In keeping with the theme of rehashing old stuff, an old joke about doing a three-part series of sequels to 1984 is repackaged into a conversation between Snake and Colonel, and of course an old Crapstick Doodle cartoon follows.
The segment about Manute Bol is the leftover from an aborted idea for a web series I had a long time ago called Person Reviews that I might bring back someday in a different form. Basically, I'd review human beings and give them a score, much in the way critics give scores to movies, video games, restaurants, and whatever else. I wrote one for Manute Bol and another for Hitler and had ideas for a few more, but I didn't feel that the concept had enough mileage for me to commit to it for very long, but I dusted it off because it seemed good enough to fill two minutes of the show.
I thought it would be fun to do a self-congratulatory anniversary-type celebration for what's only the 4th episode of my show. It takes well over a month to pound an episode out, and considering the fact that I do literally everything, including but not limited to writing 15 pages of jokes, shooting 5 to 7 individual sketches, drawing as many as 70 pictures for the cartoons, editing 22 minutes of video, acting, and driving three towns over to hand in the completed DVDs to the TV station, sometimes it really does feel like I've done enough work to warrant this kind of thing, although it's still purely sarcastic when it's done on the show. Still, I feel like I deserve some kind of medal for doing over 4 months worth of comedy work without saying "fuck" on camera once.
But honestly, saying that I create 22 minutes of comedy is a bit of a misnomer, seeing as how so much of the show is stuff I've already made, or repackaged material from a different medium. For example, the piece on the Atari 5200 is essentially a slideshow set to a segment from a book I wrote about video games a year and a half ago. Since about 90% of any TV show starring a stand-up comedian is rehashed older material, I think I'm on the right track.
The Nine-Juan-Juan sketch from this segment is one I've had an idea for for over 3 years. Seeing it finally come to life is slightly less underwhelming than everything else in life. The most important sketch for this one is the one for Zambran-O's. I could explain at length in this paragraph the response the sketch got, but episode 5 of Moldy Bagels does a more than great job explaining the whole thing. Just enjoy the Zambrano sketch, because as far as I'm concerned it's hilarious.
The Prankin' Myself sketch is a shot-for-shot remake of a project I made in my final semester of college. By that point I didn't give a shit anymore and just wanted to get my degree and be done. I think it shows. The "Fight the System" sketch is also a shot-for-shot remake, in this case of one of my oldest live-action sketch comedy bits. Also, the Snake Under Fire bit is a word-for-word recreation of the time I engaged an annoying guy at work in a conversation specifically for the purpose of annoying him. In summary, this segment of the episode contains exactly 0.0% original content.
I made this episode a long time ago. I actually just finished episode 5, but I swore I'd get around to posting this to the blog eventually. Here's part one of three:
I wrote the cold open because I really wanted to include my amazing talent for spinning trays on my finger in the show. A long time ago I was working at the restaurant on an extremely dead Sunday. I got about one table an hour that day. The day essentially boiled down to killing time, which I can't fucking stand, so I went to the backroom and decided to practice spinning a tray on my finger until I mastered it, because I view any extended period of time in which I haven't learned or gained something as a grievous waste of the limited time we have on this planet. It's a skill that takes all of 20 minutes to learn, but most people are extremely impressed when they see me do it, so I act like it takes years to figure out. Am I a wonderful guy who doesn't want to ruin their illusion, or am I a pathetic, attention-starved asspipe who desperately seeks praise for my tragically ordinary skill set? You be the judge.
If you've seen my CrapStickDoodle cartoons you've already seen the Crash sketch. It's definitely one of my favorite cartoons and I think it's worth watching a second time. As for the Snake Under Fire sketch, I find it more or less unbearable to watch because my greenscreen effects are so terrible. Me and the boxes are bouncing all over the place while the background stays put. For a while I thought it was because the floor in my house is uneven and shifting my weight causes the camera to move. It wasn't until last month that I figured out that my camera's default Steady Shot option makes the camera move automatically to follow me as I shift my body. I've since fixed that problem and now the subject and background stay put. Now I only have to worry about my shitty lighting, acting, and writing.
I originally planned the mailbag to be a feature in every episode, but I had to abandon that for two reasons: First, I tend to turn a single comment into an entire meandering 3 to 5-minute comedy bit. Multiply that figure by three and you have a show that's 70% responding to things people are saying about me, and only 30% actual content. The Colbert Report already has the market cornered on that type of ratio, so I'm hoping to avoid all that.
I'm trying to establish a format where each half-hour episode contains two cartoons: One Crapstick Doodle, and one new one. I'm only doing one Crapstick Doodle because I want to cash in on my old work enough to fill a few minutes, but I don't want to get lazy and completely recycle a full half hour of content, because then there'd be no fucking point in making this show in the first place. I want to do two cartoons per episode because I think it breaks up the action nicely. As you've probably figured out by now, I'm doing literally everything alone here because I don't have any friends or willing actors to help out, so 90% of the live action stuff is just me talking to a stationary camera, and 30 straight minutes of that is pretty unbearable to watch. Most people would tell you that 3 straight minutes would be unbearable to watch, but that's neither here nor there.
I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to go ahead with the Emo Rap Fury idea, but I ultimately went with it because I thought having "Emo" as a Youtube tag would draw viewers to this video like flies to so much warm shit. The whopping 31 views I've accumulated tells me that my blatant buzzword pandering might not have paid off.
The closing part of the video was fun to make. I filmed myself trying to drink beer and talk to nobody, and then I watched the video with a headset microphone on and talked to myself. I like how it turned out because this time it actually sounds like my off-camera voice is actually having a conversation with my on-camera self. This part also marks one of the few times it makes me happy that my girlfriend doesn't watch the show. Normally it hurts my feelings that the person I've been with for 3 and a half years doesn't seem to take any kind of interest in what I do, but this time it's good because she has no idea I spit a mouthful of Foster's on the living room carpet.
Hell yeah, bitch. If you've seen my cartoons you've already seen the first sketch in this segment so feel free to skip that one. I like the Movie Forgetter sketch in the middle because it's a fun idea, and I get a chance to rock out my two favorite accessories: my badass White Sox shirt and my pink Razor phone. It's pink because it used to belong to my sister and she gave it to me when my old phone stopped working. People keep telling me that my phone is gay and I need to either buy a new one or buy a new skin, and I say two things to that: Number one, the phone is metallic pink, which is badass. If it was hot pink you'd have a point, but metallic pink rules and is totally not gay. Number two, I firmly believe that being so fashion conscious that you'd spend money to change the color of your fucking phone is way more girly and gay than owning a pink hand-me-down.
When I filmed the Movie Forgetter sketch I was sure the cops were going to come to my house. During the part that I was wearing a hockey mask covered in fake blood while waving around a prop gun, one of my neighbors saw me through the glass kitchen door and just stared at me. I stared back at him, then put the gun down on the counter and waved at him. He backed away with kind of a scared look in his eye. In a stroke of incredible luck, the cops never showed up. I'd be able to easily explain the mask and gun, but the rape slaves in the basement would be a whole 'nother story.
