We receive a ton of tips every day from independent creators, unaffiliated with any major motion picture studios, television networks, new media studios, or other well-funded online video entities. The Indie Spotlight is where we’ll write about and shout out to a select few of them and bring you up to speed on the great (and sometimes not-so-great) attention-grabbing series you probably haven’t heard about until now. Read previous installments here.
All six episodes of Danny’s Choice follow roughly the same format and story arc. But the series, created by Louisville, KY.-based brother-sister comedy duo Doug and Alyssa Keeling, never fails to deliver laughs.
Set in a Milwaukee public elementary school in 1993, and ornamented with giddy nineties-era graphics conjuring Saved By The Bell, Doug Keeling plays 11-year-old Danny — overgrown and socially inept in a blonde moptop wig. In each installment of the series, which tend to run three to four minutes each, Danny is confronted by his friends Jimmy, Billy, and Zach — who, in a hilarious twist, are played by actual children. Danny’s friends are constantly trying to peer pressure him into doing things he knows he shouldn’t.
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Initial episodes cover drugs, girls, drinking beer at parties, and lighting fireworks, for instance — all of which Danny unfailingly succumbs to. At the end of each episode, Billy spots a police officer — “It’s the fuzz,” he yells in episode one (below), “Scram!” — as he, Jimmy, and Zach flee the scene, leaving Danny to be nabbed by a police officer and locked up in jail.
Other staples of the series include an irresistible title sequence and theme song featuring Danny strolling the halls of his elementary school to the tune of lyrics like “Danny’s making all those choices.”
The 2015 series was recently named an Official Selection at the 2015 New York Television Festival. And the Keelings have followed up Danny’s Choice with several other projects, including the how-to series Lyssue Paper, in which Alyssa Keeling plays a tissue paper enthusiast who teaches viewers how to make items (like toothbrushes) out of tissue paper, and Come To My Room, in which Doug Keeling stares into a camcorder and begs viewers to come visit his bedroom. Check out the Keatings’ YouTube channel for more.
OTHER UNDER-THE-RADAR SERIES TO CHECK OUT
- Red Bird. This Western-style ode to Kill Bill is a female revenge tale featuring Kitty Mae, who is seeking to get even with the gunman who killed her only son in cold blood.
- How To Audition In Los Angeles — Pilot Season. Struggling actors in Los Angeles are a dime a dozen, but this aspiring auditioner didn’t know he’d be up for the same part as his Uber driver.
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