Conventional wisdom about writing is conventionally wrong.
Technically, this isn’t a music video.
Doesn’t matter. It’s a video. There’s a snippet of music here and there.
And people should watch it, because the world has gone crazy.
P.S. I’ve been busy, and quiet on the blog. Working on things. Will post more soon.
I’m not alone in adoring Kate McKinnon’s impression of Hillary Clinton during the campaign, though Alec Baldwin’s job as Trump got more attention.
This song, though, hit me hard. Who knew she could play piano and sing? (If you don’t know the song, it’s by Leonard Cohen, who just died.)
Capping it off? Her lines after the song is over, when you can she’s choked up. Appropriate for our times.
Though she does a great Clinton (below), she also does spot-on impressions of Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
So she can act and sing. If she could dance, McKinnon would be a triple threat.
Yeah, she can dance.
Kate the McKinnon, please keep on doing what you do and we won’t give up.
This is the video that has the internet, and the mainstream media, losing their minds.
It’s like The Dress, except whether a bit of fashionable fabric is blue or gold didn’t really matter to anyone, while the existence of massive alligators roaming golf courses could, in fact, matter a great deal to ALL THE PEOPLE IT GOBBLES UP.
So yeah, this is exciting and fun. Let’s break it down.
We all know how you make a fake video, or do special effects in movies. It starts with a green screen.
Adding a moving object that goes straight across, left to right, on the same plane? Piece of cake.
Audio that’s all chopped up points to film that got edited to bits.
With most footage of real-life craziness, the person shooting it has a choice: (a) run far, far away from Things That Can Kill You, like tornadoes, great white sharks, zombies or alligators the size of garbage trucks, (b) risk your life to see it, but only from a safe distance, (c) get as close as you can for a real look at the thing and a chance for YouTube infamy or (d) be smart and use the magic of zooming to get a closer look without turning into lunch.
Why is the shot so static? Anybody with two brain cells to knock together would zoom in on this monster.
No, not that Shadow.
Check out the shadow of the gator as it crosses the sand trap. Pretty hard to fake that.
If you’ve ever watched National Geographic, The Crocodile Hunter or any other show dealing with nature, you’ve seen crocodiles and alligators. And yeah, they get big.
It’s a reptile thing. I believe reptiles keep growing and growing until they die.
Could be wrong. Not a scientist. Wait, I’m right. They grow forever.
If you told me this video was shot in Georgia, Michigan or California, I’d be 149 percent more skeptical.
But we’re talking about Florida, the only state with it’s own Fark tag.
Weird news and Florida go together like chocolate and peanut butter, Han Solo and Chewbecca, coffee and milk.
There’s so much weird news coming out of this state, there’s a Twitter account dedicated to insane headlines that all start with “Florida Man,” as in “Florida man dresses like ninja to rob 7-Elevens” or “Florida man hides from cops in pond, gets eaten by alligators.”
Verdict: Real.
Snopes.com investigated this issue, because somebody had to, and they dug up the truth.
This alligator is not only real, he’s well-known and pretty chill. Hasn’t eaten any golfers that we know of and is kind of a mascot for the course.
So there’s something stuck in your eye, right?
Let’s talk about why this works, as a story, and how it could be even better. Because I’m not adding value by simply sticking funny or heartwarming videos in your feed. We have to dissect them and learn a little. SCHOOL IS IN SESSION.
Why this works and how to make it better:
1) The mangled start doesn’t matter–yet fixing it would’ve made it even more viral
This video works even if you read the story on Huffingtonpost or wherever, and know all the story beats, before you watch the thing. That’s how good the story is.
HOWEVER: Starting out a video with text screens like this is almost always a mistake. Cramming all the text in the beginning slows it down and I bet a good percentage of people bail in those first few seconds instead of sticking with it, which is a mistake.
How to fix it: Start with video of the dog chained up. We don’t need any text to understand the problem, to get that setup. Then if you really have to, add a little voice narration. I’d kill the text screen entirely.
2) Our narrator takes risks and is a hero
The narrator keeps the focus entirely on Rusty the Dog, but he shows real heroism, taking time–and risks.
He spends time to get to know this dog, repeatedly risks getting bit and confronts the owner, saying he’s not leaving without the dog. That took guts.
And all the while, he knows his family can’t adopt the dog, that he’d have to find another home for it.
Everything the narrator does is unselfish, and while he doesn’t focus on it, or take credit, this makes the story better.
3) The biggest possible gaps
Conflict and surprise comes from the biggest possible gaps between expectation and result.
This is a little story, a tiny snippet of life. But it made me feel more than most of the action movies that I’d happily paid money to watch and wouldn’t see again.
I’d see this again. I’d smile to see a follow-up, to find out how Rusty is doing.
And I’d want to shake the narrator’s hand for taking some risks, and doing the right thing, for an old dog most people would avoid and forget.
Loved this. Our own Hound of the Baskervilles gets faked out every time I pretend to throw the ball and palm it. Where’s the ball? The ball? I CAN’T FIND THE BALL!
But what about cats?
How can you not love this?
The Oatmeal is a local man turned cartoon phenom, and all he touches turns to gold. Including this kickstarter campaign, which has raised five bazillion dollars.
Even though these three men could grab that cash and run away to a life of beaches and margaritas, I hope they make this game. It’s a lot better than Go Fish.
More posts for your amusement and possible education:
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Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that won some award and is represented by Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.
This is funny, sure. But the Series of Tubes is packed with funny little things involving dogs, cats and kids with painted faces at county fairs who like turtles.
Let’s dissect this little piece of film to see what makes it work.
First, there are no words getting in the way of the images. This isn’t a PowerPoint slideshow. Nobody has to explain the joke, and it actually works better than English speakers like me have no idea what the announcer or anybody is saying, though it would not shock me if this is Scandanavian, if not Swedish, and make me have a sad for not speaking Swedish.
Second, there’s actually a structure to it, despite being so short. There are two setups before we get to the payoff, two different dogs doing the right thing, and ignoring all the food and chew toys, before the last dog decides obedience courses are a free buffet.
Third, the Benny Hill music makes it all work. Right when the setups are over and we get our payoff, the music puts you right there, and the golden retriever rewards us, not once or twice, but again and again, going after every treat in sight and ignoring all commands.
This snippet of moving pictures gives us the biggest possible gap between expectation (obedience) and result (chaos).
There is no shortage of funny or strange videos on the Series of Tubes, and it takes no great talent to find them.
HOWEVER: It takes some talent to make something as long, and interesting, as TOO MANY COOKS.
Before you watch it, listen: this thing starts out slow, and if you’ve never watched bad TV shows from the ’80s and ’90s, because you weren’t born yet, or have a rule about never watching the Glowing Tube, some of these parodies will fly over your head like a B-2 bomber.
I don’t believe there are any bad words or anything other than cartoonish violence and creepiness, but be warned that it does get weird, though I think in an interesting way. This really is something for people who grew up watching reruns of The Brady Brunch, TJ Hooker, Airwolf, Battlestar Galactica, Wonder Woman and about seventeen other shows. Funny stuff. Watch, then we’ll dissect it.
So: there’s no way to name every single genre and show that video just parodied. The list is ginormous.
From a big picture, though, the secret seems to be how this is different from Saturday Night Live skits from the bad old days, where writers took one funny idea and beat that dead horse all the way to the glue factory.
TOO MANY COOKS is the opposite. Despite repeating the opening song again and again (though they twist it), they’re actually cramming five metric tons of funny ideas into one parody skit, constantly changing their target to different genres and specific Bad TV Shows We All Used to Love.
Love is a big part of this. You can’t film a video of this breadth and style without loving those shows, and knowing them incredibly well. I could write a pretty good fake Airwolf script, and completely skewer it, because as a pookie, I watched that show religiously and adored the thing. Jan Michael Vincent FTW! And yeah, that thing was terrible when you fire up an old episode on YouTube now. But we loved our TV trash, and part of us will always love it.
Here’s why: entertaining trash, however trashy, is still entertaining, while pretentious nonsense, however well done, is still pretentious.
Well done, crazy makers of this parody.
That’s when fighting stopped during the Great War, the War to End All Wars.
And it’s why we celebrate Veterans Day on Nov. 11, whatever day that falls on the calendar.
I grew up on Air Force bases in New York, Washington, Germany, the Netherlands, so I know a bit about the sacrifices vets and their families make. You don’t sign up for the military for the money, or the hours. You do it for unselfish reasons. To serve.
So for all the veterans out there, including my dad (Vietnam), grandfather (bomber pilot, World War II), uncles and friends who served with honor and distinction, we salute you, even though most of us would probably do it wrong.
And we thank you. Always.
Also: Kudos to the students at Issaquah High School who made this video. You clearly put a lot of time and energy into it, and that emotion comes through.
You have to feel for journalists and publishers, since everybody else insists on (a) swiping content from newspapers and magazines, (b) “aggregating” all that content on the Series of Tubes before (c) having your hot startup get bought out by Silicon Valley for $300 million while (d) the journalists who created all that content get pink slips.
So yeah, any form of advertising that’s bringing money to print is a godsend.
HOWEVER: John Oliver is right when he goes off about “native advertising,” a new twist on an old concept. Instead of having news, then ads, why not knock down those walls and make the ads look just like news?
I still believe that real ads in real newspapers and magazine are far more effective than banner ads on the web. Also, this trend can’t last forever. John Oliver is right about somebody having to create all this content, and get paid for it. The trouble is how easy newspapers and magazines made it to either read the stories for free — most paywalls are a joke — or “aggregate” the stories online with no consequences.
Either way, John the Oliver is proving that you can go on deep, 11-minute comedy rants that actually educate people, about serious topics, while making them laugh. Lectures are boring. Mockery is the greatest weapon.
The Red Pen of Doom 