by Ryan Albahary
College Humor started out as a website years ago created by two college friends, Rick Van Veen, and Josh Abramson. The website contains pictures, videos, blogs, and other articles about many different topics that the college aged kid would be interested in, there is something for almost anyone inside. The website has many original web-series created by the producers and founders of the site. The site also features original videos from the producers that are short one-time packages. The site features a way for the public to upload their own original idea. For the most part these are just friends having fun and making a living doing it. Over the years their popularity has grown and it landed them their own TV show, which they based off of a few web-series, they created in order to fill a full half hour time slot. The show takes place in the College Humor office staring actual employees.
On the College Humor website the company has had many successes with web series such as “Jake and Amir”, and “Hardly Working”. College Humor was one of the front-runners in web-television. These web series work very well online as short snippets of comedy. Some shorts tend to be better than other but one bad show isn’t going to turn away viewers. This is different when it comes to a TV show. The show needs to start off big and keep its viewers intrigued to tune in every week and wanting more. This is where The College Humor show falls short. It caused viewers to not want to watch the show after the first episode. College Humor has played out their comedy. Although it intrigues some, it is no longer all that original but after watching the same joke over and over again for 20 minutes it gets old.
The show doesn’t hold up for a full television series. The combination of “Jake and Amir” and “Hardly Working” doesn’t work together for that long of a period of time. The show was made to be watched on a smaller screen in shorter periods of time. Each episode of The College Humor show can be split up into at least three or four webisodes and they would in fact work better that way. It is easier to ignore story and character arc in a short webisode where you usually don’t have time to start to care about the character and get to know them. There is no character arc or story arc in any episode. Every episode could be the first episode. Nothing from past episodes are ever brought up and there is no real story line that follows through the series except the co-workers relationships with each other that doesn’t change. Each character stays exactly the same throughout the series and it gives you no reason to want to watch the characters after awhile. You tend to not care for the characters after awhile because they keep doing the same dumb things and it never works out as they planned.
The story throughout each episode barely holds up. After each commercial break you come back and the main story of the episode is not being paid attention to at all. The show is missing a substance that makes you want to keep watching it and the acting doesn’t hold us as a legit show. The show is shot in mostly medium shots, and medium close ups. These shots are more than often captured with a camera being hand held instead of steady on a tripod. Now when used appropriately the hand held shot is fine but when used for almost a full episode the shake becomes more of a disturbance and with no emotion being showed it doesn’t add to the attitude of the show. The shake is also more noticeable on the TV screen versus a smaller player such as the one used on their website.
In short The College Humor Show get ahead of itself when attempting to make the switch to the silver screen. After watching many of their web series and Television series it is safe to say that College Humor is best kept online. I viewed a few episodes of the series on TV and the ones I missed I watched online and I was able to enjoy it slightly more online but still found my self breaking up each episode and not watching them fully through. The College Humor Show had a good idea however it didn’t work out right and it’s a shame that it has gotten some bad publicity because of the show.
References:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/01/24/050124fa_fact2
http://www.collegehumor.com/thecollegehumorshow
http://newteevee.com/2009/01/27/collegehumor-serious-about-its-tv-show/
http://coedmagazine.com/2009/02/13/the-college-humor-show-sucks-balls/
http://coedmagazine.com/2009/02/13/the-college-humor-show-sucks-balls/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CollegeHumor
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Private High Musical: How Music Grabs an Audience on the Web
by Stephanie Haas
Private High Musical is a seven episode web series which parodies the Disney movie High School Musical. The series is about a girl who is a virgin at a new High School and is trying to find her place. The lead role is played by Taryn Southern who is a becoming a celebrity in the web series industry. Private High Musical also stars Mr. Belding’s Dennis Haskings who, according to tilzytv.com, is the star of the series. He plays the perverted school teacher who gives words of wisdom in the episode entitled “First Period.” Despite the great cast, the series is based off song and lyrics because without it, the web series may not have been as popular or recognized as it is.
The musical lyrics for the songs used throughout the series tell a story of what is going on and the whole theme of the series is supposed to be about learning how to get laid and getting high. This theme mixed with stereotypical high school characters creates humor for the viewer. With lyrics like “Welcome to our senior class, you’ll never have a problem getting any ass,” it is easy for the viewer to stay tuned to the next episode in hopes of hearing a new song that rhymes with sex. According to webtvhub.com, “if you’re looking for an actually entertaining musical, look no further than ‘Private High.”
Since Dr. Horrible, there had been no other web series that used music to capture their audience and tell a successful story. The series has been so successful that the series has gotten picked up my MTV to be turned into a television series. Tubefilter.com reports that “as part of the deal, MTV acquires the rights to the series, though Southern will remain a producer and actor in the show.” The use of music and witty lyrics, this web series has the potential to be successful and while maintaining its raunchy humor.
Private High Musical is a seven episode web series which parodies the Disney movie High School Musical. The series is about a girl who is a virgin at a new High School and is trying to find her place. The lead role is played by Taryn Southern who is a becoming a celebrity in the web series industry. Private High Musical also stars Mr. Belding’s Dennis Haskings who, according to tilzytv.com, is the star of the series. He plays the perverted school teacher who gives words of wisdom in the episode entitled “First Period.” Despite the great cast, the series is based off song and lyrics because without it, the web series may not have been as popular or recognized as it is.
The musical lyrics for the songs used throughout the series tell a story of what is going on and the whole theme of the series is supposed to be about learning how to get laid and getting high. This theme mixed with stereotypical high school characters creates humor for the viewer. With lyrics like “Welcome to our senior class, you’ll never have a problem getting any ass,” it is easy for the viewer to stay tuned to the next episode in hopes of hearing a new song that rhymes with sex. According to webtvhub.com, “if you’re looking for an actually entertaining musical, look no further than ‘Private High.”
Since Dr. Horrible, there had been no other web series that used music to capture their audience and tell a successful story. The series has been so successful that the series has gotten picked up my MTV to be turned into a television series. Tubefilter.com reports that “as part of the deal, MTV acquires the rights to the series, though Southern will remain a producer and actor in the show.” The use of music and witty lyrics, this web series has the potential to be successful and while maintaining its raunchy humor.
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