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Show Computer age is source of humor for cartoon creation of Park City man name?" Hansen replies, "Actually it was a name my son came up with for an imaginary playmate he had when he was about three years old. It just seemed to fit." Artist Haven had just ten days to create Gurmal. That was back in August when they produced the prototype calendar in a 200-copy run. The calendar may very well become a collector's item. (It is on sale locally at the Paper Case.) Because Gurmal Gur-mal has already undergone one evolution. That first Gurmal will now be Grandpa Gurmal. The new Gurmal is now a younger, microchip off the old block. He is preppy, preoccupied in programming pro-gramming his home computer, com-puter, and rather Doones-buryish Doones-buryish in appearance. By Christmas, the entire Gurmal Family will be seen in a calendar and a 60-page book, on sale through Wal- denbook, by mail order in computer magazines and at local Park City businesses. Even the humor of this little character has evolved. The cartooning at first centered on humor which other computer owners would find funny, but large parts were lost to the general audience. Now, Gurmal Gur-mal does things with his computer and his family that even non-owners can see the humor in. In fact, Gurmal has become be-come so appealing that Hansen has been approached ap-proached by a major syndication syndi-cation broker who is in-- in-- terested in marketing Gurmal Gur-mal nationwide. And, there is even talk, down the road, of an animated special of Gurmal and family. Perhaps the ultimate extension of all this would be a situation comedy show starring John Hansen as Gurmal. It's not as far-fetched as it sounds. John Hansen starred in the early seventies with Phil Silvers on Broadway in the Tony award winning production of "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum." He played the romantic lead of Hero. His film and acting credits are numerous from Movie of the Week features, Hawaii Five-0 series and years of work with Sunn Classics. His most recent credit is a Ford commercial to be released celebrating Ford's 80th anniversary. an-niversary. So, years from now, when our children ask to go to Gurmal Land wearing their Gurmal T-shirts and carrying carry-ing their Gurmal lunch boxes and keeping time with their Gurmal watches we can say, "I remember when Gurmal was just a piece of software in a hackers eye in Park City." Or something like that. Gurmal (rpntpr) with his familv. by Teri Gomes Gurmal may soon become a household word. "What's that?" you say. "What's a Gurmal?" A Gurmal is not a what, it is a who. It is a cartoon character who is a home computer fanatic and the brainchild of two men, John Hansen and his brother-in-law Dan Pelton. The germ for Gurmal came from John Hansen and his brother using their home computers to communicate com-municate between one another an-other in Park City and Los Angeles. "We would turn on each other's computer, leave a message and then, more often than not, we'd leave a joke, as well," said Hansen. "When we would mention to our computerless friends how we communicated and the time we spent with our computers,, we realized they had these images of a group of humorless guys. We wanted to dispel the myth that all hackers are serious guys who spend their time locked in some closet with their computer." - The brothers (in law) noticed that there was virtually vir-tually nothing in the humor department related to computers. com-puters. So, Computer Humor was born, first simply to produce a calendar with a home computer fanatic who would appear in cartoon form. Hansen and Pelton approached ap-proached longtime associate, asso-ciate, Haven Carson of Park City's Rendering House, to bring their idea to life. In answer to the most-asked most-asked question, "Where did you come up with the . i t'-m 3 I |