John Moschitta Jr.

John Moschitta Jr. (born August 6, 1954 in New York City) is a spokesperson and performer best known for his rapid speech delivery. He appeared in over 100 commercials as "The Micro Machines Man" as well as an award winning 1981 ad for FedEx.

Before the category was eliminated, Moschitta was credited in The Guinness Book of World Records as the World's Fastest Talker, with the ability to articulate 586 words per minute. Raised with five sisters, he often remarked that he needed to talk fast "just to get a word in edgewise."

Early work

At an early age, he acted in local community theater and school productions. In the 1970s, Moschitta attended Nassau Community College, where he studied theater and appeared in over 14 shows in two years, including a production of Room Service alongside Nassau alum Billy Crystal. Moschitta was also a contestant on the game show The $25,000 Pyramid, in which he was paired with comedian Joan Rivers and won $10,500. He returned to the show on a number of occasions as a celebrity guest.

After several years working in television production in New York City, he was hired by Warner Communications as a producer and performer for QUBE, the world's first 2-way interactive cable system. QUBE premiered on December 1, 1977 in Columbus, Ohio, with eleven hours of live programming per day. Besides his local duties, Moschitta also hosted Nickel Flicks for the brand new Nickelodeon Network. The show aired nationwide three times per day, every day. In 1979, he moved to Los Angeles.

FedEx commercial

In 1981, after appearances on several television shows, Moschitta appeared on the ABC TV series That's Incredible! Patrick Kelly and Michael Tesch, employees of the Ally & Gargano ad agency, hired Moschitta after seeing him on the show. In the ad, "Fast Paced World" for Federal Express, directed by Joe Sedelmaier, Moschitta played a fast-talking executive named Jim Spleen. Considered to be the most award-winning commercial in the history of advertising, it garnered six Clio awards, including Best Performance–Male award for Moschitta. Turn-of-the-century polls named it the Most Effective Campaign in the History of Advertising and named Moschitta the Most Effective Spokesperson. The 40th-anniversary issue of New York Magazine (10/06/2008) crowned it "The Most Memorable Advertisement Ever" Advertising Age ranked the ad number 11 among the top-100 advertising campaigns of the 20th century.

Other commercials

In addition to his commercials for Federal Express, he completed over 750 television and radio commercials, including national campaigns for Minute Rice, Quality Inn, Northwest Airlines, Olympus Camera, Mattel, Post Cereals, Tiger Games, Continental Airlines, Burger King, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, HBO, and Jet Blue. The "Great Cable Comparison" spot for HBO, in which he played a dozen characters, earned him his second CLIO recognition and a Silver Medal from the International Film and Television Festival of New York (1985). He played "The Micro Machines Man" in over 100 commercials that ran worldwide. Each one ended with the memorable tagline "Remember, if it doesn't say Micro Machines, it's not the real thing." Moschitta and various spots featuring his performances have won dozens of prestigious advertising awards. In 1996, Moschitta was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (the Emmy organization) for his contribution to outstanding commercials.

Along with partners Jim Becker and Andy Mayer, John "Mighty Mouth" Moschitta recorded a pugnacious take on ten classic novels in which he summarizes each book's entire story in approximately one minute. Included in this collection, entitled Ten Classics in Ten Minutes, are Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet; F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby; Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind; and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Soon after, the team produced a second recording, Professor John Moschitta's Ten Minute University. It promised a traditional four-year college education in just ten minutes, and came with a mini-diploma. It featured rapidly-delivered, humorous, 60-second lectures on various subjects, such as comparative literature, physics, economics, psychology, and football. Both were originally released on audio cassette in the 1980s; they were released on CD in 2004, with accompanying books.

Television work

In 1990, Moschitta created the board game "Motor Mouth" with partners David Fuhrer and Mark Setteducati for Tiger Games. The game featured tongue twisters, a pair of plastic red lips that were passed around like a hot potato and an ever-ticking timer; the fast-paced game can also be found in other countries as "Tongue Tangle". An on-air radio version of the game was launched on the Game Show Network's GSN Radio station in December 2008. The advertising depicted him slowing down after introducing himself, then losing the game to family members due to a buzzer.

Moschitta has had regular, recurring or starring roles in many television shows, including Saved by the Bell; General Hospital; Madame's Place; Matt Houston; Trapper John, M.D.; Zorro and Son; The Half-Hour Comedy Hour; The Smothers Brothers Show; Sesame Street; and Callahan. In addition, he has made many guest-star appearances on shows such as Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope, The Big Easy, Caroline in the City, All That, Cousin Skeeter, The A-Team, Sisters, Spencer, 3-2-1 Contact, and Square One TV. He can be seen in the films Farce of the Penguins, Queerspiricy, Blankman, Dick Tracy, Going Under, Dirty Laundry, Starchaser: The Legend of Orin, Ratboy, and The Transformers: The Movie.

He read the rules on the 55th Annual Academy Awards, sang and danced on the Emmy Awards with other commercial icons (Dick Wilson—Mr. Whipple, Jane Whithers—Josephine the Plumber, Jesse White (actor)—the Maytag Repair Man, Virginia Christine—Mrs. Olson, Patsy Garrett—the Chow Chow Chow woman, and others) and appeared on television specials and news shows such as Motown 25, Bloopers, Disneyland 30th Anniversary, 60 Minutes, 20/20, Most X-treme, Real People, and co-hosted TV Land's Greatest Commercial with David Leisure (Joe Izusu). He was featured on VH1's 101 Favorite Stars and on I Love the 80s 3-D, for which he very quickly summarized each year's events. Celebrity game show appearances include The $100,000 Pyramid, Family Feud, Win, Lose or Draw, Family Challenge, Balderdash, Identity and Hollywood Squares. He has been a Jeopardy! answer and a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire question.

Moschitta has made appearances on over 1,000 television and radio talk shows including The Tonight Show (with both Johnny Carson and Jay Leno); Oprah; and Good Morning America. In the corporate world, Moschitta has filmed videos or made personal appearances for over 350 of the Fortune 500 companies as well as many other companies. Moschitta has met and performed for eight US Presidents.

Other appearances

Moschitta appeared in the 1980s animated series The Transformers as the Autobot Blurr, a role which he reprised more than 20 years later for the Cartoon Network series Transformers Animated. He has also provided voices for characters on Family Guy, Garfield and Friends, Pinky and the Brain, Bobby's World and several episodes of Robot Chicken. As an announcer, he was the voice of TLC's Your Place or Mine?, PAX Network's Balderdash, Game Show Network's Scrabble and the final season of Hollywood Squares in syndication.

Moschitta's first love is theater and his favorite shows and roles include The Pirates of Penzance (Major General), Never Gonna Dance (Pangborn), Sweeney Todd (Pirelli), The Last of the Red Hot Lovers (Barney), Rock and Roll Heaven: The Musical Comedy (Satan), The Music Man (Harold Hill), and Arsenic and Old Lace (Dr. Einstein)

For many years, he has been involved in several charities and not-for-profit organizations. Besides working hands-on with many groups, he often volunteers his time to conduct live auctions at their gala events. The Los Angeles Times states that, as far as celebrity auctioneers go, "no one can suck money out of a room like John Moschitta Jr." To date he has raised over 20 million dollars for charity using his fast-talking talents.

Moschitta also voices a one-time character named "Key-per" from Adventure Time in the episode "The Enchiridion".

See also

• Tachylalia, term for extremely rapid speech
• Fran Capo (fastest female speaker)

External links

• John Moschitta Jr. at IMDb