Jim Allen (b. 1928 or 1929) was the host of various children's television shows from 1957-1972. The Portland, Oregon KPTV and KATU host is well-known for his "Rusty Nails" (originally known as Rusty the Clown) alter ego, and at last report, still makes local appearances.
The Simpsons creator Matt Groening has stated in Simpsons DVD commentaries that his Krusty the Klown character is largely inspired by Rusty Nails, whom Groening watched while growing up in Portland.
Rusty Nails is an American director, writer, editor, and actor. He is best known for his feature film Acne, a black-and-white horror film about a pair of teenagers who wake up to find themselves mutated into horribly strange creatures. Rusty has also made several short films, including God is Dad, The Ramones and I, Grethel and Hansel, Animated Corpse, and Santiago vs. Wigface, which won a special recognition award. When he is not making movies, Rusty runs the Movieside Film Festival in Chicago. Rusty is currently working on a documentary about George Romero entitled Dead On: The Life And Cinema of George A. Romero.
Rusty Nails, was born in Tampa, Florida. He went to high school in Cambridge (at Cambridge Rindge and Latin in Massachusetts and graduated in 1997. He went to Boston University on a basketball scholarship. He moved to Iowa City, then Madison, Wisconson. He continued to play basketball until he fell in love with filmmaking and studied film at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He moved to Chicago while still working on Acne. In 2005, his feature film ACNE debut on Go Kart Films. He is currently working on a script, which is a for a romantic comedy called For The Hate of The Game which is a tribute to his Basketball past.
