind often end up having to rely on government and taxes end up going up. He said he saw this happen in his hometown of Bridgeport, Conn. “It’s okay if kids don’t go to college,” he said. “They can become a welder or plumber. All my relatives worked in manufacturing. All made a great living and lived in nice homes. But the media makes us think if you work with your hands, somehow you’re not smart.” He thinks TV focuses too much on failure, not on success, citing the “Locked Up” series on MSNBC that highlights felons. While in Atlanta, he met with incoming Senator David Perdue, who supports many of Ratzenberger’s initiatives. And Ratzenberger is looking to direct a fil in Atlanta. He has seen studios here and is duly impressed. He also visited a grammar school friend who works at a big construction firm here that builds high rises. When at home in Connecticut, he dabbles in his own construction projects on a much smaller scale like a play area for his grandson, all from scratch. Not surprisingly, Ratzenberger has ties with Atlanta-based Home Depot. Both work on the “Building Homes for Heroes” initiative to help...