Meet Michael Rayner

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Rayner.

At eighteen between high school and college, I picked up three rubber balls from a junk store (The Whoopee Bowl) near Pontiac Michigan. I started to learn rudimentary juggling tricks. I then started practicing long hours on various novelty tricks until two years later at twenty I entered a local talent show in Ortonville, Michigan and won twenty-five dollars. I used that money to see the original cut of Blade Runner. Doing tricks and getting money. That started in 1984. My most lucrative trick is spinning a Burger King Cheeseburger on a parasol. That has been featured on TV several times.

Michael has appeared in both Hustler Magazine and Sesame Street. He’s a regular at the Center for Inquiry/Steve Allen Theater where he is beloved by atheists (Patton Oswalt profused a volley of profanity in favor of him), but has also been written about in Daniel Radosh’s Rapture Ready! He’s been a frequent guest on Nickelodeon TV and has appeared on, The Late Show with David Letterman, the Late Late show with James Corden, America’s Got Talent, Comedy Central’s Gong Show and with George Gray on the Game Show Network’s Extreme Gong Show.

Michael performs locally at Flappers Comedy Club, The Magic Castle, Hermosa Beach Comedy and Magic, Boobietrap, Teatro Martini, Tony Martini, and occasionally tours with Justin Willman. His show has been described as “preposterous brilliance” and “whacky jugglement,” a combination of hilarious tricks and stunts with uproarious stand-up and a bounty of improvised fun. He frequently pops up in TV commercials.

He was a weird scientist for IBM and a dork washing a cardboard car for Saturn. He played a hapless gas station attendant who tries to take a photo of Elvis in an Energizer battery commercial and had appeared with Ringo Star, Jane Seymour, Neil Patrick Harris and Anthony Quinn promoting other worthwhile products. Maybe his proudest achievement was having the pre-dead Frank Sinatra personally approve him to promote his compilation CD for a Capitol Records commercial.

Michael has done warm-up for many sitcoms including Lucky Louie, The Chocolate News, That ‘70s Show, Reba, Dharma and Greg, Stark Raving Mad, Then Came You, Two of a Kind, Two Guys, and a Girl and the specials Thou Shalt Laugh II and Home for the Holidays. When not performing, Michael writes. He has written for E! Entertainment, The Gameshow Network, Nickelodeon and The Spark Factory.

-Bonus info: I have balanced a wheelbarrow over Laurence Fishburne, Moby, Dick Van Dyke, Jason Sudakis, and Norma Lear’s heads at different shows.
-Bonus info two: I’ve balanced a fifteen hundred dollar tennis shoe on my nose.
-Bonus info three: My wheelbarrow has over 100,000 frequent flyer miles.

Has it been a smooth road?
Yes and no. If you’re always working even when not getting paid you’re paving the way for future rewards.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I specialize in weird and eclectic tricks that most people can’t do. And robots can’t do either. My most notable is spinning a cheeseburger on a parasol, but I also balance shoes on my nose, use circa 1980 tennis rackets for a juggling type tricks.

What sets me apart from others. I use the tricks as a skeleton format for my show and let how I’m feeling that day dictate other improvisational moments during that performance.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Not really, you need to come to LA with chops and skills. I started in the midwest, went to Tampa, Atlanta, Orlando and then LA.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.michaelrayner.com
• Phone: 818-383-0797
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenjuggler/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.rayner
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/brokenjuggler
• Other: www.libraryjuggler.com

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