60Frames' 'Carpet Bros.' Hits Its Stride Despite Sparse Publicity

Throw together the comedy skills of Tim Meadows and David Spade into just about anything and you are assured some irreverent hilarity. Teeming hoards of viewers, well, that’s a whole other problem. 60Frames Entertainment, the online entertainment studio headed by former UTA online media chief, Brent Weinstein, hasn’t yet nailed the publicity model for its current crop of shows. The studio, launched last summer, was incubated and financed by UTA and online ad agency SpotRunner.

Headlining the site’s summer lineup, Carpet Bros. follows the story of three brothers in the mid 1970’s who inherit a Rancho Cucamonga discount carpet store called Carpet Galaxy after the death of their father, Brock Raylon, the chain’s founder. Now the three of them – Skip Spence Raylon (Tim Meadows), Xavier Montrose Raylon (Marc Evan Jackson) and Paul Samwell-Smith Raylon (Bob Dassie) must rally to save the shop from a heap of debt that it’s in while fighting off the scheming Raymond Davies Allen (David Spade) and his attempts to take over the failing store.

The show, directed by Matt Piedmont (Emmy-award winning SNL writer), is sharply crafted and leaves Meadows and Spade plenty of space to play around with their characters. The 70’s aesthetic, complete with its tragically awesome outfits and hairdos, help create a world where absurdity can reign free. Comedy it seems is sometimes safer when taken out of the confines of present day tastes.

After launching a month ago, the show is now up to Episode 6, and seems to be finally building an audience. Just as The Guild found a loyal, if not obvious, fanbase amongst MMOG gamers, Carpet Bros. appears to have found a few fans in the world of carpeting. Well, it’s a start at least. With just 28,000 views for the pilot episode on YouTube, there’s some work to be done. No real marketing push was done for the show, and the only place you’ll find it featured is on the 60Frames site itself. The show is worth a look though, if even only to see Meadows and Spade back together again. Note to 60Frames, it may be time to take a page form Joss Whedon’s playbook, who spearheaded a killer marketing blitz leading up to the sitebuster Dr. Horrible launch last week.