The Wingmen Go To Eleven
For the sake of relationships in and around the University of Texas, it’s a good thing that ‘The Wingmen’ are no longer on the air.
The fictitious trio of love gurus – ladies’ man Zach, temperate Jordan, and romantic Chris – hosted a college radio program in which they dispensed invaluable Deary Abby advice like, “find little ways to disappoint her and if you make a point of, everyday, doing one thing to make her sad…her expectations will drop to the ground.” Their knowledge of women was suspect, but their radio show was award-winning, so they became the subject of a made-for-the-web mockumentary, The Wingmen.
Created by a handful of UT students and inspired by real-life events (part of the crew actually did have a real college radio program, but after one semester and roughly two listeners, weren’t welcomed back into the booth), the show chronicles the compounding misfortune of this crack team of romance “experts.”
Their call-in radio show gets the boot after Chris gets dumped on air, screams a series of expletives that would make Bill O’Reilly blush, and receives a hefty indecency fine from the FCC. The crafty kids then start an online dating service to raise some cash and it’s all captured through the lens of wannabe “documentarian” Marshall Rimmer.
The Internet has seen it’s fair share of mockumentaries, the genre popularized by Rob Reiner’s Spinal Tap and brought to us weekly by The Office. And that makes sense. Folks producing fiction for the web are often strapped for cash, and the easiest way to deal with low-budget production value is to make that part of the appeal.
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