Larry Bundy Jr (born: May 9, 1979), also known as Guru Larry, is an English TV presenter,[1] comedian, artist and video contributor for That Guy With The Glasses[2][3] and YouTube (as "Larry" and "GuruLarry"). Larry is the only off-site creator to remain after the Channel Awesome controversy began, which has earned him the title of King Larry.
Personal life[]
Guru Larry was born on May 9, 1979, and currently lives in Northwood, London, UK. His real name is "Larry Bundy", with him adding the "Jr" part himself, purposely spelling it in American English (Larry has been quoted as saying the main reason he added the Jr moniker was originally to avoid confusing postal mail with his father).
On July 4, 2009, Larry decided to undergo a major lifestyle change, citing his weight as the main reason. By March 2010, he had lost 10 stone (140 pounds, 63 kilograms), and after a year on his Lipotrim diet, Larry announced via his YouTube channel that he had lost 15st (210 lbs, 95 kg)[4].
About[]
He has been featured and presented on several British television channels including Game Network, Rapture TV and XLEAGUE.TV and was credited on Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe. His shows on ScrewAttack and That Guy With the Glasses include, Games Yanks Can't Wank, Hack-job, Pop-Up Review, Wez and Larry's Top Tens and (most famously) Guru Larry's Retro Corner. He was also the voice of GAME stores retailer, Gameplay.co.uk in their series of pre-order incentive videos online.[5] He is also known for his regular videos with YouTube personality Stuart Ashen.
In 2016, Larry received a lordship, under the title of "Lord Bundy of Bloxwich".
History[]
Guru Larry's early career began working as a manga/anime artist, working for companies like Bungie and Rockstar Games on Oni, Datel for the Game Boy Advance version of their Action Replay and also for magazine covers such as EDGE amongst other projects. He also did most of the art for an obscure PC game called "Akimbo: Kung Fu Hero" which, according to Larry, no one has ever heard of. He has also been working for several years on a British comedy manga comic series called "Natural Born Kittens" (a sitcom about four teenage demon cat-goddesses living in a London suburban council house) with Alastair Swinnerton, the co-creator of LEGO Bionicle and was to be animated by Madhouse animation.[6][7]
YouTube Channel[]
Larry originally joined YouTube in 2006 with his "Guru Larry" account, before moving over to "ScrewAttack Europe". Currently, Larry provides reviews and retrospectives of various video games on his YouTube channel, as well as his series, Movie Mistakes, where he looks at the top ten on-screen errors of popular/classic movies. One of his most popular series to date is his "Fact Hunt" series, which are known for providing little-known facts about video games, such as offensive cheat codes/passwords, games that were intentionally bad, games that were released on the same console twice, etc.
He recently voiced the Pac-Man episode of Did You Know Gaming?[8] as well as regularly appearing in cross-over videos with YouTube personality Stuart Ashen where they often play children's board games from the 1980s or discuss video games. He is also currently planning on becoming an animator[9].
Larry has also appeared on a number of Polaris' shows, such as the Co-Optional Podcast and voicing a number of LORE episodes.
Television[]
Larry's first major television appearance was on the British Television gaming show Head to Head, presented by Violet Berlin in which he was a contestant on.[10] Larry's first appearance on that show had Larry playing on a Sega Megadrive playing a game called Super Kick-Off. He sadly lost thanks to the host telling him the wrong buttons to save penalties. However he came back onto the show and played a racing game called Rock and Roll Racing. He won this comeback and was awarded a mountain bike as the prize. Larry later returned for their "champion of champions" special (consisting of all nine mountain bike winners) and was runner up in the grand final.
Years later he appeared on the final season of Games World at the age of eighteen.[11] Larry eliminated all other contestants throughout the week of episodes, but was just pipped for returning for the grand final of the series.
But Larry's first full presenting job was on the satellite TV channel, Game Network. While there, he worked on a series called Game Guru, which was broadcasted by Game Network from 2001 until the channel's demise in February 2006. It was also there where he met Wesley Lock, who has been with him in various projects ever since.
After Game Network closed, Larry went to work for Rapture TV, where he wrote the retro gaming segments of their video gaming show G@mers. He would also appear as a special guest on several of their episodes.[12]
Xleague.TV[]
A year after Game Network closed, Larry returned to television to present several shows on the newly created eSports video game channel, XLEAGUE.TV where he presented shows such as Reviewmageddon.[13] This show involved him and his other friend Wesley Lock, reviewing new video games that had just been released on a scale of 1 to 5. The show ended after the second series, due to the demise of Xleague.TV even though the show repeated daily for over a year afterwards.
Though his most famous series on XLEAGUE.TV included was Guru Larry's Retro Corner (which now currently airs on Showcase TV and Information TV) and Wez and Larry's Top Tens which were also cancelled due to the demise of XLEAGUE.TV (though they were later resurrected for That Guy With The Glasses).
After Xleague.TV[]
After the ending of XLEAGUE.TV Larry has gone onto making pre-order videos for a game sales website called gameplay.co.uk in which he has covered many games such as Just Cause 2, Halo 3: ODST and God of War III to name a few. Also he has created the box cover artwork for Sivak games' original NES game Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril, he also designed the cover art to Stuart Ashen's DVD, Ashenthology 1.
Larry is also credited for working on Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe[14] as well as a number of Brooker's other video game TV programmes.
In 2012, Larry played the role of "Gorath" in the comedy-horror movie NerdQuest and in 2013, Larry portrayed a twisted Hannibal Lecter-like version of himself in the movie, Ashens and the Quest for the Gamechild.
Collaborations[]
- RubberNinja - Ross O'Donovan animated the intro to Larry's series Games Yanks Can't Wank (GYCW).[15]
Trivia[]
- He is a fan of Blackadder.
References[]
- ↑ IMDB page for Larry Bundy Jr.
- ↑ Larry Bundy's Channel Awesome website Section
- ↑ TGWTG Wiki article on Larry Bundy Jr
- ↑ Larry's Weight Loss announcement video
- ↑ Gameplay.co.uk Bionic Commando Feature - Written and Created by Larry Bundy Jr (video top right)
- ↑ AnimeNewsNetwork.com - Madhouse to Animate Natural Born Kittens
- ↑ Animation Magazine - Corsham, Madhouse to Deliver Natural Born Kittens
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj06pIkQtp0 Guru Larry voices Pac-Man episode of Did you Know Gaming?
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZIqNrfgZSM Larry's announcement on delving into animation
- ↑ YouTube video of Larry's appearance on Head to Head.
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVg__IZl9PA&list=PLD972FF55927B7A6A Larry's appearance on Games World
- ↑ Larry's guest appearance on G@mers
- ↑ http://www.gamespress.com/release.asp?c=84b504--36322
- ↑ Gameswipe IMDB page
- ↑ Don't Buy This: Five of the Worst Games Ever (ZX Spectrum)| Games Yanks Can't Wank| Larry Bundy Jr - YouTube
