A Series Of Tubes

[July 9th, 2008]

Historians will someday look back on our time as the golden age of television—at least on the Internet. From southpark.com archiving every filthy brainchild of Trey Parker and Matt Stone to hulu.com broadcasting episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Major Dad, there’s no need to pay for cable if you’ve got a nearby wi-fi connection. What’s more, some of the best sitcoms currently being made are only available online. Here are four of the shows slowing productivity at WW World Headquarters:

Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager

Chad Vader proves what most nerds have known for a long, long time: Everything sounds funny when you say it like Darth Vader—or, in this case, his less famous brother, Chad. This eight-part series—created by Web nerds Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda—pretty much lives and dies by that truth, and the simplistic storyline (Chad has trouble with co-workers at a grocery store and repeatedly tries to date a check-out clerk) only garners as many laughs as the Vader joke allows. Still, with a gag this good (Yonda’s Vader impression is impeccable), the plot isn’t really important. When an employee refuses to work a weekend shift, Vader tells his boss (whom he refers to as “my master”), “Our plans to make this station fully operational on Saturday may be jeopardized.” He becomes preoccupied with the “laser check-out system.” He gets drunk and announces to a bartender, “I love Chocolatinis, they are my favorite little playmate.” An occasional heartwarming scene (Vader lighting a co-worker’s cigarette with his lightsaber) and odd situation (Vader working at a phone company’s call center: “I am altering the deal—pray I don’t alter it any further”) are enough to keep you waiting for the next delicious bit of dialogue. A second season, as unnecessary as that sounds, is supposedly in the works. CASEY JARMAN. blamesociety.net/chadvader/

Peep Show

An actual television series—a cult hit in Britain—Peep Show doesn’t rightly belong on this list but, while its first season is available stateside on DVD, the latest four can only be found online. Besides, it’s simply too good not to mention—and too innovative, for that matter. It takes the British comic trope of mismatched flatmates—the libidinous dandy and the nervous sad-sack—and makes it horrifyingly, hilariously intimate by shooting the battle of witlessness from a point-of-view camera. So every confrontation between Mark (David Mitchell) and Jeremy (Robert Webb) is seen exclusively through their eyes, and sometimes those of Jeremy’s coked-out pal Super Hans (Matt King), who seems to be staging a one-man revival of Withnail and I. (Fittingly, he gets all the best lines, such as a description of record-industry executives: “Sitting behind their big marble desks, clicking their fingers to the fucking Lighthouse Family, getting their dicks sucked by a big Alsatian dog.”) Each POV is accompanied by the corresponding internal monologue—Peep Show recognizes that the best comedy is humiliation plus perspective. AARON MESH. video.google.com (search for Peep Show).

Yacht Rock

In J.D. Ryznar and Hunter Stair’s series chronicling the humble beginnings of the adult contemporary music of the late ’70s, events that never left the recording studio 30 years ago are dramatized to the point of hilarity. A plot line running over 11 episodes is built on a solid foundation—an undying devotion to smooth music—and comes complete with heroes Michael McDonald, Steely Dan and “music industry mogul” Koko Goldstein battling villains Hall and Oates, Van Halen and Journey frontman Steve Perry, who lures a confused Kenny Loggins away from the smooth sound. The premise is simple: employ various means (sometimes alcohol or the sentence “It came to me in a dream”) to re-create the back-story behind the lifeblood of major musicians of the day. The effect is unexpected: After watching a group of people devote their lives to a musical genre, you too become an advocate for the smooth. When John Oates tells Daryl Hall to get his dick out of his heart, his affront to smooth music made me learn a little bit about myself. I found myself doing something I thought I’d never do: buying a Doobie Brothers album. JOSEPH WATTS. channel101.com/shows/show.php?show_id=152

Clark and Michael

For those still mourning the loss of Arrested Development, the 10-episode mockumentary Web series Clark and Michael (made by Arrested’s golden boy Michael Cera, who played George Michael Bluth) is perfect for easing the pain. The series follows Clark (played by Clark Duke) and Michael’s struggle to pitch their idea for a television show to Hollywood brass. Naturally, the process is rough for the awkward and idealistic adolescents, who are pros at bickering like an old married couple. The show has the same biting, whip-smart edge that made Arrested a cult hit, and even features cameo appearances by Cera’s old co-stars (David Cross, Tony Hale and creator Mitchell Hurwitz). After their script gets rejected by the fictional network ATC Family, Michael screams, “ATC Family rested their balls on our chins and brushed our teeth with their dicks!” Yeah, this show is that good. WHITNEY HAWKE. clarkandmichael.com