Ever wonder what’s the best parody video on the Internet? Well wonder no more. Unless you disagree with me and don’t think this is the best one out there. Then, I guess you can continue to wonder. Either way, do yourself a favor and watch PoolJumpers.
Parody videos are the holy grail of web sketch, because, if done right, their zeitgeisty relatability helps them spread fast and hard. Since it’s 2010 premiere, The Birthday Boys’ classic PoolJumpers is the benchmark for what works…really…really well. We know it’s a little old, but the fact that it hasn’t been profiled in this column pains us and, let’s get real, funny [...]
A sketch about beer goggles? Not the most original joke. “Oh,” I thought “it’s probably some ironic play on the old trope about being too drunk to see people’s true qualities. Something not at all about inebriation. Something awesome.”
And I was wrong. It wasn’t ironic. Nope. It was pretty much just a straight-up take on the alcohol-induced phenomenon we all know and dread. Still, I found myself…laughing.
The short, written by Lauren Cook and Anna Breslaw, directed by Oren Brimer (The Daily Show), and starring veteran funnyman Kurt Braunohler alongside Scott Eckert, Anna Breslaw, and Lauren Cook, demonstrates that good acting and writing matters a hell of a lot [...]
As someone who's never seen a single Nancy Meyers movie, including It's Complicated, Julie Klausner's "deleted scene" from that very movie is pretty wonderful. I imagine if you're a Meyers junkie it's even better?
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. Sometimes, in web series, simple is better. UCBComedy's “How to Make a Situation About You” confirms that hilarity can come out of smart, small ideas. The key to making short pieces successful? Clarity of message.
It’s easier to write a five-minute-per-episode, arc-heavy web opus than it is a sub two-minute idea good enough to have staying power. To be quick and memorable and quality demands a hyper focus on the single salient element of a funny idea, the nugget that cuts through all the fluff to the core of the most illustrative beats. Few attempt simple because it’s risky. It forces [...]
So, “This Week’s Web Series You Need To Watch” took a little break to rejigger its focus and maintain its freshness. Maybe you noticed and were sad and wondered what you did to make us go away. Maybe you were busy doing other stuff and are just too nice to tell us you didn’t care all that much. Either way, we’re back…sort of. Going forward, in an effort to showcase as much quality material as possible, we’re focusing on covering not only web series, but also really special standalone web videos, like this week’s selection: Baby Big Body. Let us know what you think of the new direction and, [...]
A lazy idiot’s motto? Perhaps. But in the cruel world of mass market comedy, where we celebrate the laziest of the idiots, sometimes old faithful is better than cutting edge. This is especially true for celebrities with established brands and followings, celebrities like, well, Danny McBride, Jack Black, and Kyle Gass. (Maybe Dane Cook? Come on…maybe?). No matter what your comedic sensibilities, it’s hard to deny “The Roadie with Danny McBride” packs a special sort of power in its anticipatory appeal, its “I already know and love these guys” punch.
Assuming you haven’t started watching already (you definitely should have; what I have [...]
Why anyone would break up with Garfunkel and/or Oates (Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, respectively), is beyond me. Yet some messy boy or boys did and all G&O can do is clean, sing sadly, and put on an adorable play where cats dress up as everything from sponges to Molotov cocktails to DVD copies of The Last Boy Scout. At least, they have each other and their fans and all those crazy cats (except the one dressed up like an ashtray, she’s mine).
Historically speaking, I’m not a fan of web videos centering around celebrity impersonations because they’re often short on content. Especially if the impression is really strong. Performers figure they can skate by on the old “hey, that really does sound just like…” recognition and, in almost every case, they can’t. The shtick gets old. So viewers are left with a mediocre piece that has a kick-ass first quarter and then sorta…falls off. Not the case with Mike O’Gorman’s “Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice Post Show Recap” and I’m glad he’s proved me wrong.
O’Gorman (actor, writer, and co-creator of “Tiny Apartment,” the very first web series we reviewed in [...]
Creating any visual media intended for a wide audience can be torturous. Self doubt plagues even the most confident among us and questions as to whether anyone will “get it” inflame some special, awful insecurity sector of our brains. There’s so much at stake. So much thought, so much writing, so many location scouts, and permits, and actors who are only available Tuesday from 4-5:30 and cameras that are low on battery and “Oh oh oh, we need a China ball. Where’s the goddamn China ball?!”
Here's the fourth and, sadly, final installment of Hitchin' a Ride, in which John Murray picks up his fellow 30 Rock castmember Sue Galloway to bring her to a rehearsal for her one-woman show. Along the way John decides to gift her with an acoustic guitar, which he then makes her play, for better or worse.
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When I received an email plugging a web series about a guy interviewing for jobs in corporate America, I felt a pang of disappointment. Someone had “stolen” my idea. I clicked the link hoping it wouldn’t be funny and I’d be vindicated as a comic genius, still able produce my own Webby-winning take. Unfortunately for my ego, Howard Gets an Interview is more than enough to fill the situational interview web series space. And I mean that in the best possible way.
Written by Jonathan F. Cohen and starring Timothy Hornor as Howard, the “series” is, at this point, one episode long and, thus, more of a sketch. Still, [...]
We all love stuff that’s cool and weird and offbeat, don’t we? I’ll answer for you here — yes. Of course we do. Like any aficionados, we enjoy that which is cutting edge, beyond the norm, even alienating to those not “in-the-know”. We used to feel this way about deadpan mockumentaries and snickered at those in our midst who asked “is this for real?” Ha! We were so much smarter and cooler than them. But no longer. Now, everyone gets “awkward.” To be made uncomfortable is to be made to laugh. From web to screen, the pieces that seem to garner the most attention seem to be the ones [...]
YouTube has been rolling out some new fancy-pants channels that it's been pumping gobs of money into lately, and the latest is Chris Hardwick's Nerdist Channel. The first episode of the first show, All Star Celebrity Bowling, is embedded above. And the whole schedule looks pretty great!
MONDAYS: All Star Celebrity Bowling w/ Chris Hardwick TUESDAYS: Alternating every other week between Face to Face w/ “Weird Al” Yankovic and The Indoor Kids WEDNESDAYS: Comic Book Club THURSDAYS: Ain’t It Cool w/ Harry Knowles FRIDAYS: Weird S#!t From Japan and classic Kids In The Hall eps with bonus cast interviews
In addition to these original shows, the channel will be [...]
A sketch about a popular primetime dating show, featuring David Spade? Meh. That was my initial reaction. “Meh.” In fact, someone emailed me this video on Monday and I just ignored it. Couldn’t be bothered to watch. Why would I waste my time? I’d seen it all before. Some Just Shoot Me sass mixed in with a little Grown Ups past-prime sadness, all topped with a sprinkling of really safe jabs about Bachelor contestants being “desperate whores,” and so on. Ultimately a trusted source convinced me to give it a shot and though my snap judgments weren’t inaccurate, their being true didn’t make this not funny. In fact, it’s [...]
