Brad Neely When I found out that Brad Neely grew up in Fort Smith, I kind of freaked out. He’s not a public-facing celebrity by any means, but among my group of friends he’s something of a god. The reason we’re so smitten with Neely is “Wizard People, Dear Reader,” his wickedly funny voiceover dub of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” It’s like the audio commentary you might find on the special features of a DVD, except instead of hearing from a director, you get hyper verbose narration from a breathlessly unhinged nerd spewing a never-ending supply of crass, absurd and frequently poetic observations about what he sees on screen. Vice magazine speculated, only half-ironically, that it “may be the greatest postmodern text of the 21st century.” Advertisement In the roughly 20 years since recording “Wizard People, Dear Reader,” Neely, 47, has gone on to have a quietly impressive career of writing, producing, voice acting and cartooning for adult-oriented animated TV shows on Comedy Central, Adult Swim and Paramount+. Lucky for me, though, he’s still quite fond of the Harry Potter project. “I don’t want to toot my own horn, but, yeah, I love that thing. I love everything about it,” he told me recently from Burbank, California, where he now lives. Even luckier for me, his new book is written in the voice of the same freakishly confident narrator. SLANTED STORYTELLING: “You, Me, and Ulysses S. Grant,” the new book from Fort Smith native Brad Neely, imbues the sacred topic of American history with horny, scatalogical and glaringly anachronistic details. Advertisement “You, Me, and Ulysses S. Grant: A Farcical Biography” — out today — is, you guessed it, a slanted telling of Grant’s life story, starting at his birth in 1822 and ending 43 years later, after he led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy. As with “Wizard People, Dear Reader,” Neely’s approach is one of decadent irresponsibility, imbuing the sacred topic of American history with horny, scatalogical and glaringly anachronistic details and conjectures, all dictated by the whims of the narrator rather than an […]
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