Page 44 - AVN March 2016

by DANMILLER
Skin City
Mr. Skin entertains in Internext keynote address
“who was naked, the body parts and
McBride decided to do it, but he
how far into the movie.”
didn’t want to use his real name because
“Maybe the Smithsonian would want
he didn’t want his parents finding out
those some day,” he joked.
about his perverted passion. Teinowitz
“You’ve heard of the term Rhodes
first suggested he call himself “Mr.
Scholar. They used to call me a Loads
Naked” but that was “too creepy,”
Scholar.”
McBride said.
He said iconic 1980s TV characters
“The second name he said was Mr.
such as Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter),
Skin.”
Daisy Duke (Catherine Bach on The
He took a cab on his lunch break to do
Dukes of Hazzard) and Marcia Brady
Teinowitz’s radio show, nailed it and got
(Maureen McCormick on The Brady
invited back. But McBride didn’t think it
Bunch)—“The Holy Grail”—were among
was going much further, and that he was
the women he was excited to find
just enjoying his “15 minutes of fame.”
partially nude in various B-movies.
After becoming a regular for
McBride called the period between
Teinowitz, McBride moved onto guest
1980-85 the “Golden Age of teen sex
appearances on some bigger radio shows
comedies” as it produced cult classics
and soon became a local celebrity in
such as Porky’s, a movie that featured
Chicago.
what he considers “the greatest shower
“But I had nothing to promote. I had
scene in the history of cinema.”
nothing to sell,” he said.
With no pretension and the tone
Then in the summer of 1998, after
of a guy swapping stories at the local
being approached at a celebrity softball
watering hole, he confessed to watching
game he was umpiring to start a Mr.
the 1983 sex comedy My Tutor “at least
Skin website, McBride raised $70,000
50 times” to see the gorgeous Caren
with two $35,000 loans and hired a web
Kaye in various states of nakedness. He
developer. MrSkin.com went live on
also declared “the greatest nude scene in
August 10, 1999, “at 4:45 p.m.”
the history of movies” involved Phoebe
“By 4:50 p.m I had my first signup for
Cates climbing out of the swimming
$4.95 for three days access. It was a guy
pool and shedding her bikini top in slow
from Cincinnati,” McBride recalled. But
motion during the 1982 film Fast Times at
the first six months were tough.
Ridgemont High.
Then everything changed on March
But McBride admitted his hobby
23, 2000, when McBride was asked
wasn’t helping him move out of his
to call in to The Howard Stern Show.
parents’ basement. He landed a day job
Combating his nerves, he came through
working as a runner and then a clerk at
in the clutch once again on Stern’s show,
the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
where he promoted his first annual
About six years after he started at the
Anatomy Awards. MrSkin.com got 1,000
Merc he was out on a Tuesday night with
joins that day, and since then he’s been
friends at Charlie’s Ale House in Lincoln
invited back on the Stern show about 30
Park and doing what he does best—
times.
talking celebrity nudity—when a local
With the site now already booming,
radio host named Harry Teinowitz asked
McBride said another huge moment
him if he’d be interested in coming on
came February 1, 2004, when Janet
his show.
Jackson had her notorious “wardrobe
“I’d never been on a radio show,”
malfunction” at halftime of Superbowl
McBride said. “I’d never even called into
XXXVIII in Houston, where her bare
a radio show.”
breast fell out of her bra on national TV.
FEATURE
In a heartfelt and funny keynote
address at Internext on Jan. 18, Jim
McBride shared his unexpected story
of how he turned his teenage hobby
into a digital media empire.
Known worldwide as Mr. Skin, the
Chicago native McBride suggested
“no one has had more fun going to
work than I have” as he took the
stage.
No argument here.
The undisputed king of celebrity
nudity entertained a full house at
the Vinyl Nightclub inside the Hard
Rock Hotel and Casino with a vivid
recollection of how he went from
being a horny teenager to a nationally
known guru of T&A.
Wearing a sharp black suit and
sipping from a cup of water in the
darkened room, the charismatic
McBride pointed to three defining
moments on his career path—or as
he likes to call them, “Skinfining”
moments—in which he “rose to the
occasion” and “stuck the landing.”
He recounted how he began
recording nude scenes from late-
night cable channels such as HBO,
Cinemax and Showtime on a Betamax
just for the thrill of it, and soon he
accumulated boxes of five-hour tapes.
But McBride didn’t just press
record during the early years. He
approached what he was doing with
surgical precision. With careful
attention to detail, he included hand-
written notes with each tape about
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McBride quickly added the clip to his
site and on February 2, 2004, the site
enjoyed its best signup day ever.
“We killed it that day. This was before
Youtube, TMZ and Facebook,” McBride
noted.
Perhaps the moment that cemented
him in pop culture came in the summer
of 2006, when he was approached by the
attorney for Paramount Pictures who
told him the director of The 40-Year-Old-
Virgin wanted to use his website in his
next movie, Knocked Up.
That product placement turned into a
full scene in Knocked Up, which did $250
million at the box office in summer of
2007 and has since been shown at least
5,000 times on various cable networks.
Mr. Skin is now entering its 17th year
and McBride said he is more excited
than ever about the future. He and his
staff of 40 at SK Intertainment launched
a complete redesign of the site last
month. It’s become a family business—
his sister has headed the HR department
for 13 years and even his mom works
out of her home in Arizona doing data
entry.
“You haven’t lived until your 77-year-
old mother asks you, ‘Is this bush or a
shadow?’” McBride said. “True story.”
McBride thanked his team, noting SK
Intertainment president Sam Rakowski
came up through ranks after starting in
the content department. And he proudly
revealed his company enjoyed its best
year ever in 2015.
“When you are No. 1 in your field
people are willing to pay for it,” McBride
said.
He said he’ll continue to build
MrSkin.com, acquire complementary
brands and chronicle every nude scene
in the history of film and TV.
“There are no bad nude scenes,”
McBride told the audience. “We
celebrate nudity in film.”
To see many more photos from the 2016
Internext Expo, go to AVN.com/galleries.