At the risk of posting two fantasy role-playing entries in a row, I have to admit to having recently discovered and loved the web series The Guild. Seven “webisodes” long so far, The Guild stars and is written and produced by Felicia Day, whose subtle suffering in performance is on par with a Jason Bateman or a Ricky Gervais. Her facial expressions deliver much of the series’ simmering humor.

Besides having been featured in season 7 of Buffy, Felicia’s face is familiar from the current Cheetos commercials in which the protagonist ruins a cranky woman’s laundry with fiery hot cheetos. I find myself, like the character Zaboo in the series, wanting to stalk her. I mean, she’s cute, a ridiculously talented actor who crafts sharp writing, and when building her own creative outlet chooses to tell stories about gaming nerds?! How hot is that?

If ever there was a sign that today’s youth is in danger of cultural brain rot, the trend in “comedy” that has included Date Movie, Epic Movie, and now Meet the Spartans is it. Fortunately, critics everywhere are jumping at the opportunity to get creative in trashing this film, and that’s got to do at least something to squash its chances. At the moment, there are 15 reviews posted at Rotten Tomatoes, giving MtS a cumulative score of 0%. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that every single critic gave no right to exist.

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I keep searching for funny comedy out there on the net. It’s surprisingly few and far between. If you’re looking for humor beyond monkeys getting kicked in the nads*, a fuzzy scene stolen from a 1993 episode of SNL, or youtubes of boarding school kids lipsynching to someone else’s youtube, you’re gonna have to search. Short, scripted comedy seems like the non-porn PURPOSE for the internet, and yet…

Anyway, here’s some of my faves lately. Some are new, some just new to me. All are pretty impressive, in my book.

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I was once involved in writing and performing a sketch about a pair of nerds stuck at a trekkie convention. They got locked out of a room, and in order to open the door they decided to use the wave motion gun. The characters in the sketch repeated their choice several times. The Wave Motion Gun. The wave motion gun? The WAAAVE MOTION GUN!!!

Every other night or so that we performed the show, we could hear someone in the back of the room laugh hysterically at this reference. If you were a fan of the 1970s anime import Star Blazers, you’re probably laughing right now, too. But the rest of you are about ready to stop reading this post.  This kind of joke is an example of what Jane Espenson calls a “two-percenter.” The idea is that the joke references something that only about two percent of the audience is likely to recognize. The joy of creating such a joke is that those few people who understand the joke think it’s reeeeeal hilarious.

The problem with this kind of writing is that 98% of one’s audience ISN’T laughing.

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I was talking the other day to a woman I want to involve in my online sketch comedy troupe. She was the talent in a short exercise we shot a few weeks ago, and she was both very skilled and great to work with, so I’d love to involve her as much as possible. I explained that the next step in the group-building plan is a big group audition, where we would all do writing exercises and improv together, and I’d ask each person who wanted to focus on acting to perform a short monologue. Strangely, she panicked a little. She was completely interested in participating, but she wanted me to understand that her monologue might not be very good.I was confused. The short we had shot together was essentially a monologue. She hadn’t had the tiniest problem with memorization, and she has some real comedy chops. So what was the problem? She can never find a good comedy monologue. Ahhh… That makes more sense. I’ve heard this complaint before. There are many, many choices for a man to show of his comedic timing, but it’s much tougher for a woman. It had always been my understanding that an actor’s audition monologues were supposed to be from plays that had been produced and would be recognizable, but she felt it was far more important to have a funny piece that could show off the actor. Makes sense. So, after reassuring her that she wasn’t going to ruin her standing with me through her monologue, I offered to write her something she could use. (Not so much for our audition, but in general.) I explained that I have made the offer to many actors that if they told me what kind of character they want to play, I would write them something to show them off. No one ever takes me up on it. Easier to complain, I guess. And after all, coming up with ideas is the writer’s job, not the actor’s.

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The reviews today are mixed over last night’s airing of an Americanized, half-hour Creature Comforts. Some critics are raving about the subtle humor and clever juxtaposition. Other critics say it goes on too long and there’s no laughs to be had. That second group of critics are the ones I like to call “dumb critics.” For those who’ve never seen the Oscar-winning short or the subsequent BBC series, this concept is built around interviews with everyday people. Then the creative team creates animates animals around the soundtrack of these everyday people speaking. Much of the wit comes from what animal has been chosen to exemplify the character of the person’s voice. In last night’s episode, for example, a woman speaking definitively about how she had no interest in the sexual advances of a male friend of hers was portrayed as a panda bear. Hilarious. Add to that the always fantastic undertones of Aardman-style animation (Wallace & Grommit) and you’ve got TV worth your 30 minutes.

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