‘Annoying Orange’, ‘Wiener’, ‘The Basement’, ‘Copy & Pastry’ Try to Pass The Mustard

[Ed: This is the latest installment of our weekly web series critic column Pass The Mustard. No sugar coating, no doublespeak, no hand holding. Just brutally honest reactions from one guy: Ned Hepburn. We’ll throw a handful of web series at him each week. Agree, disagree, love him, hate him, but please don’t punch him. Got something clever to say in retort? Leave a comment below. He’ll probably read it and embarrass you later. His opinions are his own, so take them or leave them. See last week’s column here.]

The Annoying Orange

Are you high or 14 years old? Do you live in the suburbs? It’s completely fucking absurd – like, X-Files absurd – that this series has over 20 million hits. That must mean that Satan is on his way. This is the kind of thing that the movie Idiocracy predicted. This is pure, pure unfunny highly concentrated, in droplet form, just purely nonsensical riffing from an Annoying Orange. It’s either high concept art or it’s just plain terrible. It made me want to drink alone on a balcony overlooking the city, listening to sad bastard music, wondering “Is this all there is in life? This?” and then keep drinking scotch. It was F. Scott Fitzgerald levels of ambivalence to humanity after watching this one, folks. This was terrible.

Wiener & Wiener

Do you want to know something? I was at the grocery store and found a thing called a Grapple. It’s an apple that’s been crossbred with a grape. It’s not bad. Anyway, Weiner and Weiner is a lot like the Grapple, because it’s not bad but it’s completely strange and I have no idea what to make of it. It’s good? Bad? I don’t like it? Maybe I do? It doesn’t make any sense except it kind of does? It’s like Urban Outfitters: The Show

. Not only do all the actors and actresses look like they work there, but there’s a definite and palpable feeling of the decision to forgo plot for style points.

The Basement

Actiiiiiing! This is totally the college kids, right? This is totally This Crazy Idea For A Web Series And Then We Did It, isn’t it? This succeeds for being a live action Scooby Doo ghost story with some swearing. It’s not bad after you watch a few episodes in a row, and works best when watched all together. It’s pretty neat, I have to admit.

Copy & Pastry

This show grew on me after a few episodes. It’s actually pretty fucking funny – highlighting a very oblique sense of humor… which you don’t see in web shows very much. When this show is good it reaches a very watchable mix of Kids In The Hall and Napoleon Dynamite. When it’s bad, it still better than most comedy web shows. It even sort of looks like a super low budgeted HBO comedy series. Whatever they’re doing right here they’re doing right across the board, and I’ll have to admit that despite the horribly punny name (Copy & Pastry? Really?) this is a very weird and funny show.

THIS WEEKS MUSTARD: Copy & Pastry