Review of sweaty robot

In 2005, Eric Levy, Nick Gregorio, Juan Cardarelli, Matt Sanchez and Benjamin Davidow, five friends from the Philly area formed the film-creating collective Sweaty Robot as a means to develop and produce their short films and other media content. Since the site’s creation, the boys have uploaded a handful of shorts and have switched media broadcast format from audio podcasts to video for their 23^rd episode, March 3, 2007. Their blog, begun January 27^th, 2006, updates the team’s various projects and activities.

Do you believe in robots? That they walk among us? And do they look like you and me and her? Could we all be robots? These are the questions posed by the theme song of Sweaty Robot, whose catchphrase is ‘Funnier Than You’. They offer various proofs for this assertion in the form of an ever-increasing collection of short films and videocasts. The site also has a blog, but that’s mostly updates of their progress on projects and therefore not so funny. The short films are humorous, but are largely lacking a director’s style and vision, and the characters and plot are broadly drawn to a seemingly improvised script, as in Struck by Lightning

, a tale of lottery luck, and Best Friends Forever, an enactment of a nightmare date. This leads one to think they would be better labeled as sketches than films, although the quality of production is rather good, especially in the later posts such as Hero Worship. The more frequently updated section of the site, The Sweaty Robot Show, originally an audio podcast, is now video. Beginning with the 23^rd episode, they range in length from 8 to 30 minutes. These are usually filled with various stories (The Sneaky Jerking Neighbor) and crackings-up (Urinal Stories) of three of the five – Nick, Eric and Juan – with occasional cameos by the others.

To get a good look at what the Sweaty Robot Show is about, the ‘Best of Season One’ episode is a good place to start. Short film ‘Future Music 2012’ is a little rough around the edges, but also creatively uses tin foil to great comic effect.