DeVito-ating from the Mean

By Tyler Strauss

One of Danny DeVito's lines in The Nightman Cometh was "You gotta pay the troll toll if you wanna get into that boy's soul". Unfortunately for him the audience thought he said "boy's hole" and assumed he was a pedophile.

Some would say that Danny didnt need to play a Troll in a musical and that he should've asked for a more star worthy roll. Anyone who knows his career, however, knows that it's this kind of humility and fearlessness that got him to where he is today.

As a balding 4'10 aspiring actor, Danny's best chance of mainstream success was for Snow White's dwarves to get a spin-off. Danny made short work of his big dreams however, and starred alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in the nearly mediocre film Twins. If you don't do drugs, Twins was a movie about two long lost brothers reconnecting later in life. Riveting.

A few years later Danny played The Penguin in Batman Returns, a role combining Joe Pesci from Goodfellas, Joe Pesci from Home Alone and Pumba from The Lion King As the lone bright spot of the film, Danny was everything no one knew they needed in a movie everyone knew they didn't want.

Danny DeVito performing as Antonio The Troll in The Nightman Cometh, a Tony adjacent musical written, produced, directed and starring Charlie Kelly

Danny was also a dominating force in TV, winning multiple awards for his work on two critically acclaimed series; Taxi and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In Taxi he played Louie De Palma where he famously redefined th sitcom antagonist, and in It's Always Sunny he plays Frank Reynolds who famously tore his way naked out of a leather couch.

All of these rolls have one thing in common: they were written for someone short, fat and bald. Danny took the reasons he would never succeed and made them the foundation on which he became a star. It's in that same vein that I wrote this magazine. I've always thought of my silliness and sense of humor as something that limits me in both the professional and personal world, but now I look at it as something I can use to my advantage. So, in that mindset, I hope you get just as much joy out of my comedy as I do from hearing Danny sing about trolls, tolls, souls and holes.