Don’t watch this

Posted by Kyle July 11th, 2006 at 05:11pm In Internets TV

I feel an obligation to warn you about something that's out there. It's called Nobody's Watching. And you shouldn't watch it. I've carved out a niche here on Tifaux for posting about online video, which is a medium I really want to succeed, but it's still lacking a bit in the quality department. I still haven't found much video on YouTube that approaches good production values and wasn't stolen. But I'm still looking. Trust me, you'll know when I find it.

So along comes this TV pilot. The New York Times wrote about it recently, but not so recently that you can read the article for free. I forgot about it until Maggie reminded me today. So I watched it. Because I'll watch shit on the Internet that I wouldn't watch on TV. And vice-versa. Depending on the situation. I wouldn't watch some of my own movies if I came across them onllne. It's just a different level of attention. In one way I have a much higher tolerance for Internet videos because my standards have been systematically lowered. But I'm also constantly aware of the infinite number of monkeys currently uploading new videos, and any one of them could be the Internet video equivalent of Hamlet which makes me a little anxious to try something else.

I watched the first two minutes of Nobody's Watching for my own curiosity. But I watched the rest for you people. The show was produced for the WB. It wasn't picked up. It's about two buffoons who love TV. The WB offers them the chance to make a sitcom. They get to live on a sound stage, everything is recorded, and they have their own studio audience, which the two gentlemen immediately pander to shamelessly. They impulsively hire two girls to work on the show. One is a blond, sensitive babe with huge breasts, and the other a tough, friendless executive assistant with small breasts. If there was any irony to the introduction of these walking cliches it went right over my head.

The actresses do fine in their empty roles, but what is it with young male comedians? Why do they overact so badly? I see a lot of Jim Carrey in their performances, but Jim Carrey was never this bad. They're the guys who wouldn't stop quoting Ace Ventura in high school and never really broke the habit when they started acting. Dudes: the microphone is really close to you. We can hear you just fine.

Why is everyone excited about this useless show? Well, somebody put it on YouTube. And 360,000 people have watched the first part since it was posted a month ago. And some network executives heard about this and thought they could save their job for another week if they took some meetings about it. But you know what? Only 120,000 watched the second part. That's a big drop off. If this was actually on TV they might say it had bad retention. And you know what happens when 120,000 people watch a TV show? It gets cancelled. And to put this in a more appropriate context, let me show you a video that's been watched by 146,000 people IN THE PAST DAY. It's much funnier. And the New York Times didn't even write an article about it. Think about that.