- Born
- Nicknames
- The Big Red Dude
- Head Geek
- Height5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
- Harry Jay Knowles was born on December 11, 1971 in Austin, Texas, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for The Faculty (1998), No Pain, No Gain (2004) and The Next Kill (2018). He has been married to Patricia Cho Jones since July 15, 2007.
- SpousePatricia Cho Jones(July 15, 2007 - present)
- Harry started his film education by populating the 24 hour 16mm film rooms at shows around the country that his mom and dad sold vintage posters and comics at. By age 3 he had his own table selling movie and superhero gum cards alongside his parents, soaking up untold hours of fan's conversations along the way. By 5 he had added stacks of 8x10 stills to his stock and had begun visiting with show guests like the Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid, Buck Rogers, Fu Man Chu, Billy Batson, Capt. Midnight, Red Ryder, the original Superman, most of the Tarzans, and comic artists like Jack Kirby, Al Williamson, Jim Steranko, and Will Eisner as well as other celebs like 4E Ackerman, Ray Bradbury, Ray Harryhausen and Harlan Ellison. By the beginning of middle school Harry was selling the vintage posters, comics, autographs, and animation cels alongside his dad and had turned his cards and stills business over to his younger sister Dannie. He continued the collectibles business while taking college film and creative writing classes until AICN begin to make money in 1997.
- His grandfather, Jay W. Knowles, sang in the early to mid 1940s with the "Big" bands of Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, and Jimmy Dorsey on various USO and "War Bond" tours and at appearances on many military bases.
- Originally Jorge Garcia was attached to play Harry Knowles in 2007's upcoming "Fan Boys", but several scheduling conflicts with _"Lost" (2005)_ caused him to turn down the role. Then, Kevin Smith stepped in and was very enthusiastic about playing Harry, but some last-minute editing for Clerks 2(2006) forced him to step down. Fathergeek is played in the flick, as are Harry's sister and nephew although the latter 2 are combined into a single non-existant(in reality)niece role. Harry's 1953 Chevy "Geek-mobile" also has a stand-in for the film.
- Harry Jay Knowles was trying to come up with a name for his newly formed movie news web site and had seen Broken Arrow earlier that day. He had been repeating a line of Travolta's all day. Jokingly his father J. Jay Knowles said "Why not call it Aint It Cool News?" They looked at each other for a split second then Harry exclaimed, "That's it! We'll call it 'Aint It Cool'"and an Internet institution was born in Feb. 1996. That's a true story... Aint it Cool?
- Weighs approximately 320 lbs (2003)
- The perception that most people get is 'My God, Harry is so in the ass of Hollywood'. The fact is I haven't gone to one premiere or one party this year. I don't like junkets. I did one for The Mummy, which was the first trip I'd ever got across the ocean. I'd never even been to Europe. God, I was such a hick when I did that. I stayed at Claridge's and it was the first time I ever saw a bidet. I stared at it for hours.
- I am the least likely celebrity in the world. This is what I'm famous for. I dress in sandals and Hawaiian shirts - the gaudier the better. I'm roughly the size of a small European import. I have hair like an Irish Setter. I look more like a cartoon than even cartoons of me do. I know this about myself. Buuut completely by accident - and kismet, and synchronicity, and an insane amount of soul- numbing labor - I came to be at the perfect center of a universe of my own creation...
- I've been compared to Horatio Alger and Jefferson Smith; to Howard Stern and fan's fan Forrest J. Ackerman. I'm honored. Sometimes I think of myself as a kinder, gentler Walter Winchell... or maybe the opposite of Jack Valenti - the Anti-Valenti: a lobbyist for the motion picture industry... Most of the time, I feel like the android in The Questor Tapes who controls the weather from his underground bunker... I was bedridden... laid up without hope, growing fatter... and like the 12 year-old asthmatic Scorsese, or the wunderkind Coppola stricken with polio, I sopped up every fragment of idealized history from the movies, and poured all of the emotion inside me back into the lifeline that movies had become for me, annnnnnd into the shrine I created for them - Ain't It Cool News.
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