Fred and Ted's Big Adventure

By Christopher A. Szechenyi, Boston.com staff, 3/24/00

Ted Page edits one of "Fred and Ted's" short films at the duo's loft on Newbury Street. (Boston.com photo)

They're the Click and Clack of the Internet.

Ted and Fred are two funny filmmakers who've decided to bypass Hollywood and show their short comedies on the Web.

Based in a loft above Newbury Street, the two suburban guys have posted their latest film about a man who suffers from "ambulatory mortosis" on their Website, www.FredandTed.com.

Shot on 16mm film, "There Once Was a Man from Pawtucket" is about a woman, Sherry Wingtight, who's so preoccupied with clipping coupons, she doesn't notice her husband, Al, is dead.

Sherry manages to carry Al around the country -- from Dollywood to Elvis getaways -- to capitalize on his condition, with an insurance detective hot on her trail.

In other words, the film's about a dead man walking and the trouble he gets into. Veteran actor Robert William Jordan of Holbrook plays Al.

"I've played a bartender, a drunk and a bum," said Jordan, who will also appear in the movie adaptation of "The Perfect Storm."

"This was nothing new. I've been in the business since I worked on the 'Brinks Job'," Jordan added. "The one good thing was that there were no lines in the 'Man from Pawtucket.' "

The even stranger thing about the film is that it seems to have spawned a fan club of people who actually believe that "ambulatory mortosis" exists, and have donated to the cause of curing it.

Of course, that's because Ted Page of Lexington and Fred Surr of Needham have included a public service message at the end of their film about the disease and developed a dryly humorous Web site devoted to it, which can be found at www.mortosis.com.

In case you can't watch the film on your computer, Ted and Fred plan to show the 15-minute flick on April 28 at what they call the "Extremely Short Lexington Film Festival."

"A Man From Pawtucket" will be the only film shown, but the cast and crew will be there to talk about it. With proceeds from the show, Fred and Ted hope to make the film into a full-length feature.

They have been unabashedly promoting their work.

"We went up to New Hampshire on the day of the primary and got on the radio as the filmmaker and the president of the Ambulatory Mortosis Foundation," Fred recalled.

"We endorsed Al Gore and told the audience he's the only person with ambulatory mortosis in remission," Ted added.

Their next nominee will be Charlton Heston.

Ted, 40, and Fred, 39, tend to portray the comical side of middle age and suburban life (if there is one) in their films.

One script in the works, the Big V, is about two married guys, Tim and Mike, who are so sick of children, though they love their own, that they make a pact to have vasectomies on the same day.

"They deal with baby-loving wives. Demanding clients. Murderous soccer games. And a senile father who will stop at nothing to prevent Tim's operation and force him to carry on the family name," a synopsis on the script says.

The two filmmakers sheepishly admit it's biographical -- including the fact that Ted has a phone number one digit away from an old suicide hot line, and can't stop the calls from coming in.

The real life Ted has so far resisted giving advice to desperate callers. But he vows to refer the next caller to his Web site.