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inmate profile: Patrick Labyorteaux

Keeping the 2012 Ice Age profiles rolling, it's time to turn the spotlight on the film's male lead, accomplished actor Patrick Labyorteaux.

A native Los Angelean, Labyorteaux (that's LAB-or-TOE) started acting at the ripe young age of nine, with an uncredited role in Mel Brooks' comedy classic Blazing Saddles. Credited or not, that's a baller debut. PL's first big break came in 1977 when he landed the role of "Andy Garvey" on the strangely-popular TV series "Little House on the Prairie." After 43 episodes, Patrick took a brief hiatus from acting, presumably to finish high school, and then in 1987 he returned to acting, this time on the silver screen. His first real film of note? The undisputed comedy classic and staple of my childhood, Summer School. I shit you not, I've seen this movie more than 50 times; hell, I've seen it three times this year already. PL played "Kevin," the gentle-souled football player who falls for a pregnant Shawnee Smith.

Up next for PL was a role in perhaps the only late-80's high-school film I've seen more than Summer School, Heathers, in which he played the lovably-dumb football-playing bully "Ram," who, thanks to an arranged double-suicide with his supposed lover spawned one of the greatest lines in cinema history: "I love my dead gay son!" 

From there, PL performed in a number of notable films including Ski School (which re-teamed him with Summer School-alum Dean Cameron), Ghoulies 3 and 3 Ninjas, but it wasn't until a certain TV show came a'courting that PL finally got his well-deserved star-making turn.

For 10 years and 208 episodes  PL portrayed Lt. Cmdr. Bud Roberts on the insanely popular Naval drama "JAG," on you grandpa's favorite network, alongside the erstwhile David James Elliott and the alluring Catherine Bell. "JAG" ended in 2005, and since then PL has continued to work steadily in television and film, including a role in the Jim Carrey vehicle Yes Man. 

2012 Ice Age will mark the first time PL has anchored a disaster flick (though he did support in The Storm, a TV, James Van Der Beek thing), but if he can handle this genre as well as he's handled comedy, drama, action and horror in the past, I think come June 28th of this month we'll all be quite enthralled. Watch for yourself and find out.

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