Here's a depressing revelation: Matthew Morrison, the Orange County High School for the Arts alum who sings, dances and acts his ass off as teacher Will Schuester on Fox's hit high school musical-comedy Glee, earns the same per episode as Snooki.
Morrison and Jersey Shore's Nicole Polizzi each take home $30,000 a show, and the only way that could possibly be fair would be if Snooki took a barfly's punch to the face every episode.
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A TV Guide list of earnings shows Morrison also makes the same as The Wizards of Waverly Place's Selena Gomez.
Among those who earn more than Morrison are The Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons ($40,000 a show), iCarly's Miranda Cosgrove ($180,000) and Entourage's Kevin Dillon ($200,000).
The sitcom leader is Two and a Half Men's Charlie Sheen, who gets a cool $1.25 million a show, but Morrison is even smoked by that show's Half, Angus T. Jones, who gobbles up $250,000 a pop. Hell, how much is the kid on? Like, 5 minutes an episode?
While Morrison may be slumming it when it comes to sitcom earnings, he is at least earning countless karma points for the way he is spreading the modest wealth.
Go here and check out the Cambio video of his surprise visit to Orange County High School of the Arts (OCHSA), where besides inspiring students he handed over a $15,000 check–or what he makes for half an episode.
Actually, it's probably what he makes for a whole episode once taxes are taken out. Ooooo, I hope it was the one where he had a sing-off with Neil Patrick Harris!
Morrison, the school's staff and the makers of the video take some literary license in presenting the upbeat piece. A teacher points to a stage where Morrison supposedly plied the boards and the actor talks about moments from his time “here.” Actually, here was Los Alamitos High School, where OCHSA operated before moving to downtown Santa Ana, where it is now and where the video was shot.
Ah, well, for 15,000 grand and the priceless good vibes, we'll go with it.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.