Steven R. Kutcher

Steven R. Kutcher (born January 9, 1944) is an American entomologist who has worked for decades as a "wrangler" of insects and other arthropods in some of the highest-grossing productions and with some of the most famous people in the entertainment industry. In doing so, he has himself gained media attention worldwide as "The Bug Man of Hollywood." In recent years, Kutcher has attracted additional notice by using insects as "living brushes" to create "Bug Art," while continuing his work as a naturalist and an educator.

Video Steven R. Kutcher

Background, education, and training

Born in Manhattan, New York, Steven R. Kutcher as a young child collected fireflies in the Catskill Mountains. Later growing up in a suburb of Los Angeles, California, Kutcher collected insects around his home, in fields, and in the Santa Monica Mountains. At age 19, Kutcher traveled 3000 miles around Mexico, exploring desert to tropical ecosystems.

Kutcher received a bachelors degree in entomology from the University of California, Davis, in 1968; and a Master of Science degree in biology from the California State University, Long Beach, in 1975. His formal studies focused on insect behavior â€" in particular the aggregating behavior of the milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus â€" as he observed in the field, in laboratory experiments, and in time-lapse cinematography.

In 1970, Kutcher began his work in the entertainment industry as "Larry J. Felix" in The Stein and Illes Radio Show, a comedic "underground" radio show on KUSC, in Southern California; James R. Stein and Robert Illes would both become Emmy Awardâ€"winning TV writers and producers. Kutcher received comedic training from Bill Cosby and once had Robin Williams as an audience.

Maps Steven R. Kutcher

"The Bug Man of Hollywood"

Since 1977, Kutcher has manipulated the instinctive behaviors of arthropods, and the instinctive reactions of audiences, mostly in the horror, thriller, fantasy, and comedy genres. He has worked on over 100 feature films with a "bug" in the story line, including Spider-Man (2002), Jurassic Park, and Arachnophobia. Kutcher has also worked on numerous popular television showsâ€"including CSI: NY, MacGyver, and The X-Files â€" as well as TV commercials and online advertising for Fortune 500 corporations. (See Filmography and other credits, with featured "bugs," below).

In film, on TV and radio, and in music videos, Kutcher has notably worked with some of the most famous people in the entertainment industry, including Paula Abdul, Christina Aguilera, Steve Allen, Halle Berry, Carol Burnett, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Bill Cosby, Wes Craven, M.C. Hammer, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, James Earl Jones, David Lynch, Carl Reiner, Steven Spielberg, Denzel Washington, Sigourney Weaver, Robin Williams, and Stevie Wonder.

As "The Bug Man of Hollywood," Kutcher has himself been the subject of numerous interviews. He has appeared, with "bugs," on late-night TV talk shows, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman. In 1992, Kutcher appeared as a guest on the Emmy-nominated "Spider Episode" of the TV talk show parody The Larry Sanders Show, starring Garry Shandling. In 1998, Kutcher appeared on the British TV children's show The Scoop, which won a BAFTA award. Kutcher has also been interviewed or featured in numerous publications in print and online, including Entertainment Weekly, Guinness Book of Records, Los Angeles Times, National Enquirer, National Geographic World, Nature, Newsweek, New York Times, Popular Science, Ripley's Believe It or Not, Time, The Wall Street Journal, Weekly Reader, and Wired as well as periodicals in Australia, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. (See Further reading, below.)

Manipulating insect behavior

Applying his academic and professional studies of arthropod behaviors, Kutcher manipulates instinctive responsesâ€"such as species-specific, positive or negative sensitivity to light, air pressure, or gravityâ€"to make "bugs" perform scripted "tricks" on cue, such as:

• A live wasp flies harmlessly into the mouth of actor Roddy McDowell.
• A cockroach runs across the floor and then, "hitting its mark", flips over on its back.
• A spider crawls across a room and then into a slipper.
• A cockroach crawls out of a shoe, walks up a bag of snack food and onto a surfing magazine, and then stops upon a picture of a surfboard.
• A praying mantis, a scorpion, and beetles power-up a cell phone as part of a "Bug Circus" in online ad (a la a traditional flea circus).
• Hundreds of bees or thousands of locusts swarm on camera as called for in the script.

"Bug Art"

In the 1980s, for a Steven Spielberg television project, Steven Kutcher made a fly walk through ink and leave footprints as directed. Since 2000, Steven Kutcher has been creating "Bug Art," using various arthropods as "living brushes" to apply gouache and other nontoxic paints on watercolor paper. "I use water-based, nontoxic paints that easily wash off", he says. "I have to take good care of them. After all, they are artists!" The abstract to surrealistic compositions are shaped by Kutcher's methods of manipulating insect movements, and are often influenced by the works of Impressionist and other master painters. Kutcher's bug art has been exhibited in art galleries, museums, universities, libraries, and online and offline publications worldwide.

Contributions as scientist, naturalist, and educator

Steven Kutcher has appeared in person to give talks and live-insect demonstrations at hundreds of film festivals, seminars and workshops, museums and libraries, and preschools through graduate schools. Kutcher has been instrumental in creating annual insect fairs, as at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and Los Angeles County Arboretum, which have been attended by more than 100,000 children and adults. Kutcher also served as a consultant in the development of the interactive "bug" exhibits at the Kidspace Children's Museum, in Pasadena, California.

Kutcher has taught outdoor education workshops for such environmental organizations as the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, and Tree People. With a milkweed butterfly garden of his own, Kutcher is on the board of the Monarch Program Kutcher has consulted on the biology and control of arthropods for major corporations and government agencies, such as the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District.

For over 30 years, Kutcher has taught entomology, zoology, and biology courses at several community colleges in the greater Los Angeles area.

Filmography and other credits (in part)

Theatrical films

In addition to serving as "bug wrangler" or entomology consultant for numerous student and independent films, Kutcher has worked on many feature films from major studios and production companies:

TV movies and series

Music videos

TV and online commercials

See also

• Animal training, citing "niche" filled by Steven Kutcher.
• Arthropods in film, citing work by Steven R. Kutcher.
• List of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson episodes (1990), Jay Leno (guest host), with Steve Kutcher as guest, Ep. No. 4201, August 7, 1990.
• Steatoda grossa, citing work by Steven Kutcher with that species of spider in Spider-Man.

References

External links

• Heltzel, Paul (4 March 2013). "Bugs Make Art: Photos". Discovery News. 
• "Steven R. Kutcher". IMDb. Retrieved 4 June 2014. 
• Mitchell, Sandra. "'Bug Man of Hollywood' Shares Tips [on] How to Train Bugs for The Big Screen". KCBS-TV. Retrieved 5 June 2014. 
• Trivedi, Bijal (2 May 2002), The Spider Man Behind Spider-man, National Geographic Society 
• NPR, Staff. "Hollywood Bug Man Understands How Cockroaches Think". NPR. Retrieved 8 March 2014. 
• Solomon, Michael (5 June 2013). "Wild at Art: Astonishing Paintings, Sculptures, and Photographs by Animal Artists". Time. 
• Thomas, Nick (19 August 2007), He Lets Creepy-Crawlies Get Their Feet Wet as Painters, The Washington Post 
• Marquardt, Bridget. "The Bug Wrangler". Yahoo Animal Nation Shine. 
• Kutcher, Steven. "E-Zip Bug Collector". YouTube. 

Further reading

Periodicals

• Wired Magazine. May 2012. p. 113. 
• Le Republica (Italy). July 2009. 
• Velvet Magazine (Italy). July 2009. 
• Muy Interesante. November 2008. pp. 112â€"115. 
• Pasadena Star News (Earth Day Supplement). 22 April 2008. 
• Washington Post. 19 August 2007. p. N01. 
• Nature. 29 November 2007. p. 613. 
• The Mail on Sunday (London). October 2007. 
• ÇA M'Interesse (France). June 2007. p. 106. 
• K Club (Germany). August 2004. p. 36. 
• The Santa Fe New Mexican ("Steven Hutcher" [sic]). 6 December 2002. p. B-1. 
• Current Science. 25 October 2002. p. Front Page. 
• The Beach Review (California State University, Long Beach). Fall 2002. p. 29. 
• Los Angeles Business Journal. 30 September 2002. p. 23. 
• Cineflex. July 2002. pp. 29â€"31. 
• National Enquirer. 11 June 2002. p. 39. 
• West Australian. 6 June 2002. 
• Popular Science. June 2002. p. 76. 
• New York Times. May 2002. 
• Sydney Herald. May 2002. 
• Chicago Sun Times. May 2002. 
• Sunday Mirror. May 2002. 
• Press Telegram (Long Beach, California). 11 May 2002. p. Front Page. 
• Teen Newsweek. 6 May 2002. pp. 5â€"6. 
• National Geographic World. May 2002. pp. 26â€"27. 
• Neüe Zurcher Zeitung, NZZ Folio. July 2001. pp. 50â€"53. 
• Wall Street Journal. 29 March 2001. p. Front Page. 
• Newsweek. 8 January 2001. p. 9. 
• Boy's Life. 12 October 1998. 
• San Jose Mercury News (Silicon Valley Life). 11 October 1998. p. 1. 
• San Francisco Chronicle. 5 May 1998. 
• Los Angeles Times Magazine. 4 April 1998. 
• Los Angeles Business Journal. 4 April 1998. 
• Los Angeles Times (San Fernando Valley Weekend). 28 August 1997. p. 7. 
• Boston Herald (Life Styles). 30 May 1997. 
• National Enquirer. 31 December 1996. p. 39. 
• Los Angeles Times (San Gabriel Valley Weekly). September 1996. 
• Various Newspapers (via Associated Press). June 1996. 
• U.C., Davis Magazine. Spring 1996. pp. 24â€"25. 
• Telegraph (Sydney, Australia). 7 May 1995. p. 43. 
• Los Angeles Magazine. August 1995. pp. 60â€"67. 
• Scholastic Math Power. February 1993. pp. 8â€"9. 
• Boy's Life. April 1992. 
• Disney Adventures Magazine. February 1992. pp. 40â€"43. 
• Press Telegram (Long Beach, California). 23 October 1991. p. D-1. 
• Los Angeles Times (L.A. Times Magazine). 29 September 1991. p. 8. 
• Science World (Cover Article). 8 March 1991. pp. 4â€"7. 
• Los Angeles Times. 23 March 1991. p. B-3. 
• Woman's Day. 30 October 1990. p. 152. 
• Variety. 8 October 1990. p. N-1. 
• Pest Control Technology. September 1990. pp. 36â€"37. 
• Expressen Fredag. 28 September 1990. p. 6. 
• Weekly Reader. 14 September 1990. p. 7. 
• L.A. Weekly. 31 August 1990. p. 41. 
• Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderddale, Florida). 7 August 1990. p. 1-E. 
• New Hampshire Sunday News. 5 August 1990. p. 5-E. 
• The Yuma Daily Sun. 29 July 1990. p. 25. 
• Entertainment Weekly. 27 July 1990. p. 37. 
• The Philadelphia Inquirer. 22 July 1990. p. H-1. 
• Los Angeles Times (Calendar). 18 July 1990. p. F-6. 
• Wall Street Journal. 12 December 1989. p. Front Page. 
• Sky (Delta Air Lines). September 1989. p. 20. 
• Premiere. June 1989. p. 46. 
• Katso (Finland). May 1989. 
• Los Angeles Business Journal. 7 November 1988. p. 19. 
• Los Angeles Times. 14 February 1988. 
• Piccolo (Sweden). 1988 or 1989. 
• 3-2-1 Contact. November 1986. pp. 10â€"13. 
• Los Angeles Magazine. May 1986. p. 21. 
• Herald Examiner (California Living). 13 April 1986. p. 15. 
• Los Angeles Times. 22 December 1985. p. 4:27. 
• Huntington Beach Independent (Orange County News). 22 February 1979. p. 23. 
• Los Angeles Times. 9 April 1978. p. 7. 
• El Vaquero (Glendale Community College). 5 November 1976. p. 4. 

Journals and books

• Baron, Angela (2010). Squirrely Over Nuts (caterpillar footprints). 
• Berenbaum, May (1995). Bugs in the System. 
• Bhagwat, Abha (2012). Who We Are 'Olkha Aamhi Kon?' (ant footprints). 
• Dale, N. (1986). Flowering Plants: The Santa Monica Mountains Coastal and Chaparral Regions of Southern California. 
• Gerani, Garry (1995). Death Ship (cover, by Cliff Nielsen). 
• Gordon, D. (1996). The Complete Cockroach. 
• Gordon, D. (1998). The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook. 
• Guinness Book of Records. 2009. 
• Hogue, Charles (1987). Cultural Entomology. Annual Review of Entomology. 
• Hogue, Charles (1993). Insects of the Los Angeles Basin. 
• Jackson, Donna (2002). The Bug Scientists. Houghton Mifflin and Company. pp. 87â€"90. 
• Mertins, James (1986). "Arthropods on the Screen". Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America (Summer): 85â€"90. 
• Pallenberg, Barbara (1977). The Making of The Exorcist II: The Heretic. 
• Rothstein, Barry; Rothstein, Betsy (2011). Eye-Popping 3-D Bugs. 
• Ripley's Believe It or Not. Prepared to be Shocked!. 2008. p. 21. 
• Starcher, A. (1995). Good Bugs for Your Garden. 
• Tekulsy, M. (1985). The Butterfly Garden. 
• Time for Kids. Big Book of How. 2011. p. 19. 
• Cotta Vaz, Mark (2002). Behind the Mask of Spider-Man. Del Rey, Ballantine Publishing Group. pp. 48â€"50.