Getty Images composed a fantastic, Webby Award-winning, eight-minute documentary near the end of Astroland’s 2007 season, when no one was sure if it would be around for another year. It’s a great little glimpse into the gritty, fun for all ages, New York scene:
The new ICN show We Grow Togetheris like a Home and Garden show on a acid. Fortunately for the viewer, the acid trip is pretty hysterical. Brad Chipwillow (Sean Casey) and Lana Chang (Anne Gregory) host the show for gardeners of all skill levels. Brad is a sad, sad man who not only happens to be a gardener, but also a troubadour, and a widower. Lana Chang is simply a “host” and she really loves malls.
What makes the show enjoyably genius is it’s spot-on portrayals of public access skill level with camera work to match. That, and Chipwillow has engrossing back story, especially during one-on-one confessionals inside of his work shed, admitting to being haunted by ghosts from the past. That, and Lana Turner is so joyfully annoying, that fingers-crossed her character will soon end up covered in dirt in a future episode.
Talented show creators Casey and Gregory, veterans of the LA improv scene, have given themselves some layered character details to build the show on. The pair teamed up with LA-based web improv producers Mission IMPROVable Productions, together bringing the show to its new home on ICN.tv. So far there’s at least 5 episodes ready to go, with more on the way. In their garden, it will be intriguing to watch a bizarre romance bloom between two these two weirdos, as they till their seeds together.
[Ed. Note: Yes, this show has the same Sean Casey that writes for Tubefilter News. He has many talents. We won’t hold that against him. ]
Border Patrol – a six-episode series released on Comedy Central’s Atom.com created by Ben McMillan and Josh Greenbaum – is a strange, nihilistic Western that takes jabs at politically incorrect xenophobic Americans. It’s sending a lot of different signals, glossed over by charm.
The premise: three friends set out each weekend to guard America’s border from the illegals, aka Mexicans (I’ve heard of weekend warriors but this is ridiculous – hahaha). The first episode begins with their 47th week at the line, and they’ve yet to see a single illegal. So, they build an oasis, complete with Tecate and nachos to lure some lost, thirsty souls from our neighbors to the South into a red-blooded American trap.
Bringing a fictional plot into the real world is nothing new. It’s happened a lot: the new 90210 features a character who maintains a real blog, LOST published a real book by a fictional character, and Arrested Development fans will certainly remember ImOscar.com.
But the award for most comprehensive real-world integration must certainly go to TheWB.com‘s Sorority Forever.
The fact that some characters have MySpace and Twitter accounts was mentioned in Tuesday’s review of the premiere, but there’s much, much more to the SF universe than we originally realized.
The new series, Cowch Potatoes, premieres today (promo above), offering itself up as the Beavis & Butthead of the late aughts. It features the minimally animated duo of Franklin & Tyrell, two slackers sittin’ on the couch and takin’ in whatever’s on their flatscreen.
Created by Michael Helman under his Brooklyn Films banner, the promos for the series have already attracted the attention of MTV, who licensed out two of them for their web and TV outlets. For now, the series will launch on the website (www.cowchpotatoes.com) with new episodes every few weeks. Eventually there’s hope for televised placement and a series, but what else is new for a premiering web series? “The series began life as a couple thirty second promos that were released on the internet and drew thousands of views on sites like FunnyorDie.com and YouTube,” said Michael Helman, series creator.
It’s essentially an oddball pairing (one’s fat, one’s skinny, one’s white, one’s black, one has a deep voice, etc…) with space carved out to plug whatever’s on the TV they’re watching. If series writers Helman and Uri Rosen can pull off the critical masking-our-genius-in-idiocy that happened with Beavis & Butthead, they’ll be gold. If they get a hold of really unique footage to lampoon, like B&B did with MTV archival videos, they’ll be gold. If it’s simply a bad Chris Tucker impression sitting on a couch with a fat kid who talks slow, it’s over.
But, and I mean, BUT, like most series, all we have so far are the low/no budget promos. So watch and decide for yourself. Based on the promos so far, I’d probably say skip it, but then how many critics were wrong about Mike Judge?
Since she became the Republican Party’s Vice Presidential hopeful, Sarah Palin (Interesting internet aside: Vice Presidents don’t have web presences attheirowndomainnames, save Al Gore, but he’s online for different reasons) and people talking about Sarah Palin have been catnip for online video viewers.
Tubemogul notes how views of her speech at the RNC greatly surpassed John McCain’s numbers, and Professor Jamie Dubs remarks that in the top 15 articles of last week on social news site Digg, five were Palin related.
The music is made on computers, drum machines, and other high-tech pieces of equipment. In the lyrics, the more random the references and slantier the rhymes, the better. Of course this is all obscured by the “thug” image that’s overtaken the genre, but the fact remains, rappers and DJs are big geeks. Just look at the lyrics to Wu-Tang Clan’s Triumph, or check out RZA’s sweet chess game.
So, that’s why the whole sub-genre of suburban white people trying to be funny by overly-enunciating rap lyrics and awkwardly swaying to the beat doesn’t really work. Nerdy plus nerdy equals irritating, not amusing. Check the Brown-educated MC Paul Barman or the reprehensible MC Rove episode if you need further convincing.
So it’s September 10th and Seth MacFarlane’s long anticipated 50-episode animated series, Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, has hit the web today. The Burger King-backed series has been talked up quite a bit for using Google Adsense to push the show out to its target young male demo, but finally we get to see some actual meat if you will.
There might be a few lucky ones who managed to happen upon the characters butting onto the ad space of their favorite sites. But apparently most did not. Unless you count YouTube as one of those sites. The videos have been on fire today, with the two episodes out (“A Dog on $25,000 Pyramid” and “Super Mario Rescues the Princess”) netting over 500k views each so far from YouTubers.
Perhaps it was the tacky auto-play feature of the embeddable player at sethcomedy.com, but YouTube is the clear winner here. Oh, and lead sponsor Burger King of course. They along for the ride either way. And let’s not forget that YouTube is a Google property now, and so we’re really just talking semantics here.
Liz Miller caught up with showrunner MacFarlane and even got him to admit there may be more Cavalcade in store after the first 50 have their run for the next ten weeks. Let’s wait to see the next 48 before we get to excited about that. The cut-away joke joke format so integral to Family Guy is pretty much what Cavalcade is. Only now they almost seem to run on longer than the joke actually merits. “Super Mario” ticks up over 2 minutes, when probably a minute would have shored up the laugh. “A Dog on $25,000 Pyramid” is tighter, but lacks payoff – the sarcastic middle-aged man as a dog bit is pretty worked out in the FG world.
They’re like an average episode of Family Guy, forced through an internet sieve that collects MacFarlane’s characteristic gag-based brand of humor and leaves Peter and company behind on traditional TV.
The Griffins take with them the setups for their pop culture-laden anecdotes (“Louis, remember that time the dog was on $25,000 Pyramid?”), but they’re easily replaced with simple title cards that provide context for the situation (“A Dog on the $25,000 Pyrmaid”).
As the presidential election heats up, so has the porridge. Debate Porridge includes election remixes, original reporting and sharp insights on what the hell is really going on.
I find it difficult to believe that, though the election is a mere 60 days away, the two major candidates have not yet met face to face to discuss the mounting economic and political crises facing this country. Insteaed, they rely on multi-million dollar organizations to spin messages through a narrative-obsessed national media that distorts even the simplest ideas.
[Ed. Note: This review contains some slight spoilers. Be warned.]
Slickly produced, Sorority Forever stars the sublimely morose Jessica Rose of lonelygirl15 fame. Shining like a bright white light in this slow-simmering mystery soap, Rose is a star in the making. Behind those bedroom eyes and that wan yet warm closed lip smile there is something going on that is perfectly suited to the what’s-behind-the-door frightshow this web-series promises to be.
TheWB.com graciously bestowed we reviewers with a sneak peek at the first ten eps of their new show and though it’s a rocky start, the second half of the ten begin to crack open a sorority noir with some promise. At episode eight I was sufficiently freaked out by the handheld ritualistic video Julie (Rose) watches on her computer. And when Madison, played by the crazy hot Mikaela Hoover (Sam Has 7 Friends; Cockpit), raids Phi Chi Kappa president Bridget’s closet, she finds a little more than Manolo Blahniks. Giving us a very small (too small?) taste of what’s to come.
But look, it’s not all fun and games, who knew two minutes could be so hard to pull off? The first ep is more of a montage slash trailer that when I was done watching I thought, Did I just watch the teaser? There is little to no character development, though we meet Julie and realize she has no interest in the Greek life. Progressively the shows give us a little more info, but it just doesn’t seem to find its footing until ep 3 (above), when Julie meets the geeky rock-god-in-the-making Joaquin, played by Joaquin Pastor. Their meet-cute is a refreshing moment of soapy delight as the deliciously coy Julie compliments the oddly confident and subtly prescient coolguy Joaquin. Truth be told there are layers to this scene that convey a deeper writing (Chris Hampel, Ryan Wise, Chris McCaleb of Big Fantastic) and directing (BF) talent than other scenes exhibit.
And from that moment on there are tidbits of this talent mingled with a little too much camp and a little yawn. The talent is highlighted by the burgeoning Julie-Joaquin romance, and minor pieces of the growing, seemingly horrific underbelly of Phi Chi Kappa: the scary red door, the vidcam wielding frat boys, that crazy video. Unfortunately with each of these we do get a few cheesy hazing scenes like carwashing while battered with Phi Chi trivia; the forced fashion faux pas: undies on the outside of your clothes; and some requisite arch eyebrows of the sorority higher-ups. All of which makes for a little story softness this potential horror series could definitely do without. Fortunately for the show, however, each ep gets incrementally better until episode 10, when we begin to see that maybe Joaquin has more of a backstory than the edgy geek-rocker we think he is and perhaps the sorority has a darker history than silent treatments and hokey hazing.
Auspices for the show include McG and Big Fantastic as producers, which isn’t too shabby and gives me some hope for the continued evolution of the writing and development of the series. Which, to my mind, would include a little more edge and a little less shyness with the horror and mystery of it all. So, my fine viewers out there, have a look at the show if only to see Jessica Rose gloom her way into your heart and keep watching because if they stick to it and heed my advice, they just might keep you entertained and scare the pants off of you at the same time.
Isn’t it nice that people are more politically aware these days? And all it took was a tanking economy and a self-destructing planet.
MSN.com’s video network is currently producing a series that tries to capture some of the excitement surrounding the current Presidential race by creating a online campaign site for a new political party – The Republicrats.
The Republicrat Party nominee is Sean Masterson, a motor-mouthed, young, white, male simpleton with the cheerful manner of a TV weatherman (his previous occupation).
Republicrats is a little edgier than you might expect from a satire produced by a megacorp. In this case “edgier” translates to occasional swears, an extremely broad gay stereotype, and a few decent satirical jabs at American foreign policy.
