• I read a weekly newsletter called James Clear’s “3-2-1.” It comes out on Thursday afternoons, takes about three-five minutes to read and is full of pithy wisdom made up of ideas, quotes and hypothetical questions. Anyhow, this past week, he ended his edition asking “What’s something you could do to make today a success?” It was 10:00 PM when I read this. I thought to myself, “I’d feel good if I edited footage for a TikTok that I planned with my wife Anna Paone.” So, I forced myself to create a new Premiere timeline, slap some comic sans captions on short phone clips and then let it exist. Around 2.5 hours later, it was done. One of the easiest things I’ve ever made. Ran it past my Dad who told me to cut a clip from the vid (I didn’t because I’m stubborn) and then uploaded. Somehow, it caught the algorithm’s attention (the video I made before was at nine views which is the lowest I’ve ever seen on TikTok) and took off. 300 views turned into 15,000 turned into 125,000. It made no sense but I’ll take it and owe all my success to James Clear’s simple question that closed his weekly email. Otherwise, I probably would have sat on that footage for who knows how long? If you have any interest in seeing this little thing, here she is.
• Now that I’ve thrown a pretty gross humble brag into the universe, I’d like to spread some love for all the cool stuff I’ve seen this week to absolve me of my vanity. Let’s start with...
- Dan Perlman and Kevin Iso’s truly perfect pilot “Flatbush Misdemeanors.” This first episode, available on YouTube, is a neo-realist comedy devoid of score or soundtrack; it’s just a day in the life of friends schoolteacher Dan and delivery man Kevin who fall into major trouble with the wrong group when a food dropoff goes wrong and the two have to do their best to clean up their mess. What sounds like a prestige drama is full of laughs (Napoleon Emill steals many a scene disengaging with the action by playing video games while all the action ramps up around him), concludes with one of the most satisfying third acts I’ve seen in any episode of television this year and sets up a season I can’t wait to see the rest of. The fact that one can watch this excellent piece of cable television for free without a streamer is a gift that should be taken advantage of as soon as you can.
- Facebook gags used to be a real thing. In fact, I would often judge a comic’s social media presence based on their Facebook. Now, each and every day, the site becomes more of a ghost town turning into an afterthought in a landscape of other social media options. However, every so often, a comic comes up with a bit so perfect for the platform that there’s no better space to post it. That’s certainly the case for Michael Sullivan’s running joke about climbing the IMDb StarMeter. It’s equal parts hysterical and brilliant- Michael simply asks folks to click on his IMDb page to move past the most forgotten celebrities and this week surpassed Nicky and Alex AKA the other “Full House” twins. It’s smart funny but best of all, by checking his IMDb, I learned MIke played Gandalf in a short film called “Furry Chuck” in 2010. Thanks to this running stunt, I now know this. Job well done. You brought the Facebook gag back. Here is the holy grail that is his IMDb.
- As stand up makes its return, bookers and comics have to take a stance on how they feel about cancelled comics performing on their shows. It’s a complex conversation that should be simple and is examined with a light touch in Kylie Murphy’s short “Green” which takes place in a comedy club’s green room. The film provides a voice to the levelheaded comics who argue, “Who would know if he really did the things they said he did? The victims would” and those that defend the cancelled asking, “Do you think he’d never come back? He apologized.” It’s a tense 11-minutes and has a lot to say about how people openly talk to friends and clam up around opportunistic acquaintances, how the mention of a comic’s name can deflate an entire room and mostly what it’s like to be a coworker in a trade with no HR. Chilling stuff.
- My favorite series on Rizzle has to be “Stupid Music Videos.” I still find myself humming along to their catchy “Bug with a Big Fat Ass” but their newest release may be their best yet. Over a steamy, tropical beat, Adrian Frimpong croons the goofy ear candy track “Uncle Bod.” With lyrics like, “Cookie crumbs, sculpted ass, knees like broken glass” and distinctions between beachgoers that are “too hot” or “too dad” for Uncle Bod, the laughs come so fast that you’ll have to watch it multiple times to make sure you don’t miss a thing.
- Now that I’ve started paying more attention to the TikTok-sphere, I’ve got so much to catch up on. One of my major takeaways is that one of the absolute, most consistent home run hitters on the app has to be Kyle Gordon. After catching his one-minute “The Kid That Has No Fun At The Aquarium,” I was taken. The forgotten details of childhood like being deadly serious about marine life facts and overly giddy at the prospect of buying a necklace at the gift shop rang so true and brought me back to being nine-years-old reopening long dormant memories. And that’s just one of his many, very funny, varied quickies. You’re going to want to see all of his stuff before he’s on SNL in a year or two; get ahead of the curve.
- There’s nothing quite as fun as discovering a web series in the middle of its run. Each week, you anticipate the drop of a new episode wondering just how long the season will go and what the creators are going to do with it. That is certainly the case with Alex Stypula and Jono Hunter’s dark, animated “I Love My Night Drives.” Lushly drawn, each piece is roughly 90 seconds and wavers between heavy and stupid material making for the perfect comedy recipe. There’s currently three of these bad boys online with stories about a disappearing father, life after death and what happens when a Zoom call stops being fun and starts being kinda sad.
- Speaking of Showtime pilots, the network also dropped “Ziwe” in mid-May and the stylized debut is a fresh stunner (seriously, this is how you do an animated opening credits sequence). Ziwe, known for her confrontational interview style where she calls out guests for their credibility as an ally goes hard on seemingly untouchable Fran Liebowitz here asking questions like “What bothers you more- slow walkers or racism” and Liebowitz dances around the prompt like it’s a difficult question. This new half-hour proves we shouldn’t lionize anyone until Ziwe’s taken a swing at them; she provides the ultimate test one needs to pass. Also, stick around until the end for a segment with Gloria Steinem that you won’t want to miss. It’s ballsy, unapologetic, shameless and a bit goofy all at once culminating in belly laughs.
• With quarantine being “over over,” there’s a lot less time to sit back and take in all the entertainment you want guilt-free. Unless you’re me. Here’s what I plopped down and saw on screens big and small this week:
“Mythic Quest” (2020- ): Off the Morgan L train stop in Brooklyn, there’s a wall with a larger than life ad for this Apple TV show. It followed me when I visited. Everywhere I looked, the cast of “Mythic Quest” stared back. The advertising wore me down and like a pawn in their game, the next day I began the series. This is one of the rare cases where the ads were right. The show, midway through its second season, is in the vein of other workplace comedies popularized over a decade ago with “The Office” but feels very of the moment making fun of the creators, developers, monetization strategists, testers and influencers (one gamer rates game play on a scale of “one to five buttholes”) surrounding the “Fortnite” RPG surrogate “Mythic Quest.”
What one might assume is a show that is all fantasy is actually all grounded comedy about a pompous entrepreneur (Rob McElhenny, who you might know from “It’s Always Sunny”) who can’t really do much of anything but indisputably has great ideas and inspires his team. Throughout the course of the first season, unrecognizable characters become archetypes you’ve never seen before (Danny Pudi’s sociopathic, greedy Brad, F. Murray Abraham’s out of touch genius sci fi writer who has an arc beautifully paid off in the second season and best of all Jesse Ennis as the conniving, obsessed with the alpha males assistant who slowly plans to take over the whole operation) and by the end each new installment is so good and seems so un-toppable that every episode feels like the season finale. That’s not even to mention how Season One and Two both have standalone “backstory” special episodes wedged in- the first is about a married video game creator couple in the 90s and the second heartbreakingly covers a disappointing sci-fi writer in the 70s- that add layers to the story taking you to places that sitcoms rarely do- outside of the day to day at the office. It’s world building at its best.
Also, I’d kick myself if I didn’t share the series’ best joke where a sci-fi writer is led to believe an air conditioner is an AI that writes better than he does. His fear that the robots are taking over while knowing nothing about the technology sends up sci-fi writers without being too precious about it. I COULD SAY SO MUCH MORE BUT THIS IS AN EXCELLENT RIFF ON HOW DUMB IT IS TO MAKE PRODUCTS FOR KIDS AND WELL WORTH THE WATCH (Streaming on Apple TV).
“In the Heights” (2021): When the trailer dropped for this film in early 2020, the buzz around it was inescapable. It looked like the perfect summer film. Then, when it was understandably shelved due to you know what, it seemed like we’d never get to see it. Thankfully, Lin Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegría Hudes and Jon Chu’s magnum opus was released the way it was meant to be seen on the big screen this past weekend and seeing the joy, dance, song, colors and visual tricks in a dark theater with others felt like the return of cinema. Based on the Tony-award play of the same name, Anthony Ramos stars as Usnavi, an orphaned bodega owner who dreams of leaving the Heights for the Dominican Republic but is torn by his love for the neighborhood.
The whole operation reminds me of an aphorism, I keep seeing everywhere: simple story, complex characters. This movie is all that and has a ton more tricks up its sleeve. While a bit sappy, the “so hook-y you can’t get them out of your head” songs keep the action moving at a lively pace, smart choreography (at one point, wig stands quietly get in on the action in a salon) and gravity-defying dance moves keep you fully engaged and by the end, you might be a bit teary-eyed about how sweetly it all comes together. THE PERFECT SUMMER CROWD PLEASER (In theaters now! Also, on HBO Max but don’t do that).
*A note: Late in the film, a character finds a tagger’s graffiti rag on the ground and has a moment where she realizes she’s going to change her life and get back to creating. It’s a great scene but the best part was when a woman in the theater stage whispered, “Inspiration.”
This is why you see movies in public.
Andrew Santino on WTF: As an Arizona State alum, I had to listen to this episode spotlighting my alma mater’s most well-known comic/actor graduate. If this Santino character is someone you’ve never heard of, I’ll spare you the Wikipedia search- he’s L’il Dicky’s no-nonsense manager on “Dave” and the abrasive, edgy comic on “I’m Dying Up Here” among a million other bit parts and high profile stand up appearances. Here, he and Maron have an amiable chat becoming fast friends discussing Santino’s drug-addicted father leaving his family behind but never using in front of him, podcasts being updated drive time radio that comics used to loathe doing, those that nonstop complain about weather in Chicago yet never leave for warmer climes, being a lone wolf comic that doesn’t travel with a pack and how it feels to dislike material in your special released on a major network. Both own up to their many character flaws and as enjoyable as this is, I was a bit irked when Santino casually bragged about his acting ability saying that accessing emotions as an actor was “easy.” It may be for him but it felt a bit gross to hear. A good reminder for myself and others to never sound too braggadocious (coming from a guy who brought up his TikTok that did well).
• One last thing! If you’re looking for something to do next Saturday, want free pizza and to appear on camera in a sketch (or crew out), let me know. I’m filming from 11:00 AM-2:30 PM and need as many folks as I can get.
That’s all he wrote
