ESPN's 'Endless Drama'

A full 8 years after Susan Lucci was no longer Susan Lucci, someone finally figured out it’s funny to make fun of soap operas. In fact, a lot of people did.

Soap opera spoofs are something of a mini-trend on the web, and these farces of the overly dramatic genre so perfectly imitate the originals that their creators should be embarrassed of how much SOAPnet they watched. There’s A.D. Mile’s Horrible People on MyDamnChannel, Jerry Zucker and Natioanl Banana’s Sands of Passion and General Elevator on Crackle, and now Endless Drama on ESPN. Wait…ESPN?!?!?

Yeah, ESPN. As a promo for their fledgling Fantasy Baseball League the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” released Endless Drama – an eight-part series that shows just how exciting draft deadlines, injury lists, RBIs, OBPs, WHIPs and setting up your roster over the ultra-marathon that is a 162-game baseball season can be.

###The casting director should be congratulated. They use real deal soap opera actors (John-Paul Lavoisier

, Cameron Mathison, Rebecca Budig – all from ABC series, of course). And real life baseball players (Tori Hunter, Chase Utley, Jorge Posada).  Though it’s too late to sign up for a Fantasy league – the Red Sox beat the A’s on Opening Day a couple weeks ago – you should still give the series a watch.  It’s good.

Save the subject matter, it looks realistic enough to actually be endorsed by a cleaning product. Its serious, not slapstick, and the short episodes (none are over two-minutes) are delightful snacks of dramatic parody that don’t drag.

Seth Stevenson of Slate thinks it’s too-well executed. He’s got a point. As a marketing device, there’s not enough spoof and insider Baseball to attract Fantasy players. As pure entertainment, however, Endless Drama is a first round pick.

Thanks to David Title for pitching this tip.