A That's series where we ask a Shanghai-based somebody to tell us 5 Things specific to his or her life.
While he's busy now trolling Republican presidential candiates, former That's columnist Zach Etkind, aka 'Donnie Does,' was a Shanghai sensation with his Donnie Does videos. We ask him and director Alessio Avezzano to pick their five favorite Donnie Does videos (VPN required).
Donnie's Top 5 videos
1. The whole Shanghai Sharks Saga, especially The Shark Knight
The Donnie Does videos rarely had a script. I know I know, what a shocker. We’d normally just head into a situation with a very basic premise of why Donnie is doing what he is doing and see what happens. Sometimes this improvisational approach would work out and sometime not so much. Well with The Shanghai Sharks series, the simple premise of, “let's have Donnie go to a CBA game and cheer on the Sharks with the same passion and intensity he would have for the Celtics” ended up turning into a series of videos containing all the excitement, intrigue, and drama of a Hollywood Blockbuster. I love the fact that “the concession girls”, “Captain Killjoy”, and “Stephon Marbury” ended up unintentionally becoming amazing supporting characters in these videos. I also love the fact that immediately after we put out “The Shark Knight”, where I wear various disguises while trying to sneak into the Shanghai Sharks arena, the president of the organization called me up to appoint me as their foreign brand ambassador and offer me courtside seats to every game the following season (see: Shark Knight Rises). M. Knight Shamalongdong couldn’t pen a plot twist like that. While I started going to Sharks games just to make funny videos, I can now say I have become a genuine fan. #lesssgoSHAAARRRKS
2. Pacquiao vs Rios
Had the most fun filming this one hands down. I didn’t have any plans prior to the fight to sneak ringside and eventually get in the ring, but once I got to my seats up in the nosebleeds section I figured it was worth a shot. Next thing you know I’m sitting next to Pacquiao’s family and watching David Beckham try to find his seat. I’m not sure if my success can be credited to me being a foreigner or the fact I was wearing a green Larry Bird Suisey, all I know is if I tried this stunt in Las Vegas I’d probably end up getting my knees broken in some back room. I got to meet Pacquiao at a press conference in Shanghai a year later and someone in his entourage referred to me as “that green suit guy” which was pretty cool.
3. Goose In My Basket
This video definitely took the most time and effort out of all the ones we’ve made and I think it shows. While the music video is literally about a “goose in a basket,” I think it also does a great job of capturing the absurdity and excitement of daily life in Shanghai. I would advise other people looking to make a music video to avoid incorporating live birds though. Having to carry a constantly pooping goose around Shanghai while we filmed every scene is not an experience I would wish on anyone.
Side note: I’m pretty sure it inspired Macklemore’s “Downtown” music video. The similarities are uncanny.
4 (tie). Tie between Donnie Does Rural China Pt 1
It was always my hope for our viewers to gain some insight into Chinese culture by watching Donnie “do” different cultural activities. While this probably wasn’t the case for all my videos (see Donnie Does Shanghai’s #1 DJ), I feel like DD Marriage Market and DD Rural China accomplished this pretty well. In DD Rural China, viewers see firsthand what life is like in rural China and learn about Chinese New Year traditions when Donnie decides to go sober and live on his Ayi’s farm for a week during the spring festival. This approach may not end up as PG and PC as your traditional travel show but I’m willing to bet it’s more entertaining.
4 (tie). Donnie Does Marriage Market
In DD Marriage Market, viewers learn about the strange phenomena of the marriage market by watching Donnie actually trying to find a wife there.
5. The Chongqing Videos
These are probably two of my lesser-known videos but they are special because filming them was definitely when I realized that there literally aren’t rules for foreigners in China. We decided to go to Chongqing once we found out it was home to a Dunkin Donuts knock off called “Boston Donuts and Coffee” and thought a funny premise for a video would be for Donnie to get a job there. After flying to Chongqing and finding the coffee shop, I just got behind the counter and started working there. None of the staff seemed to mind. Try doing this anywhere else and the cops are getting called without a doubt.
Then later in the weekend we came across an ENORMOUS bridge being constructed and thought “hey lets film a video where Donnie gets a job as the foreman on this construction site.” So we just walked up to the lift on the site and the operator took us to the very top of the bridge. After about 30 minutes someone came up and told us that we needed hard hats if we wanted to stay up there. In any other country in the world you would definitely be arrested for trespassing on a major construction site like that. In China we just got asked to put on a hard hat. Unbelievable… A lot of the people who watch my videos think I have special connections that have enabled me to do some of the things I have but that isn’t the case. China is just a very unique place.
Alessio Avezzano's Fave Five Donnie Does
1. Happy Valley
This was the episode that did it for me. Before I got involved, I had seen one other Donnie video before (Shanghai’s No.1 DJ) and just thought the guy was a dick and didn’t understand why he had someone filming him. But then after I saw Happy Valley I realised he was a comedy genius, and more importantly I realised he was in character.
Happy Valley has it all: great story telling advice (that we would later adopt more and more for future videos), a guy in full Donald Duck costume riding the subway, on the back of a motorbike and on a horse, smoking and drinking with custodial workers and hitting on women.
2. Getting On Chinese TV
This was the first Donnie Does episode that I actually shot. It involved myself and Zach flying to Beijing for two nights and started off with Zach sleeping in and missing his flight. From then on it just got more and more ridiculous. Sometimes we made up scenarios and mixed it with genuine moments, but everything that takes place in this episode really happened! We got taken to the wrong hotel. We had to hide in the car as the production crew smuggled us into a military base where the show was being filmed. We had to stay in a room until the show started in case soldiers found us. The other guest on the show ACTUALLY WAS A CHICKEN. And with the TV show not knowing Donnie was actually a character, things really did take a horrendous dive on stage and ended with us being escorted out and just dropped at a random cross road in Beijing. (Ok, it wasn’t far from the hotel, but still). The icing on the cake was when the episode premiered, we found out that all of Donnie’s scenes were cut out and replaced with the stunt chicken. #powerplay
3. Ikea
This was made slightly different from other episodes, and I really love the end result. Usually we have a few ideas and then make it up in the moment. But for this we wrote the episode based on news stories about how Ikea opened up to accept the way a lot of Chinese people make themselves at home in Ikea. Our escalation of course was to make Donnie actually live in Ikea and show the audience what a regular day is like. There are a few genuine moments, like when Donnie is looking for chicken bones to make a broth — there was actually another old guy doing exactly that. The “scam” with the free coffee… the entire cafeteria was filled with old folks doing the exact same thing!
For the shower scene, again, China is amazing… He got in the shower display and started to wash his hair. The security guard walked by and must of decided it was too weird to deal with and just walked away. Oh, and the camera messed up the first time and we had to shoot that scene a second time.
4. Shark Knight
I’m not really into sports, but this series is still hilarious to me. Zach said it best, how real people became support characters (poor Stephon Marbury), the way the organizers reacted which escalated the story into more ridiculous territories.
5. Rural China
My brother shot this one on a GoPro with little experience and the production value is still great because of the location and characters in it. The stories behind filming it are great but make me glad I wasn’t there. Like how it was fun for the first couple of days, but having baiju for breakfast, lunch and dinner, washing yourself with a basin and wash-cloth in freezing cold winter, and sharing a bed with Zach (see: Sleeping with Donnie) really started to lose its appeal fast.
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