We recently connected with April Walterscheid and have shared our conversation below.

April, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

For this interview, I mainly want to talk about how Hollywood TV shows and films have used (possibly) thousands of human beings likenesses without permission for decades. And how Artificial Intelligence is just a new version of that…

Both are unacceptable.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was born in Mesa, Arizona, in 1985. I was so obsessed with Wizard of Oz that I developed an imaginary friend named Judy as kid. In 20s, I played a couple of different musical instruments and sang. In my early 30s, I had some success in Phoenix writing and filming sketches, doing stand-up comedy, and puppetry. I got nominated for an award in the Phoenix film industry. I had plans to move to Los Angeles at 32. Then lost my day job at a huge corporation. After my mom saved me from taking my life at 33, I finally moved to Los Angeles in 2020 right when the pandemic started. I somehow thrived in stand-up comedy during and after the pandemic and got passed at the Hollywood Improv Comedy Club. I do an amazing Gilbert Gottfried impression for a woman. Today, I’m currently working out some jokes about three murderers I accidentally knew around 2013 and 2015. Don’t worry, they are in prison! But I figure it’s an interesting topic and it has affected my life so it needs to be talked about in front of a large audience more often.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I think society and Hollywood giving credit to unknown actors and comedians would help – especially with the current national SAG-Aftra and WGA strikes over Artificial Intelligence and how this unsettling digital entity is threatening to steal everyone’s likeness in real life. Personally, I’m obsessed with crediting everyone and not stealing from others as I innately feel that residual Catholic guilt whenever I even think about giving myself a little break and not crediting anyone. But that reasoning is not necessarily shared or respected by Hollywood studios and productions. It’s all business, there’s no heart in it when you just want to make money from using people’s likeness and exploiting their writing skills for ever-decreasing pay.

For example, the TV show Family Guy used my creepily accurate likeness from two specific photos from 2012 on my Facebook for the Apple Store character, Sonja, in the episode “Quagmire’s Quagmire.” The same TV show also used my “April Got Fired” YouTube channel from 2017 for their episode “Peter Got Fired” episode. I understand artistic inspiration is found in random places on social media, but it’s important to give credit even if the person is unknown at the time. These two particular examples could be parallel thinking yet they are oddly way too specific and detailed to be parallel thinking.

Greg Colton of Family Guy was nice enough to reach out to me via Facebook. He mentioned Family Guy gives credit (and pays) for “viral hits” that they copy and put in the show. I didn’t respond to Greg, but I found the information he shared interesting as he was talking about “viral hits” instead of using someone’s likeness. It appears that stealing the likeness of someone who isn’t viral yet is completely okay. However, it is not actually legal to steal anyone’s likeness (viral or not) without asking or giving that person credit.

Furthermore, Saturday Night Live did a similar sketch to one of mine called “Cancelling Cable” in 2021. I have a “Hipster I Love Lucy” sketch on my YouTube channel from 2017. My sketch has an eerily similar bit during the call center scene that Saturday Night Live based 90% of their sketch on. I know this show has stolen from other viral creators on YouTube as well and did not give them credit. That sucks for them and all of us creatives, actors, and writers.

All of the above is eerily like an early version of A.I. and what studios want to do to actors now and in the future on purpose, which is outright steal everyone’s image and use it in perpetuity without pay and I assume without giving credit. Studios also want to have A.I. write scripts and I assume some A.I. scripts will be similar to what has already been written by the amazing human writers that currently exist.

All of this is clearly sickening. It took me 10 years to speak up about the Family Guy situation as I was afraid to speak up. I thought maybe one day I could be on the TV show doing a voiceover. I didn’t want to screw up that potential voiceover job. So I brushed off Family Guy using my likeness. I should have never, ever done that and I completely regret not speaking up sooner.

I think the lesson here is the following, and if you already have a lack of trust in society, well you have an even more uncomfortable beast to confront today:

A.I. is growing stronger everyday, and Hollywood Studios want to replace real, feeling, compassionate humans with it. So it’s important to trademark yourself. Trademark your face, and entire body. Trademark your comedy sketches, films, anything that you write and produce. Even book authors are getting copied by A.I. on Amazon and because the authors are not trademarked, they cannot fight it or even get the fake books taken down.

A.I. is a huge mess with many potential loopholes, and protecting your likeness is important if you care about that sort of thing. Give yourself a fighting chance at winning a legal battle against A.I. by trademarking you and your creativity. Don’t count on someone else or a studio to protect you. Be your own advocate.

Adam Conover made a great point on Pod Save America on August 8th, 2023, in which he said, and I’m paraphrasing here: A.I. is not the problem; it’s the companies and executives using A.I. to hurt people that is the problem.

Being kind to each other and giving everyone credit is going to go a long way in battling the ice cold, unfeeling A.I. and the studios working to proliferate A.I. into our everyday lives to attempt to profit off of us. Humans are not a product you can just reproduce over and over again and sell on Amazon for profit.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My elementary school age niece and nephew motivate me. Empowering others to communicate clearly, stand-up for themselves, ask for what they want, and create healthy boundaries motivates me. This is because I did not learn to stand-up for myself, set boundaries or that it was ok to clearly ask for what I want until almost my mid-30s.

I also want to get better at helping others feel seen and feel like they matter. I’m re-learning how to make eye contact with everyone post-pandemic. I still get nervous about that even if I seem confident. After the pandemic, I felt a surprising amount of paralyzing apathy and squashing down of my natural reactions and facial expressions. So I’ve been working through that with a therapist since September 2022. Along with that re-learning how to smile again without it seeming weird or off-putting to others. I used to smile freely all the time and I had a more expressive face before Covid-19 and I miss that.

Contact Info:

• Website: aprilwalterscheid.wix.com/index
• Instagram: instagram.com/apriloneil
• Facebook: facebook.com/aprilwalterscheid
• Youtube: youtube.com/aprilwalterscheid

Image Credits
Leah Huebner, Wub Savell, Majic Meows, Rey Cabato