The wonderful world of online comedy is diverse in scope and gigantic in scale, which occasionally necessitates posts like theseto capture some of the funny you might have missed. Below, check out four very different comedy series currently making the rounds online: three newbies, and one old-timer back for its last hurrah.
Have you been missing Midwest Teen Sex Show, or at the very least its host, Nikol Hasler? Well she’s back with Real American Family, a new infotainment series aimed this time not at teenagers but at adults.
I was only able to watch Episode 3 (the back-to-school episode, which is hosted on Funny or Die) as the show’s home on PIC.tv was undergoing maintenance, but what I saw I liked: The combination of parenting advice and comedy went down smoothly, kind of like Sesame Street for grownups, thanks to the show’s high-energy cast.
Hasler’s deadpan style in this setting is sometimes a little too dead to spark life on-screen, but she gets in some killer lines. “Your kid’s teacher spends a lot of time with your child,” she remarks casually at one point. “I spend a lot of time with your child too, because I’m in the Internet.”
Oh-so-modestly named, this series produced by comedy team Junior Varsity aspires not to do stand-alone sketches, but a fully realized sketch comedy show in under five minutes. Think Kids in the Hall with the Internet’s attention span and less cross-dressing; not every joke lands, but unlike another sketch comedy show I could mention, when an idea isn’t working it doesn’t go on for another six minutes.
Production values are solid, and while recurring characters like the two obnoxious bouncers haven’t really found their voice yet, there’s a lot of potential here.
Horror comedies are a tricky think to balance, and in the case of this series, produced for Comcast’sĀ FEARnet, the scares aren’t necessarily there. Zombie Roadkill is also sadly, tragically burdened with the rote drunk and annoying pack of teenagers who inspire no sympathy or interest.
However, what is there are truly laugh-out-loud moments in the first episode involving a zombie squirrel brought (back) to life through some ingenious puppetry. Anyone with a fondness for the Muppets and a taste for gore will have a hard time containing their chuckles. It’s really a shame it’s not generally embeddable (the code below was provided by FEARnet publicity).
Woody Tondorf’s Far Side-inspired comedy has a super-dramatic backstory to go along with its several years online. Created initially for HBO’s digital division, the show was picked up by Break Media as part of their acquisition of HBOlab, but when Tondorf stopped working for Break, the show’s future was put into jeopardy.
Tondorf told us back in February that, with Break’s permission, he was planning one final season, and those plans are now finally coming together. The first new episode is out, and it’s a little more awkward and disjointed than past installments. But it also concludes with an intriguing challenge for any fan of the series — or anyone with Final Draft, for that matter.
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