Pot Smoking Dogs and IFC Originals

Not to be outdone by the green-hued pornography of its arch-nemesis sister-site, IFC recently launched a series with similar color tones. The network has brought Wilfred the Pot Smoking Dog out of its home on Australia’s SBS, chopped it up into bite size segments, and unleashed it daily at 4:20PM every weekday on the web.

Conceived by Jason Gann (who plays Wilfred, the dog), Adam Zwar (who plays Adam, the new boyfriend of Wilfred’s owner) with, I’m guessing, lots of self-medication, the series started out as a short film that made it big at 2002’s Tropfest

in Sydney, Australia, and puts a sigh-of-relief twist on the stoner comedy, i.e. you don’t need to be stoned to enjoy it.

Where genre films like Harold and Kumar rely on a cavalcade of ridiculous hijinks to entertain, Wilfred works one absurd pretense – man in a furry outfit plays dog – to new levels of sophisticated comedy. Anthropomorphic humor runs rampant, but it doesn’t revolve around marking territory or mangling mailmen. It focuses on manipulation and insecurity from a canine’s point of view, all done in the name of protecting owner Sarah from another failed relationship.

It’s good, regardless of your state of mind. It’s also the first web series to debut in IFC’s summer lineup of online originals collectively dubbed The Internet! Is Always On!. 

###Starting next Monday, the Chicago-based, self-indulgent, semi-nude hipster love-in, Young American Bodies begins its 3rd Season (you can get caught up on Seasons 1 & 2 here).

On 6/16, Brooklyn’s POYKPAC – the comedy troupe that got internet famo for their real life Mario Bros. and Hipster Olympics – will star airing Good Morning Internet!, which will hopefully be the best morning show spoof since Good Morning World got taken off the web and put on Canadian television.

7/7 puts The Mary Van Note Show: Gavin Really Wants Me online and will document the woefully embarrassed yet hyper-sexual comedian’s quest to date San Franciso’s 40-year-old Mayor McDreamy, Gavin Newsom.

And to top off IFC’s summer showcase, beginning 8/11 Get Hit will be a how-to guide to achieve internet fame – from “script writing and raising money, to acting, editing, and ultimately seeding the content” – replete with insidery commentary and alleged Martin Sargent-like knowledge of the space.

 

This is IFC’s most aggressive foray into original web series (with ads painted on edifices all around NYC, as seen in the picture I shot above) since Getting Away with Murder showed the double-life of a mensch-living-with-mom / professional-hit-man in May 2007.