So I used to really dislike the whole improv comedy thing. It often came off as the pretentious tripe of vaguely talented theater majors so desperate to prove how clever they are by making something almost funny out of serious of nouns culled from the audience like really bad Mad Libs.
Then I watched the season 2 finale of “The Whitest Kids You Know,” and it made me so much more appreciative, as it was filed live on stage in NY. If you haven’t seen the show you’re really missing out, as its probably the best sketch comedy series on TV right now, and since its on IFC it’s uncensored which makes it that much more awesome.
Examples:
Of course, the season finale was just on, so if they do reruns on IFC you’ll have to catch it then. The thing about the finale, with the live-ness and the not having costumes and sets and all that jazz made me appreciate the art of getting up there and just being funny in a weird unique way. There aren’t any YouTube clips of the finale up yet, but keep your eyes out for them because it’s great. Watching it really made me wish I had the opportunity to get on stage and do stuff like that (y’know, if I had a stage, or was comfortable on one, or if I was funnier), and really made me respect the people that can do that a lot more.
Of course, writing this and thinking about it more…I guess they aren’t improv at all. It’s regular sketch comedy. No retarded audience Mad Libs.
Fuck those improv people.
****
Speaking of “Fuck those people,” I just got done watching The Cook, and what a giant piece of crap. As much as I love crappy direct to video horror movies, this had no real redeeming value whatsoever. Even toplessness, implied lesbianism, lesbians in bondage and near constant drug use could save it, and that’s a lot of good things. We’re getting a lot of these low-budget horror movies at the store and we’re doing good business with them, but flashy covers and hilariously awful concepts aren’t enough to sell them. People ask us all the time if they are “good,” and as we all know there are levels of good. There’s good, and then something so bad its good, or something that’s just kind o mindless popcorn good, even things so horrifyingly wrong they’re good, etc. This, sadly, is none of those. It’s just bad, and that means I’ve got to find something else to sell.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jennifer // Apr 21, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Dude - I so enjoyed those, espec the Lincoln/Hamlet one. J. has been saying “oh, you fucked up NOW!” incessantly since we watched them.
I will have to check out more clips, since we dont’ have IFC anymore (one of the two bad things about the switch from evil TimeWarner to less evil WOW service) so thanks for cluing me in.
Have you seen any “Flight of the Conchords?” I was interested in it, but after two or three was very “meh” about it.
Glad the store is doing well. You rock the shit.
2 Thacher Cleveland // Apr 22, 2008 at 12:35 am
We liked FOTC, although I found myself preferring the versions of the songs I found elsewhere above the ones they did on the show.
There’s a couple of good sketches on YouTube for WKUK, although the Lincoln one is the best on there. That’s the one that Tony found and posted on my MySpace and I was hooked. “You have now fucked up” has become a store catch phrase (”Acting! Acting! Rewind the play 5 minutes” is another good one). We’ve even played it when random customers have been in (we do this with trailers a lot too).
Yes, we do rock the shit. :)
3 sugarnoise // May 15, 2008 at 2:57 pm
“even things so horrifyingly wrong they’re good,”
this is my all time favorite type of good…
4 Thacher Cleveland // May 15, 2008 at 10:32 pm
It *is* a great kind of good. AvP2 was like that.
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