http://www.doverpost.com/article/20150413/BUSINESS/304139997?template=rwd&X-IgnoreUserAgent=1 How ‘Silicon Valley’ dealt with the death of one of its most popular actors By Jason Guerrasio Apr. 13, 2015
Warning: If you have not watched the season 2 premiere of "Silicon Valley," there are spoilers ahead. It was only a matter of time before "Silicon Valley" creator Mike Judge had to figure out how to address Christopher Evan Welch's character Peter Gregory. The eccentric venture capitalist character on the show quickly became a fan favorite last season thanks to his bizarre antics, like making an investment off the amount of sesame seeds on Burger King buns and the teeny tiny electric car he drives. But sadly, Welch passed away of lung cancer last December in the midst of filming season one. Gregory played a crucial role in the show’s plot as he was the lead investor of Pied Piper, the compression start-up the show’s main characters are getting off the ground. The final mention of Gregory on the show was during the season one finale. After Richard (Thomas Middleditch) and the rest of Pied Piper win TechCrunch Disrupt, an annual conference held in San Francisco by website TechCrunch, Richard is told Gregory watched their presentation via a live stream and was “not unpleased.” The big mystery was whether that would be the last viewers would hear from Gregory, or whether he would continue to be referenced remotely in season two. Judge admits he and the writers avoided the topic until they began writing the new season last summer. [© GateHouse Media] ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Evan_Welch Christopher Evan Welch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia At the time of his death, he was filming his scenes as Peter Gregory in the HBO series Silicon Valley, having completed five episodes. Cast members have said ... ... http://www.middletowntranscript.com/article/20150413/BUSINESS/304139997 How ‘Silicon Valley’ dealt with the death of one of its most popular actors By Jason Guerrasio Apr. 13, 2015 ... http://www.hollywood.com/tv/unknown-facts-about-silicon-valley-57382070 21 Facts You Don't Know About 'Silicon Valley' (v) 8. The car Peter Gregory gets into in the pilot is a Tango T600 Luxury Electric Car. ... The event in which Jared is kidnapped by a driverless car is hilarious ... [dated] http://www.businessinsider.com/tango-hybrid-narrow-car-in-silicon-valley-2014-5?utm_source=gatehouse&utm_medium=referral#ixzz32NoK8zLM%20 How HBO Chose The Perfect Ridiculous Car For ‘Silicon Valley’ Aly Weisman May 21, 2014 [images YouTube/CNN http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/537bb52decad04a37d55d75e-1055-527/silicon-valley-smart-car-1.png http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/537bb53becad04920255d75a-1058-529/smart-car-silicon-valley-1.png http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/537bc843eab8ea7e18e490fe-1200-600/eric-schmidt-tango-car-in-office-1.png video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs9FjfSv6Ss Schmidt April Fool Cars 1986 & 2008 Jorg Brown May 16, 2008 In 1986 Sun employees put a VW Bug in his office. 22 years later, his office was too small for a VW Bug, but we found the right car - a CommuterCars Tango - and pulled it off again. ] Production designers on HBO's "Silicon Valley" searched high and low for the most ridiculously nerdy car to feature in the show's pilot episode. At first, set designer Richard Toyon tells us, they tried to get an "air car" — a crazy-looking Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) that will only put you back around $10,000. Designed by French engineers, an air car uses a motor powered by compressed air, is driven by a joy stick, and only has three wheels. But alas, Toyon says, "at the last minute, we couldn’t get the air car, so we ended up getting the car we did use and it was still really funny anyway." The car was used in a scene in which the Peter Gregory character gets into his vehicle after being pitched by start-up founders following his Ted Talk. Production ended up putting the billionaire venture capitalist character into a rare T600 All Electric Tango car, intended as a commuter vehicle to increase freeway lane capacity. The small but mighty speedster can do 0-60 in 3.2 seconds all under electric power. Silicon Valley/HBO screencap "The very narrow design can split lanes and fit in narrower spaces than some motorcycles," according to one YouTube video about the car. "Seats are set up like an F-14 fighter jet in a tandem arrangement. This is one tiny Tesla competitor."Silicon Valley/HBO screencap “It was such a funny sight gag,” Toyon previously told Silicon Valley Business Journal. “We were so glad to get it. There were only two in the nation, and one owned by George Clooney. We were unable to wrestle the one from George Clooney. But we were able to get one from Seattle.” While Vulture called the car "the best sight gag in the episode," Toyon explains that "even with that car there was another gag that was intended: the valet was going to open the door and reveal that it was only one seat wide but we never did that — it was funny enough because when he got into the car it spoke a lot about him when you saw him on the edge." Toyon tells us "there were a few other gags and things that were requested" throughout the show's first season, "but generally speaking from a production design standpoint, you try not to be too gaggy because you want the comedy to come from the dialogue." But the Tango car is actually part of a very insider joke, dating back to a 1986 April Fool's prank in which employees at Sun Microsystems in Mountain View replaced boss Eric Schmidt's office furniture with a Volkswagen Beetle. In 2008, Google employees tried the prank again — this time putting a Tango car in the chairman's office.YouTube.com/screencap Schmidt explains the epic prank [in the video]. © 2015 Business Insider ... http://www.hybridcars.com/tango-t-600/ Tango T600 by Brad Berman August 29, 2007 ... http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=413529&query=Silicon+Valley+hbo&days=0 More "HBO’s Silicon Valley" posts on the evdl For EVLN posts use: http://evdl.org/evln/ {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVonTVs-What-will-happen-to-Gregory-s-EV-on-Silicon-Valley-tp4675017.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
