by Joshua Cohen on February 7th, 2011
Pillow talk is the best. You’re lying there, decompressing from whatever positive or negative stimuli fate saw fit to unleash upon you during the daytime hours. You finally have a minute to relax, reflect, and let your mind wander with someone you love, like, at least liked a little at some point, or are obligated to sleep next to because of an overdeveloped fear of INS agents and an underdeveloped Green Card application.
Sealy Mattresses knows what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. Amiright, fellas? San Francisco-based comedy quartet Kasper Hauser knows what I’m talking about, too.
Kasper Hauser’s John, Dan, James, and Rob put together a comedy, web series pilot for MSN’s The Bubble. Pillow Talk features late-night, pre-NREM conversations between a trio of couples who all live above and below one another in the same San Francisco townhouse and like to chat it up before catching their Z’s. It’s funny because it’s relatable. Not that everyone has experienced getting married to avoid deportation or felt the desire to default on a mortgage hours after signing closing papers, but we’ve all had calm, whimsy conversations laying prostrate and under the covers before bedtime.
by Marc Hustvedt on February 7th, 2011
So the first thing you do when AOL buys your company for $315 million is make a guest appearance on that network’s most popular web series talking about how we all need to sleep more. In a surprise move, that broke late last night and most of the online publishing world is still digesting today, AOL snatched up Arianna Huffington’s six year-old media company and its flagship Huffington Post in an almost all cash deal.
Huffington will now oversee all of AOL’s content properties, including the likes of such sites as TechCrunch, Engadget, Moviefone and even MapQuest. In her appearance on AOL’s popular guest-spot series You’ve Got (below) she laments on the growing trend of American machoism in the workplace about how little sleep we all get. It’s become a “macho badge of honor” she says, with many busy bees boasting about how few hours they clocked on the pillow the night before.
by Lon Harris on February 7th, 2011
With the success of Night of the Zombie King from the makers of GOLD, and now the appearance of The Baristas, it seems we have a new trend on our hands: the web series spin-off.
The Baristas, a workplace comedy set in a Pittsburgh coffee shop called The Affogato, grew out of a different web series from creator Justin Kownacki, Something to Be Desired. Many of the characters (and performers) have rolled in to the new series, which follows the life and love of the five titular baristas – Madison (Jillian Vitko), Gary (Joel Ambrose), Ben (Will McMahon), Dierdre (Lacey Fleming) and Sam (Shaun Starke). (The Affogato itself is sort of a character in the show, and it’s a real location in Pittsburgh.)
The show has a laid-back, unrushed feel, which I enjoyed, but which also makes it feel a bit light on incident. (The entire debut episode focuses on the shop’s decision to hire one new barista for four hours a week!) The actors all have good comic timing, and many of the lines are quite funny, but there’s not a ton of momentum to the proceedings. This is even stranger when you consider the pilot episode introduces no less than 12 characters. That’s a lot to fit in to 9 minutes, and you really only feel like you get to know a few of these people by the time everything winds up.
Still, the ’90s throwback vibe of the entire enterprise (it’s in a coffee shop! I think someone’s even in a flannel!), reminiscent of films like Clerks and Reality Bites, works and feels different enough from the rest of what’s out there to make this show stand out. And I have no doubt that, with Kownacki and his cast’s years of experience in producing original comedy for the Web, they have a few tricks remaining up their sleeve.
by Joshua Cohen on February 7th, 2011
The Writers Guild of America hosted its 63rd Annual Writers Guild Awards (or, as Kristen Schaal called them, ‘The Introverted Emmys’) on Saturday night at simultaneous ceremonies in New York City and Los Angeles. Schaal played the role of gracious, accommodating, well-timed, and hysterical host to the WGA East East event, introducing presenters like Judah Friedlander, Kathleen Turner, and John Larroquette to dispense Whale Tail statuettes (this kind of whatle’s tail, not that kind) to the writing teams behind Boardwalk Empire, 30Rock, and The Colbert Report.
Band of Brothers and Gossip Girl star Matthew Settle had the honor of announcing the winners of the WGA’s newly introduced new media categories. In his intro, Settle likened the burgeoning entertainment medium to many of the young characters on Gossip Girl – hot, exciting, and without any discernible form of income. A great line, even if we know it’s not necessarily accurate.
Jon Haller of the 30Rock’s Frank vs. Lutz webisode series took home the WGA award for Outstanding Achievement in Writing Derivative New Media, Susan Miller and Tina Cesa Ward beat out the other nominees to win Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original new Media with Anyone But Me.
Miller and Ward have received a handful of awards, accolades, and honors for their dramatic story of a gay teen navigating life, health, relationships, and sexual awakening. I caught up with them after the WGA ceremony to ask why this one is different.
by Marc Hustvedt on February 6th, 2011
Super Bowl XLV is half way done. The game itself is a blow out but the online video game is all about the live voting for the best ads on Hulu. We’ve been usually obsessed with this, as Hulu’s audience is now big enough to be a reasonable proxy for fan nation.
With the return of Hulu’s Ad Zone this year, fans are voting live, thumbs up or thumbs down, whether they like the ads.
Snickers kind of dialed it in with a slight remake of their 2010 Betty White winner. This time it was Richard Lewis and Rosanne.
by Marc Hustvedt on February 4th, 2011
Super Bowl XLV is upon us this Sunday and even if the annual ritual of communal testosterizing isn’t your thing, the B-narrative is thankfully worthy of tuning in. Just like the game itself, some people take the watching of the Super Bowl ads a little too far. No talking during the commercial breaks, really?
Thankfully those $3 million a pop ad spots will be instantly available on the internet (legally) right when they air on FOX. Hulu is once again rolling out its Ad Zone, which will have high-quality versions of the ads, and the necessary fan voting that sorts out the Duuuudes from the Duds.
New this year is a spiffy looking widget (below) that will update automagically with the new ads as they air. So no need to refresh the page. It even lets you filter by age, gender and location in case you’re interested in what scored high amongst 60+ women from Wisconsin.
by Drew Baldwin on February 4th, 2011
New York public broadcaster Thirteen has partnered with the Big Screen Project (BSP1) to bring its content to the public—literally.
Starting last month and continuing through the end of February, BSP1 is broadcasting episodes from Thirteen’s original online documentary series highlighting lesser-known New York landmarks, The City Concealed, on its outdoor screen at the Eventi Hotel public plaza on Sixth Avenue between 29th and 30th Street in Manhattan.
The 2010 Webby Award nominated series explores lesser known or inaccessible historical monuments, rare green locales or repurposed public spaces within the five boroughs of New York. Recent destinations have included the only Greek Synagogue in the Western hemisphere (located in the Lower East Side), as well as the decommissioned Ridgewood Reservoir, the former source of Brooklyn’s drinking water.
The screenings are a part of Thirteen’s “ongoing commitment to showcase New York’s rich treasures and make innovative public media available to an ever-wider audience,” reads the project’s press release, which includes a schedule of the screenings.
The documentary will play on a 30 by 16.5-foot, HD-format LED screen, reaching not only passers-by of upper-Chelsea,
by Joshua Cohen on February 4th, 2011
While Howard Stern spends his spare time studying the War for Late Night “like it’s the Torah” and attempting to rally all that is good and Letterman in triumph over all that is mediocre and Leno, his perennial sidekick and right-hand woman is getting a first-hand lesson in vegucation.
Robin Quivers debuted the cooking show Vegucating Robin in October 2010 as a way to inspire herself to learn how to make more things vegan and help out others who may also be unstated from a lack of diversity in their plant-based diets. Natural, seasonal, local and Irish food expert and chef Gavan Murphy shows Quivers how to become comfortable in the kitchen and turn traditionally meh food into deliciousness.
If you’re one of the few million people who subscribe to SiriusXM just to listen to Stern, you’ll love hearing Quivers’ silky voice and constant laugh in Vegucating Robin. You’ll also like watching her play the familiar role of enthused and interested participant in Murphy’s one-on-one cooking class. If you’re one of America’s 7.3+ million vegans, the series is worthwhile for its legitimately fantastic-looking recipes and cooking tips. But if you don’t fall into either one of those categories, Vegucating Robin probably isn’t for you.
