Garcia, Jones of 'Reno 911!' to entertain ESU

Emporia State will have some new law enforcement officers on campus this week.

At 8 p.m. Thursday evening in Albert Taylor Hall, “Reno” stars Carlos Alazraqui and Cedric Yarbrough will perform stand-up, improvise scenes for the audience, and host a question and answer session in the roles of their respective characters. The performance will also feature a chance to meet the actors following the show.

Union Activities Council has arranged the event, negotiating with the actors since late last year.

“Everyone on UAC is excited to have them come,” said Michael Hooton, graduate business administration major. “It’s a great way to wrap up a great year.”

UAC has promoted the event with faux mustaches and parking tickets, but the biggest attention to the event seems to be word of mouth.

“I know they’ve been giving out a lot of free stuff for it too,” said Jennifer Dean, senior information systems major. “College kids are big moochers. I’m not going to lie; I wear the free glasses they gave me around outside. I’ve got a couple of mustaches, too.”

Cedric Yarbrough began major acting work relatively recently, according to a recent interview. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles in 2000, Yarbrough was approached about filming a pilot episode of a sketch comedy with Fox. According to an interview with Fred Topel, though Yarbrough lacked previous experience, he won the role with showmanship. He auditioned as singer Aaron Neville, wearing a Baby Gap vest and a Reese’s peanut butter cup on his head.

Though that show was not picked up by Fox, the actors involved thought they should put together a pilot for a “Cops” spoof, calling it “Reno 911!” The series was initially rejected by Fox. After Yarbrough played a few small paid roles in shows such as “Andy Richter Controls the Universe,” he was excited to hear that Comedy Central had picked up “Reno” in 2002.

Yarbrough also voices Mr. DuBois on the comic-to-television adaptation of “The Boondocks”, and has played roles in “Meet the Fockers,” “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” and “Drillbit Taylor.” His character’s partner in “Reno”, Carlos Alzaraqui, also played a small part in “Drillbit Taylor.”

Alazraqui has lent his vocal talents to provide voices for many famous animated characters. His first big voiceover gig was Rocko, the hapless wallaby in “Rocko’s Modern Life.” Since then, he has voiced Nestor in “Happy Feet,” Clam in “Camp Lazlo,” and Peter Griffin’s late boss Mr. Weed as well as various other characters in “Family Guy.”

In the early 1990s, Alazraqui moved to Los Angeles after winning the San Francisco International Comedy Competition. He was approached about doing voice work for a project called “Rocko’s Modern Life”, which was being produced in a basement. Nickelodeon picked up the show, which ran for 52 episodes.

“I was just in the right place with the right voice at the right time,” Alazraqui said in a phone interview.

Alazraqui moved from Sacramento to Los Angeles in 1992. In 1997, he provided the voice of the Taco Bell Chihuahua, which became a hit advertising campaign for Taco Bell. He has continued to lend his vocal talents to various animated characters in film and television.

When asked in 2000 to film the pilot for “Reno 911!,” Alazraqui created his own character of James Garcia.

“We pretty much went home and thought about characters. I just wanted to do this sort of amalgam of every prick you’d stereotypically think of as a cop, and he’s got a bit of that Barney Fife and Napoleon complex going on.”

From the first episode, Alazraqui said they thought the show had something special.

“The first pilot we did… was making the crew crack up,” Alazraqui said. “Any time you can make the crew laugh, you know you have a good show. I mean, they’re jaded. They’ve seen it all, and they just want to go home at the end of the day.”

Comedy Central’s new show was a hit when it premiered in 2003, and the cast was thrilled.

“I’m able to pay bills and pay a bunch of family’s bills,” Yarbrough said. “I didn’t know I had so much family, but now I’ve got a whole bunch of family I didn’t know about.”

Although they are pleased that the show has been a hit, the actors couldn’t have imagined that it would be this big.

“We knew we had something good,” Alazraqui said. “To have it last this long and to do a movie was kind of a bonus. “All in all, it’s been a great egg from which to hatch other things, as it were.”

Yarbrough and Alazraqui’s performance will include a few surprises for the audience. Alazraqui said that they truly enjoy getting on stage and interacting with the audience, and that he is looking forward to getting to enjoy the clean Midwest air in Kansas.