Review of dotBoom

Frustrated with office politics and universal workplace interactions, Brian Hogg started dotBoom as an amusing hobby in his spare time. Now his basement has become a full-fledged Jim Henson-like studio. Back in March 2006, he began the show as its creator, writer, puppet-maker, set builder, set decorator, prop manager, lighting assistant, camera operator, and editor. This isn’t to say that dotBoom is a one man show, but aside from web design and the actual puppeteering, Brian does do most of the work himself.

Episodes (which are sometimes broken into brief segments and sometimes available full-length up to a half hour) of this hilarious Toronto-based puppet sitcom appear roughly once a month. Each episode takes place in the dotBoom office building, where the puppet worker bees flit about their days ineptly trying to design computer games. With characters like David, who is a lead client manager, an extraordinarily oblivious individual, and a crocodile with dreads, and Brian, who is Kermit’s vulgar, self-effacing, yellow cousin who spends his workday designing Flash animation and mocking his fellow employees and the pathetic company that made the mistake of hiring them all, the show is wry, cynical, and very, very good.   All of the puppets, sets, and productions look astounding when you consider that this is a low-budget show without advertisements run out of one man’s basement.

Watch everything. It’s one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen online. The best episodes are the not the ones with outlandishly ridiculous plotlines, instead they’re the ones with the prosaic, labored conversations that often take place in the workplace. “A well-planned design is the best thing for us right now, Beho. Why can’t you see that? If we don’t have infinite extensibility, the project will fail!” is terribly hilarious when spoken by a puppet.