The Art of Impressionism: Grant's Hilarious Skills

Grant was a hilarious individual who possessed an uncommonly good impressionist skill. He could easily do impressions of his coworkers, including Kevin and Jamie. One of the most notable examples of his impression skills was his Jamie Mustache Joke. As soon as he would do it, people were like, "I'm taking that!" or "I hope you don't mind." However, Grant's best part about being a great impressionist was that he often unpacked something about the person he was doing an impression of that people hadn't noticed before. This skill paid off for him as he became known for his ability to do impressions that would have you absolutely clutching your seat in stitches.

Grant's impression skills were not limited to just one or two impressions. He could take a person and create an entire adventure out of it. However, the article is being circumspect around this because there are some names that Grant used to work with at ILM, and he doesn't want to name drop. Suffice it to say that Grant's impression skills were highly sought after by his coworkers, and he was able to make them laugh with ease.

One of the most notable examples of Grant's impression skills was when he did a Jamie Mustache Joke. This wasn't the only Jamie Mustache impression Grant could do - he also had an excellent Scuba Diving Jamiesque impression, where he would do jamie scuba diving and have his mustache flowing underwater like a kelp forest. The article is not thinking about that guy now, but it's worth noting how funny Grant was.

The world of Impressionism: A New Era

Adam Savage here in my cave, and we are living through a completely strange moment in time. Six months ago, the entire world changed. Everyone went into lockdown, and so did testing. We became a virtual workplace almost overnight. And now, I see all my colleagues almost exclusively on video chat. The biggest change is output - we have radically increased the number of videos that we make because... well, that's what I'm doing all week long.

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To those of you who have supported us in the past, thank you - your support has meant everything. And to anyone who is considering joining, welcome! You can hit our brand new join buttons somewhere on this screen to sign up today.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enuh okay uh keely cat's momwants to know have you ever worked on aprojectat your living space or shop that hasmade your neighbors not like you so muchi think you'd have to ask themwhen you are thank you sir when you area maker you're one of the things youmake is noiseuh i used to have a uhthat didn't work i used to have a loftdown uhin hunter's point on yosemite street inthe old sir and the old uhcanning factory down there it's next tothe police station that's right nextdoorthat wasn't there when i lived there umit was a great placeit was a great i loved that place anywayumyou asked about my neighbors yeah i hada neighborshe moved in next door she uh her namewas youngand ann young moved next door and shesaid what's it like hereit's going to be noisy i work everynight i work all day long and i work allnight longand i was like grinding and uh yeah iremember her pounding on the wall onenight late at night like she couldn'tsleep and i was like i was totallyhonest with you you moved into anartist's lob space everyone here worksall night longand you know then i quiet it down um ido sometimes wonderif my neighbor's here in the the theworkspace buildingbecause i do have some neighbors in thisbuilding i wonder if they are sick of mymusicyeah i seriously wanted that because ilisten to i meani'm all across the map some days it'sfleet with max some days it's jamestaylor sometimes it's sean colvinlately it's ton of billy eilish and uhwho else ed sheeran yeah i mean this isthe kind of music i find comforting as iwork i was just listening to thesoundtrack to high fidelity to getmyself some good stevie wonderum but i alsodon't mind listening to things on repeatright like you know i get into a brunomars kick because i'm working and i feellike kind ofmoving around while i'm working and i'mi put that up loud and ilisten to 24 karat magic like four timesin a row because it's one of the bestsongs ever writtenum yeahlook you know i i don't mean to say thati was callous with youngabout the fact that she moved into abuilding uh that hadthat we were noisy in umbecause you know i did stop making noisein the middle of the night becauseyou know i'm human and i'm empatheticbut also like one of the reasonsone of the reasons i moved into thatbuilding uh was because i wanted to makemake noise all day longi've never burned anybody else's housedown i did have a co-worker who did thatuh they uh they literally did somei can't remember which kind of oil thatif you have the oily rags it's like afurniture finishing oil and if you leavethe rags together they spontaneouslycombust yet he burned down a neighbor'sgarage that waythat is yeah i'm glad i don't have oneof those in my pastuh a few years ago you hosted a showjack means says a few years ago youhosted a show at the royal albert hallfor michael g aquinohow did you guys first meet wellwe met at a gathering for nerdsthat's what umbill praty was one of the the creatorand show runneruh big bang theory for the first severalseason foryeah i can't remember how many years bigbang theory won but for roughly i thinktwo-thirds of its run bill pretty wasthe showrunner then steve molero wasboth good friends of mineand bill uh has before the lockdownwould have um uh uh regular gatheringsof remarkable nerds and they weredelightfulamazing gatherings i saw lots of oldfriends therebecause we have a lot of the samefriends and i met lots of new friendsthereand at one of the more recent ones iwent to which is now like two years agotwo and a half years ago umi was in the bar and i heard someone saymy name then turn around it was michaeljacquinoand he was a huge fanand we started talking and the thingabout jaquinois he's ludicrously talentedobviously and ridiculously annoyinglyproductiveobviously uh he's also one of the nicesthuman beings aliveseriously um he's one of my favoritepeople andyou know sometimes you meet people andyou're like oh i wonder how this isgoing to go i wonder if we're going tobe friends i met him and we both knewalmost immediately like yeah yeah thisisthis is real we're gonna be friends fora long time um and we talk frequentlyum yeah i love that guy so that's how wemet about probablyactually it's more than two and a halfyears ago it's probably more like fouryears ago uhtime is moving much quicker for me now idon't know whybilly kroger i'm stu i'm unstuck in timeand it's justwhizzing past um but yeah i think ihonestly couldn't tell you how manyyears it's been now umthat royal albert hall thing by the wayi'm i'm a i'm a performer i've performedon stage on television and films allsorts of different placesand i have performed for crowds ofpeopleas large the largest crowd i haveperformed for220 000 people yep at the mallin dc at the rally to restore sanity andor fearand jamie and i were the opening act forthati remember a few months before thatrally i got atext a text yeah i got a text fromstephen colberti didn't know he had my number he textsme and he sayshey i'm a fan john and i john stewartand i want you and jamie to be theopening act of this thingand i got this text and i turned and ishowed it to my wife my wife was likereally that's and i'm like yeah wowso i start to respond she's like you'rejust gonna respond like he's a personyep i responded and we went and did that200 plus thousand people on the mall amile of people from the stage i satstood on a mile of people into thedistance i walk out on that stage withjamieteleprompter completely did not worktelepromptershut the bed failed entirely but becausei had writtenwhat we were going to do and jamie and ihad rehearsed it we're pros and we gotit done wewe hit all the marks and we managed toget it across the line that was notremotely asintense as stepping onto the stage atthe royal albert halland facing a completely full housejaquino's 50th birthday celebrationwhich was a night ofincredible guest appearances from allthe directors of the movies that he'sworked on colin trevorrowgareth edwards j.j abramsuh brad bird oh my god i mean it waslike a murderer's brosome of my favorite directors in theworld and some of my favorite people inthe worlduh and yet stepping out onto the stageof the royal albert halli made a classic mistake as a performerwhich is i wasi'm standing in front of a slightlyunfamiliar crowd a british crowdand i'll tell you having performed inmany countries every country is slightlydifferentaustralians are strangely quiet incrowdsi don't know why new zealanders way morenoisy than i would have expected theseare the things you learnand with each foreign crowd you kind ofneed to even though they've come to seethe showthere's always a little bit of a sort ofsetting of expectations that's necessarya great comedian and comedy writer oncetaught me this after i had bombed onstage he saidif you're going in front of a crowd thatdoesn't know you just many crowds youneed to like set your expectations andyou started cursing right away andbecause you're on televisionand you don't curse on television theaudience had trouble transitioning thisisback when i bombed at the royal alberthalli think i needed to set expectationsbecause i walked out i made some jokesand my i had a friend punch up themonologue and i had this great monologueit had some funny jokes in it andevery joke i had died diedcrickets and after the third joke diedi drew a total blank on stage like acompletebrain wipe in a full house in the royalalbert halland i'm like scrolling through i've beenrehearsing come on along backstage forhoursbut there it is it's not in my head andthat is maybe one of the only times inmy life that's ever happenedlike a complete blank ii started to say well let's go and theni realized i hadn't introduced theconductorand that's when i remembered the rest ofwhat i was supposed to do on stage andwe got it across the line but for asecond there boopnothing was going on up here kevin bwants to know can you give us a funnystory about grantthat we haven't heard beforeumgrant was hilarious grant i mean youknow this grant was funnybut inter-personally he washilarious and the thing about him wasthathe was an uncommonly good impressionistand he had impressions of all of hisco-workersincluding me his impression of meit was that it was drumming on tables oranything that was near you yeah that wasdefinitelypart of his impression of me hisimpression of jamie was this the jamiemustache jokewas grant i ca soon as i saw him do iti'm like i'm taking that i hope youdon't mind and he was like yeah nothat's cool manum but i want to point out somethingimportant about being a greatimpressionistis one of the things that's alwayssurprising when someone does a greatimpression for youis they often are unpacking somethingabout the person they're doing animpression of that you didn't noticebeforesomething that was like totally obviousand yet you hadn't connected with ituh and i i think that grant like greatlike manypeople who can do that well paid a lotof attentionhe was a real listener um so all that isa preamble to saythat there were there were times hecouldlike take a person you know and sort ofdo an impression of them having a wholeadventurei'm sorry i am being circumspect aroundthis because uh there areyeah i i kind of don't want to tellnames i don't want to like i can'tit's not going to be as funny to youand i'm not going to start unpacking allthese names of people i used to workwith at ilmsuffice to say that grant could have youabsolutely clutching your slides institches doing impressionsof your co-workers going through goingthroughoh yeah so when he came up with thismustache thing this wasn't the only onethis wasn't the only jamie mustacheimpression grant also did jamie sabrajamie jamie surprisedjust like a total miyazaki thing hewould do jamie scuba diving you knowlike the mustache flowing underwaterlike a kelp forestthank you for that i'm not thinkingabout that guyi miss himhey everyone adam savage here in my caveand we are living through a completelystrange moment in time six months agothe entire world changed everyone wentinto lockdownand so did tested we became a virtualworkplace almostovernight and now i see all mycolleagues almostexclusively on video chat um i amshooting only on the phone i know thesound quality has gotten worsenorm joey and gunther are all editingfrom homeand maybe the biggest change is outputwe have radicallyincreased the number of videos that wemake becausewell that's what i'm doing all week longhere is just shooting everything on myphoneand eventually the world will return tonormal but one of the things we want tokeep upis the pace of videos that we've beenreleasing we've been ecstatic about yourfeedback about thisand we want to keep it going but inorder to we need to ask for your directsupport and so i'm here today toannouncetested channel membership if you're notinterested in becoming a member that'sfinetested is not going to change for youyou still get all the same great one-daybuilds tool tipsthe podcast etc but if you are willingto joinwe've got some pretty cool extras andtwo levels at which to joinfor a buck 99 a month we have oursupporter level and for 9.99 a monthour patron level which includes all thestuff from the supporter leveland some live streams some direct accessto meand the tested team and some sneak peeksintoour entire tested workflow and processwe are so excited about the newpossibilities that channel membershipopensup and we know that many of you havebeen supporting us all along as testedpremium members and to youi say thank you your support has meanteverything and you can keep it goingby hitting our brand new join buttonsomewhere onthis screen thank you guys for watchingand between you and mei am most excited by the live streams ireally love doing those earlier thissummer and i can't wait to pick it upagain\n"