With video streaming technology at an all-time high, the Internet has become the ultimate testing ground for new comedy shows. But did these webisodes come online because they were too strange and brilliant for TV, or because they just aren’t good enough? The Comedyblog is here to sort it out for you. If your favorite regular web series isn’t on this list, leave a comment about it and we’ll include it in the next batch.
CBS Innertube
BBQ BillWhat Is It?: A husky Blue Collar Comedy reject tours the countryside meeting so-called interesting people, attempting to somehow relate every human hobby to BBQ.
Should It Be On TV?: Definitely not, but at the same time, it’s no worse than most time-filler segments on the Travel Channel.
Animate This!What Is It?: Boring non-celebrities like George Takei and Jennifer Love Hewitt tell incredibly useless stories, which are set to unfunny animations.
Should It Be On TV?: Seeing as how it’s a complete rip-off of Comedy Central’s
Shorties Watchin’ Shorties, it already has been. But no, neither show belongs on TV.
Comedy Central MotherloadAll Access: Middle AgesWhat Is It?: A brash, overdone TV-magazine spoof set in the Middle Ages.
Should It Be On TV?: The costume and makeup budget gives it a higher production quality than most web shows, but the jokes are either poorly improvised or poorly written, making it nigh-unwatchable even on broadband.
Baxter & McGuireWhat Is It?: The uncannily stupid adventures of two poorly rendered CGI testicles.
Should It Be On TV?: The idea is too skimpy to even work in one-minute segments. A half hour of talking nuts would send ratings to a new low. But it would still probably be funnier than
Drawn Together.
GuacamoleWhat Is It?: Some lazy filmmakers place food items in front of a hand-held camera and then totally pretend the groceries are talking.
Should It Be On TV?: Maybe. It isn’t great, but when Lettuce makes a war documentary starring hot dog buns as the soldiers, it gets dangerously close to being stupid enough to work.
Balloon HeadsWhat Is It?: Some lazy filmmakers put cut-outs of celebrities’ faces on balloons attached to action figures, and then force them through horrible sketches that always end with the balloons bursting.
Should It Be On TV?: It’s so bad that it makes you pine for the hit-and-miss mediocrity of
Robot Chicken. So no.
Moonwalk 1986What Is It?: An unimaginatively shot series of conversations between two astronauts on the moon. In 1986. We guess.
Should It Be On TV?: The creators are attempting to give the Colonel the sort of sinister humor that made
Aqua Teen Hunger Force and
Tom Goes to the Mayor successful, except that their idea of sinister is using an unlicensed vacuum cleaner and other boring misdemeanors. If it were on TV, people would tune out faster than they would at their kid neighbor’s DV home movies.
MonstersWhat Is It?: Badly drawn monsters have pointless adventures.
Should It Be On TV?: In addition to featuring animation that makes
South Park look like Pixar, it’s also pretty much the dumbest thing we’ve ever seen. The latest installment features brilliant monster quips such as “You suck like a White House intern,” before quickly topping itself with “You suck worse than a Pauly Shore movie.” Edgy!
Good GodWhat Is It?: A workplace sitcom set in God’s office.
Should It Be On TV?: There are certainly worse shows on. The see-through attempts to borrow the “awkward humor” of
The Office get old fast, but it does have its share of laughs, like when God’s assistant walks in on him attempting to lift objects while pretending to have paws, ultimately deciding that he “gave raccoons a raw deal.” Also, the Angel of Death as played by a shameless black grandpa is a pretty fantastic character.
Zero TVMark and MikeWhat Is It?: A documentary series following Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank of
American Movie fame as they promote their new movie and generally hang out and do nothing.
Should It Be On TV?: These guys can be great fun, but the filmmakers throw in every bit of footage they have, and there’s very little to get excited about. With a bigger budget, though, Mark and Mike could possibly work.
Heavy.ComSuperficial FriendsWhat Is It?: Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, and the Olsen Twins get into all sorts of animated hijinks.
Should It Be On TV?: A show that makes fun of such easy targets is an easy target itself, so the Comedyblog will spare you a rant about just how unfunny this is. But no, it should definitely not be on TV.
Behind the Music That SucksWhat Is It?: Obviously, it’s a
Behind the Music spoof profiling bands that supposedly suck, using animated photographs of the band members.
Should It Be On TV?: MTV has aired worse, but the attempts at media satire are wafer-thin, and it tends to try to get laughs by talking very fast and loud in silly Robin Williams voices.
Independent (DotComedy, YouTube, Etc.)Untitled News Comedy ShowWhat Is It?: A fake news show that features viewer-submitted jokes.
Should It Be On TV?:
The Daily Show and
Weekend Update pretty much have the market cornered on the comedy news format, and the viewer-submitted jokes are an excellent argument for why viewers should stay just that.
Nobody’s WatchingWhat Is It?: Two comedians perform short, pop-culture-savvy sketches.
Should It Be On TV?: Apparently, it almost was, after its Internet popularity convinced NBC to take a closer look at it. They decided no, and surely you’ll agree once you watch the skits, which use the same concept as the
Scary Movie series, which is that merely reminding audiences of a movie or TV show they’ve seen equals comedy.
has been out for over three years. Presumably the third and final season won't take nearly as long.
followed up by a hits collection instead of further complete releases, fans can be partially consoled by Shandling's intense involvement in tricking out the four-disc collection, namely with a series of hand-held interviews with many of the show's stars and guests, including Jeffrey Tambor, Rip Torn, Jerry Seinfeld, Alec Baldwin, Jon Stewart, David Duchovny, Carol Burnett, Sharon Stone, and Tom Petty. But don't expect a lot of dull trips down memory lane... Instead, Shandling uses the tool as a peace offering for many of the actors, since he's withdrawn from social life since the end of the show and feels he owes an apology to the folks he's been ignoring. Many are former close friends he's meeting, on camera, for the first time in years, and the footage sounds strange and fascinating, from a semi-vindictive boxing match with Baldwin, to an awkward conversation with his violently estranged fiancée Linda Doucett.
(click to buy)
(click to buy)
