Dean Cameron is smart enough to know that he isn't a household name. He probably should be, but he isn't. Never mind the fact that he's been a successful, working actor for more than two decades. Never mind the fact that he's been in countless sitcoms and movies, some of them classics. When you visit his website at www.DeanCameron.com, the first thing you'll notice is that it's entitled "Hey, you're that guy!" It's almost like he KNOWS that you won't know him by name, but sure as shit, you'll recognize his face. And I've got to say, it's easy to imagine him getting plenty of that when he walks down the street; you can just see some dude glancing at him, doing a double take and yelling "Hey, you! I know you! You're that guy from *fill in the blank*!"

So, you still don't know who Dean Cameron is? Sure you do. Maybe you'll recognize him as the Pizza Delivery Guy from the Emilio Estevez/Charlie Sheen comedy Men At Work. Or maybe you were hunting for some tits and ass on late night cable and you happened across Cameron in the movie Ski School. Maybe you'd recognize him as one of the stars of the movie Bad Dreams-- or you happened to catch him doing one of his many guest appearances on sitcoms like Alf and Will & Grace. But if you were like most of us growing up in the 80's, you'll best remember Dean as Francis "Chainsaw" Gremp in the classic comedy Summer School. (A-ha, I just sensed many, many lightbulbs clicking on in heads all over our fair land.)

I can honestly say that I don't know one person who doesn't love Summer School. What's not to love? You had Mark Harmon at his funniest and most studliest, a pre-Scientology, still hot Kirstie Alley, the younger, sexier versions of Courtney Thorne-Smith and Shawnee Smith, that smokin' hot chick who played the foreign exchange student Anna-Maria... and best of all, you had Dean Cameron and Gary Riley as the best comedy duo since Cheech and Chong... Chainsaw and Dave. The end result was one of those movies that you've seen a million times, but still watch every time it comes on. It's the type of movie you can watch with a friend while quoting dialogue back and forth during the whole damn thing, annoying everybody else in the room. It also happens to be the movie that sentenced Dean Cameron to being known as "Chainsaw" for the rest of his natural life--but hell, is that such a bad thing? I think not.

I must say, though, if you're under the impression that Dean did Summer School and just dropped off the face of the earth, guess again. Check out his profile on IMDB.com if you don't believe me--this guy's been in EVERYTHING, man. He also does plenty of voice over work in TV commercials, hawking everything from Suzukis to Honeybaked Ham. Acting isn't his only shtick, either. Dean plays bass in a rock band called The Thornbirds (formerly known as The Ducks), who are currently working on their second album. I've only heard a little of their music, but the curious among you can check out their first CD on Amazon. In addition to the band, Dean has also put together a comedy stage show based on... get this... the Nigerian e-mail scam. (No, I'm not kidding.) I'm sure you've all gotten this type of "urgent" e-mail before--in fact, there's probably one sitting in your inbox right now. It goes like this; the scammers claim to have tons of money in their possession, money the Nigerian government wants to "seize" from them. So, they ask to transfer some of said money into your personal bank account, where the evil government can't get to it. In exchange for this selfless act, they'll give you a shitload of cash to keep for yourself. Isn't that sweet? Of course, in order to do this, they'll need all of your account information--and should you be dumb enough to provide it, you'll be in for quite a surprise the next time you try to withdraw some of your money from the ATM. A very unpleasant surprise, as it turns out.

Now, there's plenty of variations on this scam. Sometimes it goes just as I described above, sometimes they tell you that you've won some kind of foreign "lottery." Either way, only the truly, truly stupid members of the populace fall for this bullshit... and if you're THAT stupid, you have no business having money in the first place. Most people just delete e-mail like this. Some people (like myself) like to fuck with them. Dean Cameron is definitely a member of the "let's fuck with them" crowd,  but believe me, he took it to a whole other level; not only did he fuck with them, he managed to develop a humorous stage show based solely on his correspondence with the scammers. Take a look at the website at www.spamscamscam.com for the whole story. (The e-mail exchanges he has with these guys are fucking hilarious, and definitely worth a read.) And if you happen to be visiting the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland during the month of August, 2005, make sure you check out the show--and don't forget your kilt, you bastards.

As you can probably tell, Dean has a lot of stuff on his plate at the moment. In addition to many things already mentioned, he also has a link for his personal "wacky political tantrum" (his words, not mine), which can be found at www.securityedition.com. Don't ask questions. Just click the damn link.

Dean also happens to be a really funny guy, and in my opinion, a great interview. Read on and enjoy!

Dean Cameron: 2 of the 3 following stories are fact. That was the year that he was People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive". In the scene where he walks in wearing a suit with the mission to make us really buckle down and study, I ad-libbed on his close-up "Wow, you look like the sexiest man alive!!!" He finished the take and then chased me out of the room, got me in a headlock and punched me a few times. All in good fun, but I certainly got the message.

I grew up in Oklahoma so I chewed tobacco for a long time. I had quit, but he liked to have a chew now and then, so we'd sit and chew Red Man.

Mark Harmon gives really, really good head and is sort of a size queen.

Dean Cameron: I got to do a lot of ad-libbing. A whole lot. Carl Reiner spoiled me. He would only shoot from 10am to 6pm and he'd let me ad lib. Turns out that's not how it usually goes.The weird thing about working with Carl Reiner was that he would tell stories about hanging out with his friends and you'd realize halfway in that he was talking about people like Mel Brooks, Dick Van Dyke, Sid Caeser, Imogene Coca and Mary Tyler Moore during the golden age of television. It became surreal. He wasn't name dropping, he was just talking about his buddies and his life.

JTL: You've made guest appearances on every sitcom known to man, everything from "Will & Grace" to "Alf." Here's a few things I've been wondering;

1) When you did the episode of "Facts Of Life," who was hotter in person, Nancy McKeon or Lisa Whelchel? I was a Blair man myself...

Dean Cameron: I'd had a crush on Lisa Whelchel when she was on the Mickey Mouse Show so I was  also a "Blair Man". But, they'd been doing the show for a million years and, well, you know... there are snacks around when you work on T.V. I'd ad libbed a funny line that ended up being written in to the script but one of the girls felt it drew attention away from "the scene" so they ended up cutting all my lines. Sorta cunty.

JTL: Well, that's the way to do an interview! Mark Harmon gives great head, folks... you heard it here first! Thanks so much, Dean! I haven't laughed that hard since I saw myself naked in the bathroom mirror this morning. (Of course, I started crying immediately afterwards.)

Since Dean was cool enough to answer my dumb questions, the least you assholes can do is click on his links and help me pimp his shit. For what it's worth, these are actually links worth clicking on, so it all works out;

Dean's official site: www.DeanCameron.com
The Thornbirds site: www.TheThornbirds.net
The Nigerian Scam site: www.spamscamscam.com
Metal Skool's site:  www.MetalSkool.com
Wacky political shit: www.securityedition.com

Keep on rockin' those Cool Dude shades...

-JTL

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Photo credits:
Chuck Ivy - photographer
cei@io.com
323.842.0357
http://www.chuckivy.com/