A Comedic TV Talent Turns the Tables on Oprah

Rahoul Ghose/OWN ONE-LINERS AND MORE: Zach Anner won his own show on the OWN network.

Meet Zach Anner, a 26-year-old filmmaker from Austin, Tex., who just won his own television show on Oprah Winfrey’s new network. He’s handsome, smart and funny — oh, and he gets around in a wheelchair. Mr. Anner has cerebral palsy, “the sexiest of the palsies,” as he puts it in his audition video.

That line, along with a spoof of a failed TV show about yoga, has won him legions of online fans. (“This isn’t yoga,” he tells the camera as he writhes on the floor. “I’m just putting on pants.”)

In an online contest for a spot on “Your Own Show” on OWN, the video received more than nine million votes — and not because of Mr. Anner’s disability, according to Lee Metzger, the show’s executive producer.

“You do see the chair, and he has some erratic movements, ” Mr. Metzger said. “But once you start to talk to him, you see that his chair and his body are not what he’s all about. He’s a bright guy with a lot of great ideas, and he’s funny.”

Cerebral palsy is caused by abnormalities in parts of the brain that control muscle movements. In mild cases, patients may have slurred speech and motor impairments; in severe ones, the symptoms include irregular posture, spasticity and inability to walk.

Other performers have had cerebral palsy, among them RJ Mitte, who plays a teenager on the AMC series “Breaking Bad”; Josh Blue, who won the NBC reality show “Last Comic Standing” in 2006 with routines that mocked his own lack of motor control; and Geri Jewell, who had a recurring role on “The Facts of Life” in the 1980s.

But their disabilities appear less severe compared with those of Mr. Anner, who has spasticity in all four limbs.

A native of Buffalo, Mr. Anner said his parents insisted he attend regular schools and be treated just like other children. “My family is weird in a very good way because I was always exposed to the arts,” he said. (His mother teaches acting and playwriting at the University at Buffalo; his father is a bartender and videographer, with a passion for travel.) “Everything was always about finding creative energy and finding different ways to do things.”

By his own account, he does not lack self-confidence. At a book signing for Bill Clinton’s “My Life,” Mr. Anner ignored the publicist who declined his request for an interview with the former president — “Being 20 at the time, I wasn’t going to listen to that,” he said — and shouted his question: “Being an environmentalist, how do you intend to save the trees with a book that’s this long?”

Mr. Anner says Mr. Clinton was gracious in his reply, joking that perhaps the 1,008-page book should have been printed on recycled plastic.

On “Your Own Show,” Mr. Anner was quick with the one-liners, even when being interviewed by Ms. Winfrey herself.

“How old were you when you figured out that you were different than the other kids?” she asked at one point.

“I knew that I had a wheelchair, obviously,” he replied, without missing a beat. “They didn’t shield that from me.”

As the interview ended and Ms. Winfrey prepared to leave, Mr. Anner asked her to stay — he wanted to ask her a few things.

“You get chills watching that scene,” said Mr. Metzger, who was watching from the control room. “He had a series of questions that were really insightful. We were all thinking, ‘How could Oprah not pick him?’ ”

Later, the host, Nancy O’Dell, asked Mr. Anner how his interview with Ms. Winfrey had gone.

“It went well,” he replied. “I think she has a career in television.”

During the last round, Mr. Anner came down with a bad cold and appeared exhausted, prompting Ms. Winfrey to question his stamina. But his exhaustion had nothing to do with cerebral palsy, he told me later: “I was sick as a dog that day.”

In the end, he did win the chance to produce his own travel show. (In vintage Oprah fashion, Ms. Winfrey also gave another finalist her own show.) Mr. Anner said the show would not focus on disability, and he demonstrated with an online video tour of Niagara Falls in which he interviewed Spanish tourists, chased a sea gull in his motorized wheelchair and played a triumphant, geographically appropriate round of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” (Niagara Falls, Niagara River, “The River Wild,” with Kevin Bacon — three steps!)

“I want to find a way to speak to the broadest audience possible,” he said. “We’ve all got hurdles we have to overcome, and mine are not necessarily any bigger than anyone else’s.”

Nor is it his intention to be seen as a trailblazer for people with disabilities.

“It’s only kind of dawned on me now that it’s having this profound effect on people,” he said. “My best advice to anybody who has a child with a disability is to really find the tools for that person to thrive and find what their true passions are, because the rest will follow.”

This article appeared in print on Tuesday, April 5, 2011 on page D5.