ScreenwriterGuy.com

Sometimes I miss my old sketch comedy days. There’s something special about being on stage with a group of friends who have poured their free time into creating entertainment, working to find out if those lines you’ve been honing are as funny as you hoped. It can be pretty magical to feel the chemistry of a few years of working together with the same performers. You learn nuances of a stage partners timing, their personality, their humor, that allow you to push things a little in one direction or another for the extra laugh. It taught me a lot about writing.

Of course, then I remember the parts when egos erupted, when handling producer details meant I still didn’t know my lines, when all that work was sometimes greeted by an audience of twelve.

Still, since I’ve been in L.A., part of me has been thinking it might be a smart move to put together a new troupe. After all, I have the experience of having built one before to draw upon, and L.A. is crammed full of people with all kinds of talent. It should be much easier this time around. Anything to get my writing out there in as many ways as possible, right?

I’ve finally decided to give it a shot, with one big change–I don’t want to make stage shows. Instead, I’ll focus on short comedy to put on the web. The fact is, those five years of sketch and improv were great, but I have nothing tangible to show for it. I’m happy to devote myself to starting a new group, but I don’t want to play for audiences of a hundred. Millions is a much better target. It’s hardly an original idea, and the last thing I want to sound like is one of those producers who talks a big talk about the internet being the way of the future, and viral video… viral, I say, and youtube and man this is gonna be great, everyone’s a director. Blah blah blah. Still, there’s no denying the potential.

I’ve been meeting with directors, DPs, and other potential crew members for a while. Yesterday, we had auditions for an actor to do a little solo project that will be our first effort. So things are progressing. There’s just one thing I need now:

A name.

Any ideas? I’m a believer that a clever, catchy name is very important. I’ve seen gatekeepers who have been MUCH more receptive to a pitch because the writer, myself or others, has started with a great title. My pilot script, “Fat Guy, Hot Wife,” always gets a good reception to its title. My old sketch troupe, “Some Kind of Cult,” got a little extra press because of it’s name. I find myself wishing I’d written down every time I’ve said, “Oh, that would be a great band name…”

Now I need a great name for the web page that will house the content that this nascent group of people will create.

I hereby ask the hive mind that is the internet for help… What are some of your favorite humor sites, especially if they have video content. What are some great sites with great names? What are some great sites with terrible names? Does the name have anything to do with your likeliness to visit?