The first
time I saw a promo for HBO’s Flight of the Conchords, I was
sorely tempted to buy a ticket for the “Man, HBO’s Sunday nights are fucking
done” train. After exploding with a long string of landmark pop culture
touchstones, it almost seemed like a regression to throw up this tiny
musical/comedy weirdness from a couple of unknowns in their premier original
programming slot. After all, HBO had already (barely) featured Tenacious
D, and once you see one comic
folk duo singing weird/explicit lyrics and getting into misadventures, haven’t
you seen them all? Once I finally gave the show a fair chance several episodes
in, however, I was won over by the show’s subtle wit and innocuous charm. Dick
in a Box: The Series, it was not.
I
appreciate their efforts even more after hearing that MTV Films has just
snapped up the rather excruciating “What’s It Gonna Be?” online video from comedic
duo Million Dollar Strong to turn into a feature length film. Yup, a two-minute
comedy music video is being turned into 90-minute or so feature. And what a
feature it will be! For those unfamiliar with the clip, it’s an oh-so-original
and side-splitting faux rap video featuring a nerdy white guy at a bar dropping
f-bombs all over the place as he tries to get in the pants of some chick while
his Asian partner sprinkles ad-libs and falsetto bits all over the proceedings before
working up to a Michael Jackson dancing impression to finish the clip. Ah,
comedy.
Seriously…with
all of the possibilities that The Internet offers amateur comedians, why is it
that all of the “online sensations” are variations on the “Man, white people lewdly
rapping and/or singing R&B sure is funny!” template? You’ll never,
eeeeeeeeeeeever be able to top the self-parody of R. Kelly’s enduring “Trapped
in the Closet” series, so why try? Anyway, the duo, Mike O’Connell and Ken
Jeong (the jerk doctor from Knocked Up), will expand the scope of
the video to follow their tribulations as they try to make it in the modern
hip-hop world. If I had to guess, I’d say this will be a tad funnier than Marci
X and nowhere near as knee-slapping as, say, Be Cool. Which is to say,
it’s going to be celluloid cancer. Todd Phillips (Old School) is on to
produce, but there’s no director set yet.