CH as its own series

Talk about commodoreHUSTLE, LRR's continuing web series.
Wolfenbarg
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Wolfenbarg » 26 Apr 2011, 17:47

CancerBottle wrote:
Wolfenbarg wrote:Well... see your avatar. Mike Michaud had the brilliant idea of bringing more than a dozen reviewers into one place, headlined by the Nostalgia Critic. You can also see examples of great shows on the Escapist, whether they're commentary like Zero Punctuation and Extra Credits, or running series like Apocalypse Lane and Doomsday Arcade. Right now, things tend to get lost in an absolute sea of content, but sites like the ones I just mentioned are changing up the game. While they won't become juggernauts like NBC, you'll see major websites competing with similar ideas and delivery platforms within this decade. There is a sea of content, but the key qualifier is "good." You can tell the level of technical prowess of the crew by sound, how a show looks, and how tight the script opens.


I see what you mean, but sustainability is key. TGWTG has to keep introducing new shows as current ones get stale. The internet does negate the need for a distributor to a certain degree.

Preserving intellectual property is trickier though. And I'm not sure whether it's for the better or worse. Had ZP been picked up by a TV network, I wonder how many other reviewers would be taken to the cleaners.


Sustainability is an issue right now, but look how many shows came and went during the early days of television. The key thing we're still waiting on is focused advertising that doesn't interfere with the creation of content, much like a TV network has, though in a different form. When that happens, people can actually afford to make content creation their full time job, they can afford to hire additional writers, and sustainability will be a non-issue.

I don't see how intellectual property is an issue at all. If you're using someone else's content, then yes, but if not, then everything posted is still owned by you for a period of 50 years.
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CancerBottle
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby CancerBottle » 27 Apr 2011, 04:00

Wolfenbarg wrote:I don't see how intellectual property is an issue at all. If you're using someone else's content, then yes, but if not, then everything posted is still owned by you for a period of 50 years.


I'm talking about enforcement. It's easy to grab something and claim it as your own. It's trickier to prove online who came up with what first. LRR has had many of its videos downloaded and re-posted and sometimes edited. Speaking of which: http://vimeo.com/groups/secondstory/videos/20718237 Obviously infringement is much more difficult carry out with videos than images, but it still discourages creators from releasing content.

On getting people to seek out additional content from a particular source, I just listened to the LRRcast for "Pull Yourself Together." Matt and Morgan were talking about how frustrating it was seeing the comments for "Talk Like a Pirate" posted on all the Talk Like a Pirate Day Facebook groups. Everyone was writing "LOL. This is so funny, there should be more of this." Loadingreadyrun.com was IN THE VIDEO like it always is, yet people weren't inclined to check out the site.
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Wolfenbarg » 27 Apr 2011, 11:46

CancerBottle wrote:
Wolfenbarg wrote:I don't see how intellectual property is an issue at all. If you're using someone else's content, then yes, but if not, then everything posted is still owned by you for a period of 50 years.


I'm talking about enforcement. It's easy to grab something and claim it as your own. It's trickier to prove online who came up with what first. LRR has had many of its videos downloaded and re-posted and sometimes edited. Speaking of which: http://vimeo.com/groups/secondstory/videos/20718237 Obviously infringement is much more difficult carry out with videos than images, but it still discourages creators from releasing content.

On getting people to seek out additional content from a particular source, I just listened to the LRRcast for "Pull Yourself Together." Matt and Morgan were talking about how frustrating it was seeing the comments for "Talk Like a Pirate" posted on all the Talk Like a Pirate Day Facebook groups. Everyone was writing "LOL. This is so funny, there should be more of this." Loadingreadyrun.com was IN THE VIDEO like it always is, yet people weren't inclined to check out the site.


That makes more sense. Videos like 3 PS3s hit youtube and got more than a million hits. However, lacking a current solution doesn't reduce viability. A high quality web series that gets picked up by a major website will not have that problem, as sites like youtube will take copyright infringement much more seriously from a distributor than from an individual.

Because like I said, that's part of the current climate. Changes in media don't happen instantly. But hey, every time Wong Fu Productions makes a short film, they get hundreds of thousands or a million plus hits, every single time. People are figuring it out.
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Cho_J » 26 May 2011, 00:10

Aydin225 wrote:Perhaps CH is similar. Those closest to it (the writers and hardcore fans) see it as a niche thing, which it certainly is. But the ensemble cast of wacky characters and their various quirks can appeal to everyone. Graham's horror at the giant creepy doll, the NESbox 360, Kathleen's cat obsession--all those kinds of jokes are relate-able to way more than just gamers and fans of LRR


I very much agree with this, especially when it comes to Season 2. I've actually begun to think of cH Season 1 and cH Season 2 as two entirely different shows, mostly because Season 1 had a 11.5 episode long arc and contained many more in jokes, whereas Season 2 has shorter plots, and the nature of the inside jokes has changed. The most prominent Season 2 in joke that requires prior LRR knowledge is just the premise of the crew playing their exaggerated selves; those exaggerated versions have sort of built up over time though the various older videos where they played "themselves." But the rest of the Season 2 in jokes are often running gags within HUSTLE itself. For example, Graham's fear of creepy dolls is a big joke in LRR fandom in general, but IIRC it was introduced through cH and hasn't popped up elsewhere). Compare that to the joke in Season 1 where Bill casually says, "well, at least you're not dead." Now, that's not a big joke if you get it, but it's not a joke at all to someone who has no idea LRR once made a video called At Least You're Not Dead.

So, I think Season 2 is very appealing to outsiders, as some of the previous posts in this thread can attest, and Season 1 certainly can be. I think if you took away the in jokes in Season 1, the "fan service" jokes if you will, it would still be a smart, funny show. But as someone who gets and loves the fan service jokes, I think the show loses something in having them taken away. In fact, I initially disliked Season 2 for that reason; I've since come to enjoy it for what it is, i.e. as Aydin said, "relate-able to way more than just gamers and fans of LRR."
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Aydin225 » 08 Jun 2011, 20:32

I showed my girlfriend the "It's Magic" episode of CH this week. She has just discovered MTG, and so I know she'd get the references, but she knows absolutely nothing else about LRR, and hasn't seen a single other LRR video except for "The Arms Race" which she also enjoyed.

She absolutely died laughing at it. The jokes throughout the episode are genuine laughs even for people who don't know how deep CH-Kathleen's cat obsession runs. I think her enjoyment of it shows just how great CH can be. She is not a nerd, or a gamer at all. I've introduced her to Magic just as a thing we can do together, and she enjoys it, but she doesn't play video games, or know who Joss Whedon is. However, she has now seen and loved 2 episodes of Commodore Hustle, and were I to bring her a DVD of the series, she would likely watch and love them all.
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby CancerBottle » 09 Jun 2011, 05:43

"The Arms Race" is very much a stand-alone episode like much of S2+ of cH. Your girlfriend is familiar with MTG. "It's Magic" is loaded with references to the MTG game and player culture, so she'd be familiar with that. I was only vaguely familiar with MTG, but a huge LRR fan, so the antics of familiar characters was the biggest source of entertainment for me. The LRR crew are great writers and actors, however, which makes most of their material very accessible. Episodes like "It's Magic" are great episodes to introduce people to LRR because of the references to outside material. Hopefully most new viewers of S1 cH will view the meta-humor as a challenge to watch the archives and come back and full appreciate the writing, not as a turn-off.

In any case, well at least in my case, accessibility isn't a big issue for LRR, it's getting other people to begin watching it consistently. I've shown probably dozens of LRR vidoes--everything from Unskippable to Man Cooking--to my friends and they seemed to enjoy them all. But as of yet, none of them make LRR a stop on their daily internet routine.
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Kyogissun » 08 Aug 2011, 22:17

Graham wrote:We try to keep the episodes pretty funny even if you don't know who we are, so that's good to hear!
:D


As a non-LRR fan prior to seeing cHustle, I'd like to raise my hand in the 'I got hooked on LRR through cH' group as well. It was that enjoyable. Being a fan of meta-humor and just general cynical/sarcastic kind of comedies like cHustle, Community and many other comedy shows, it just sort of 'clicked' for me.
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Duckay » 09 Aug 2011, 16:18

I had a weird relationship with cH at first. I didn't like it at first, when I just watched an episode here and there out of order ("Red" and "The Gay Chicken", which are... not the best episodes to start on), but then I really got into it when I actually watched it all in order. And I find it funnier as I go through the back catalogue of LRR videos and suddenly get jokes that I never got before, or thought were jokes about something else.

I don't know. I think it could work as a standalone thing, but you do really benefit from a) watching it all in order, and b) having some outside LRR knowledge.
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby [The]Rock » 25 Aug 2011, 22:23

I'm wondering what happened to Paul 'fixing' things.
I came, I saw, I got bored, I left...

Keep Rockin' (no pun intended)

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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Graham » 26 Aug 2011, 14:00

[The]Rock wrote:I'm wondering what happened to Paul 'fixing' things.

It'll be back :)
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Geoff_B » 26 Aug 2011, 14:04

Well he tried to fix Matt's teeth in the last vid (which wasn't CH I know), and he was wearing his goggles and lab coat so that counts right? Fixing teeth FOR SCIENCE!
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Aydin225 » 26 Aug 2011, 21:06

"Paul, what are you doing?"
"Science!"

the NESbox360 is still one of my favorite gags
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Wolfenbarg » 27 Aug 2011, 14:56

The NESbox360 was one of my favorite gags just because of how genuine James laughing at Matt seemed.
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Geoff_B » 28 Aug 2011, 12:24

What about Resident Evil in the form of King's Quest? Paul rocks when he fixes thing FOR SCIENCE!
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby [The]Rock » 28 Aug 2011, 14:19

Graham wrote:
[The]Rock wrote:I'm wondering what happened to Paul 'fixing' things.

It'll be back :)

Hooray!

'Continue your mating ritual, I'm gonna stay here and fix this Etch-a-Sketch'
'I have an Etch-a-Sketch?'
'Yeah! And it get satellite radio, or at least, it's supposed to'
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Vigafre » 28 Aug 2011, 14:24

Geoff_B wrote:What about Resident Evil in the form of King's Quest? Paul rocks when he fixes thing FOR SCIENCE!

Dragon's Lair, Geoff. Dragon's Lair.
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Geoff_B » 29 Aug 2011, 02:25

I stand corrected :D
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Re: CH as its own series

Postby Vigafre » 29 Aug 2011, 06:43

However, if Paul HAD made RE5 into King's Quest...

Well, I don't really know what would happen. I've never played King's Quest.

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