The Inception of Political Attack Ads. Commercials within commercials.
A parody I wrote with Adam Sacks. Came out really well for something done in a few days.
Adam’s graphical work and my brother’s score really sell it.
Thanks to Matt Mayer, Nate Russell, Nat Freedberg, Rob Webber, Kent Kincannon.
LOUISIANA—BP workers today will try again to plug a leaking oil well spewing thousands of barrels of sludgy goop into the Gulf of Mexico.
The move comes as the gurgling sludge makes landfall on the Gulf Coast shoreline.
BP has tried since the April 22 sinking of the Deepwater oil rig to stop the oozing of viscous grime into the Gulf.
The new tactic involves injecting a slimey broth of mud and cement-like muck into the oil well, gumming up the leak through which so much gunkey black schmutz is escaping.
by Losk Samuels, Howto.com contributor.
From SNL to the Ohio State Flash Mob, we’ve all seen hilarious skits. Ever want to give it a try? Follow these 8 easy steps and you can!
1. Decide how funny you want your skit to be: funny, very funny or super funny. This will guide all the decisions you make. (If this is your first time, you should probably try for “funny.”)
2. Sit down—all modern writers write while sitting down. Anyone who says different is just plain lying.
3. Decide whether you want your skit to be about a person or a silly object. Either one is fine but you have to know the answer to start writing.
4. Pick a title. Attach one of the following suffixes: “-mania” “-tastic” or “-alooza”, (e.g. “Weird Cop” becomes “Weird Cop-alooza”).
5. Pick a location for your skit. Try to avoid offices — that’s a really played-out location for skits right now.
6. Pretend your cat is the person / silly object. What do you say to it? Write this down—this is your skit emerging!
7. At the end, have a character enter and say “And now for something completely different.” This is what writers call “the button.”
8. Do a Google search for the name of your skit + “Saturday Night Live” — if there are no hits, you’re in the clear. You just wrote a skit.
I’d like to announce the official World Series of Improv Round Robin NYC Improv Championship Tournament! Purpose: to crown the undisputed champion of our art!
I’ve taken the liberty of entering all 351 NYC indie improv teams, plus the 19 house teams at UCB, Magnet and the PIT.
Our first round kicks off Monday! It’s “A Dangerous Woman” versus “Zuleyka.”
Monday April 19 at the Creek, 245-315a.m.
House teams get a first-round bye and the Creek is only available weekday mornings and super late nights, so the first round should wrap up by January.
Good luck to all the participants!
First round matchup to watch: Daddy (58 seed) vs. The End of the World (297 seed).
Region 1 Bracket here. (One sixth of it is pictured above—that’s all that could fit in one post!)
New video from my team, The Brig.
Kudos to all the folks who came out to be extras for the bow scene. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing—tons of costumes and effort from lots of people for a one-second shot.
Cris Collingsworth is a former pro football player, current pro football announcer. NBC is using him to cover the Winter Olympics.
He’s doing okay:
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“Felix Loch has such great vision. He just lowers his head and follows the sled all the way to the end area.”
“[Lamy] Chappuis reminds me of Tom Brady.”
“Bode Miller grew up watching the great ones—guys like… the guys who skiied during the Roger Staubach era. “
“[Shaun] White really reminds me of Tom Brady.”
“Emil Hegle Svendsen—it just seems like this guy ALWAYS comes up big whenever there’s an important Olympic biathlon. At least in my experience.”
“Lindsay [Vonn] has a real Tom Brady thing going on.”
“The great ones just figure out a way to score. Lutzes, toe-loops—whatever it takes.”
“[Chad] Hedrick reminds of Drew Bledsoe right before he was replaced by Tom Brady.”
“These moguls are finding out what other moguls have been saying all season long: it’s nearly impossible to bring down Hannah Kearney.”
New video from my team, the Brig. For depressed people.
Brainstorming ideas for this video was seriously depressing.
One I remember: Even if you recycle every soda can you see for the rest of your life, there’s a guy out there who will do enough damage to the environment by himself to more than cancel out your efforts. Actually, there are millions of such people.
New video from my team, The Brig. I wrote this one. It’s a parody of Google’s popular Super Bowl ad.
Went up Monday and has gotten ridiculous attention online.
Kudos to Matt Mayer and Nathan Russell for making it look and sound pretty.
The Brig is the UCB house video team I write for. This is our first video. (N.B. “Unboxing” videos are real, if you haven’t seen them; a quick search on youtube will give you a flavor.)
