I've got a gnome on my couch

July 28, 2007 8:41 PM

Watch The Guild!Why? Cuz it's the funniest damned thing since Leeeroy Jenkins! (more inside)
posted by ZachsMind (62 comments total)

There's a lot of comedy shorts on YouTube right now that are (in my not so humble opinion) quality stuff. Mediocre Films, LKG Productions, Awkward Pictures these guys I think kinda know each other so may be sharing resources but they're all mutually hilarious. Becca Sweetheart is funny and adorable and creepy all at the same time. Mark Day makes me laugh and makes me think. Slightly less humorous but just as good, Incidental Heroes is a more serious approach to episodic storytelling in this medium, but it's kinda for Heroes geeks and may not make sense to the uninitiated. Val's Art Diary takes vlogging into the realm of being an art form in and of itself. These are, in my opinion, some examples of the cream rising to the surface of the crop in YouTube land at the moment. There's more, but my point is that The Guild looks to me to be something that'll raise the bar. What do you think?
posted by ZachsMind at 8:41 PM on July 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

This World of Warcraft bit is more funny, and seems to be real.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:47 PM on July 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

Until this post this was the only Leroy Jenkins I'd ever heard of. And he's still the only one I'm interested in, but, hey, I'm just a boring old fart who's too old for all this video game stuff.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:50 PM on July 28, 2007

I loved the baby with the power strip.
posted by stavrogin at 9:06 PM on July 28, 2007

Hot chicks? Video games?

Haven't they ever heard of suspension of disbelief?
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 9:10 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

The more I think about it the more pissed off I am about that Leeeroy Jenkins thing. That swiping of jazz musician's names, though, and tacking them onto products and such, it has at least a couple of precedents:

Max Roach and Cecil McBee.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:11 PM on July 28, 2007

"You have a nice forehead."

I love it. I'm SO using that.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 9:15 PM on July 28, 2007

I'm afraid to click on this in case it's a Rick Astley video.
posted by infinitywaltz at 9:22 PM on July 28, 2007

I'm afraid to click on this in case it's a Rick Astley video.
posted by infinitywaltz at 11:22 PM on July 28

I clicked on it hoping it WAS a Rick Astley video.

Anyway, that chick is hot. I dread saying that because that usually earns some sort of reprimand around here.

She's neurotic, nerdy, and redheaded. That's like a trifecta for me. If she'd only had some small profile rimmed glasses it would have crossed into pornography.

Don't look at me like that.
posted by Ynoxas at 9:37 PM on July 28, 2007 [2 favorites]

"She's neurotic, nerdy, and redheaded. That's like a trifecta for me."

Yeah I was gonna throw into the original FPP some chauvinist reference to Felicia Day being hot, but it was an FPP and though I been in The Blue more years than I wanna remember, I'm still worried about doing them wrong. So I figured I'd wait until someone else said she's hot, then I could go, "Yeah I was gonna throw into the original FPP some chauvinist reference to Felicia Day being hot..." etc. etc.

Anyway she's like twenty something and I'm pushing forty. Legal maybe, but cringeworthy.

I respect her as an artist. ...howzzat? =)
posted by ZachsMind at 9:47 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Felicia Day blogs, reads, created that Guild website and his hot hot hot. Oh sweet Felicia, were I a single man... who am I kiddin', she still wouldn't give me the time of day.

*tapes her picture up in his locker.*
posted by Tacodog at 9:51 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

cut 'his hot' replace with 'is hot.' The testosterone made me jittery.
posted by Tacodog at 9:52 PM on July 28, 2007

Believe!!!
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:53 PM on July 28, 2007

There are no girls on the Internet.
posted by puke & cry at 9:55 PM on July 28, 2007

Actually there ARE women on the Internet. I married one, then divorced her. I'm ...sorta in a long distance relationship with one right now. I don't plan these things. They just happen to me. Yes I know she's a female. Gah. I can say no to the girls in the same city I'm in, but I have less willpower when it comes to the Web. Maybe I should see a therapist.

However what's less certain is if the females in games like City of Heroes or World of Warcraft are actually playing girls or if they're playing guys. Same with the guys. I know when I was playing CoH I usually had at least two characters that I was actively playing. One was usually a girl and the other a guy. Played one girl all the way to fifty cuz she was fun. So gender in online gaming is kinda fuzzy.

It's better when you watch it the second time. I really think this one's got legs. Granted, YouTube's become my television essentially. I don't even turn on the TV anymore. I've boycotted most of the networks anyway. The people to really watch on this I think besides Day are Jeff Lewis (Groundlings alumnus with obvious comic timing talents - reminds me of Dan Ackroyd), and Robin Thorsen (The most convincing actor of the cast in the given role). They're all good, but I didn't believe Amy Okuda, and Vincent Caso's delivery of comic lines needs work. Sandeep Parikh.. for me the jury's still out. I saw too little of him but I liked how he pulled off the "forehead" line. Not easy - he shoulda shoulder punched the writers for that one. Although come to think of it... Day does give good forehead.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:09 PM on July 28, 2007

I knew I'd seen Day before. She was one of the "Potentials" on the last season of Buffy.
posted by Tenuki at 10:18 PM on July 28, 2007

Wow, that was really good. And way, way better than I expected.
posted by jmhodges at 10:22 PM on July 28, 2007

I like how the neurotic Korean girl is wearing makeup while playing WoW.
posted by LogicalDash at 10:31 PM on July 28, 2007

I'm sorry not to join in the reallygoodfest here but... solid production values and some great visuals (mostly the variety of comically neglected babies) are a good start but I'm nowhere near ready to predict anything about this thing....

...is what I wrote after the first viewing. Then I watched it again.

It's got potential. The neo-Gauntlet meets Saved by the Bell intro needs to go though.
posted by abulafa at 10:34 PM on July 28, 2007

some chauvinist reference to Felicia Day being hot

So saying someone is hot is chauvinistic? Always? Or is it just on metafilter? Or just when directed to girls on the internet?
posted by Ynoxas at 10:44 PM on July 28, 2007

Hehe! This was great. So true to life! My guild had parents, immature teens, jaded univ. students, wage slaves, and a few girls along the way. I was totally guild-mom. I called everyone "my babies" like a jocular black lady.

I miss my ventrillo posse... :(
posted by cowbellemoo at 10:47 PM on July 28, 2007

That was absolutely hilarious! Definitely going on my subscription list.

I bet it's funnier if you play (I do), but the acting and writing was crisp enough that it should be pretty accessible even if you don't play but have friends/family who do. Not quite as much fun or as cringeworthy as Clark&Michael, which is my new fave, but it has potential for sure.
posted by gemmy at 10:52 PM on July 28, 2007

Is it just me, or is this place turning into WoWfilter lately? (not a complaint, and loved this link)
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:27 PM on July 28, 2007

World of Arse.
posted by Sparx at 11:50 PM on July 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Having just posted 1-line snark, I feel strangely guilty and wish to expand.

There's nothing particularly wrong with it, production wise. Some of the performances aren't even particularly stilted. It's just it didn't make me laugh. Or smile. Or even think 'clever line' (not even the forehead one). For a comedy, that's kind of arse.

Possibly it's the editing - there's a bunch of bits I think coud be chopped slightly better to improve the timing. Or maybe it's that they haven't gone much beyond the basic situation for comedy (fair enough, given it's episode 1 and short)

That said, it's a great idea (I've done my time in the saltmines of grind, though, of course, my own guild was infinitely funnier) and if it is, as it appears, a bunch of folks making their own show to hone their skills I definitely approve.

But I just didn't laugh.
posted by Sparx at 12:16 AM on July 29, 2007

What fastidious guilt, Sparx, you must be Catholic.
posted by stavrogin at 12:41 AM on July 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

Cool, it's actually like the WoW Guild I'm in. Which makes it relatable. And therefore funny.

Except my guild is Horde. And I'd be a combination of all the negative attributes of the horny young guy, and the balding, fastidious old guy.
posted by Colloquial Collision at 1:09 AM on July 29, 2007

Nobody does WoW addiction like south park. They captured it perfectly. Grind and grind and grind and raid and grind and raid until you've got the perfect character.... and then start a new one.
posted by tehloki at 1:21 AM on July 29, 2007

"So saying someone is hot is chauvinistic?"

Uhm... No. I meant I woulda said it in some kinda chauvinistic way. You can tell a girl she's hot without being a chauvinist, but it's not usually as funny or stupid. I woulda gone for the funny and stupid, HAD I decided to put it in the FPP. I didn't. Cuz that woulda been stupid. Mighta been funny. Def with the stupid. So I opted out of that.

Why does this feel like I'm having to explain a joke to somebody? That always ruins the joke. Only this time I purposefully didn't go for the joke, and I'm explaining it anyway. Is this fucked up or what?

"...and grind and grind and raid and grind and raid..."

That's essentially what happened to me at CoH. Smackdown baddies and smackdown baddies and save the world and and smackdown and saveworlds and smack and smack and smack and save and save and save until you get to level fifty. Then you can play in jello, or hang out in a bad drug trip where nothing you do matters. Most people just start a new character. OR leave the game.

Good thing I never ventured into WoW, if the end result woulda been the same as CoH. Guess I'm looking for a better option. Anyone know if the new Myst Online is gonna be any good?

"The neo-Gauntlet meets Saved by the Bell intro needs to go though."

Yeah. I begrudgingly have to agree there. The one thing I didn't think was better the second time I watched it was the opening thing. The intro needs to be something that people don't mind hearing over and over again. They need to change that fast.

OR maybe better, they need to drop the open entirely. I don't think shorts need an intro or an outro. If you only got four minutes to tell your story, don't spend forty seconds of it telling me that you're about to tell me a story. Besides, the music used sounded more like it belonged in American McGee's Alice than it did World of Warcraft. But then maybe I just don't know what WoW sounds like. Does it sound like a music box with jewelery in it and a plastic ballerina spinning in place?
posted by ZachsMind at 1:54 AM on July 29, 2007

"I knew I'd seen Day before. She was one of the "Potentials" on the last season of Buffy."

Yeah. She was Vi. No I'm not ashamed I knew that without looking it up.
posted by ZachsMind at 1:57 AM on July 29, 2007

But I just didn't laugh.

Nor I. But then I don't play online games either.

She *is* hot though.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:27 AM on July 29, 2007

My WOW is stage time. A terrible booze-fueled addiction, but at least I know who the chicks are.

Kinda like saying alcohol is my anti-drug.
posted by sourwookie at 2:31 AM on July 29, 2007

Best Wow Movies of All Time:

Illegal Danish Super Snacks (Winner of the Warcraft Movies Contest)

Onyxia -50 DKP Video (NSFW but absolutely hilarous if you are familiar with the encounter)

And of course... Leroy Jenkins (the original).
posted by sophist at 2:43 AM on July 29, 2007

Flapjaxatmidnite just went on my list of the coolest people in the the world for

a. knowing who Cecil McBee is
b. linking Cecil McBee

just looking in the corner of the room at my standup bass right now wishing I was younger, gifteder, and less white
posted by timsteil at 3:24 AM on July 29, 2007

I have the fear.

I attempted to play WOW. Downloaded the 10 day trial, signed up for a trial account, created a character, actually started playing.

Then my girlfriend forcibly reminded me of all the friends we've lost to the World of Warcrack. I thank her for this. I have shit to do. You know, real life stuff.

The saddest part about that video in the FPP? Ever single one of those people are archetypes of people I used to know. That hot chick? Yeah, you'd be suprised what happens to them after 4 months of non-stop WOW. Not so hot anymore. Sadly.
posted by daq at 3:25 AM on July 29, 2007

ZachsMind, it has potential, but the first episode didn't get even a chuckle out of me yet.

Sophist, I want five minutes of my life back now.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:37 AM on July 29, 2007

Not as funny as oots, but then what is?
posted by asok at 3:48 AM on July 29, 2007

Adding to the funny, Toyota vs toy Yoda.
posted by nickyskye at 4:00 AM on July 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've always figured that as an LA resident I'd meet a movie star at some point. Well, I guess that moment has arrived - I've met the guy who "doorsteps" her at the end of the clip. That's close enough, right?
posted by epimorph at 4:33 AM on July 29, 2007

It was totally meh. Not horribleor anything, but not exactly great.
posted by oddman at 4:58 AM on July 29, 2007

Judging from the comments, it may be scientifically notable that I don't play any MMOGs and also didn't find the video in the slightest bit entertaining.
posted by odinsdream at 5:13 AM on July 29, 2007

To this non-wowser, it felt like wandering into the wrong theater at the multiplex.
posted by hexatron at 5:37 AM on July 29, 2007

Look! Someone to feel better than. Yay.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:57 AM on July 29, 2007 [2 favorites]

"The neo-Gauntlet meets Saved by the Bell intro needs to go though."

The eyes... the horrible, horrible eyes...
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:09 AM on July 29, 2007

The woman seemed familiar. My mental face database started searching (whether I wanted it to or not). I think it got a hit (not rick).

The brain's face recognition capability is amazing, but I can't help but wonder if there's something else it would have been doing had it not tasked itself with that search.
posted by rlk at 6:10 AM on July 29, 2007

Lately I've started to feel like a one-man echo chamber regarding mmorpgs. I've sort of become the therapist that gets hung up on in the beginning of the clip.

If they won't meet you at mile-marker 72 at three a.m. in the middle of January to help you change a tire then they aren't your best friends. They can't even give you a ride to the damn airport.

I think that my loathing of these games has grown to such a point that I didn't laugh at the clip - when I saw the mom ignoring her three kids it just really made me nauseous.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 6:22 AM on July 29, 2007 [3 favorites]

Oh, wow. That Ony animation was hilarious. I've done that raid more than I care to admit. Thankfully my raid leader was not nearly that insane.
posted by Elsbet at 6:43 AM on July 29, 2007

That swiping of jazz musician's names, though, and tacking them onto products and such, it has at least a couple of precedents

Django, meet Django.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:00 AM on July 29, 2007

Then my girlfriend forcibly reminded me of all the friends we've lost to the World of Warcrack Metafilter. I thank her for this. I have shit to do. You know, real life stuff.
posted by woodblock100 at 7:25 AM on July 29, 2007

World of Arse

My wife uses "World of Wankcraft"
posted by alasdair at 8:34 AM on July 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sweet. Small world.
That WoW video is based on my old guild.

Felicia is a very sweet and awesome person.

She wrote, and directed that entire short, and it did piss some people off in the game.

I stopped playing well before this video was put out, for many of the above reasons. I like my crack to let me outdoors, thank you.
posted by fnord at 9:22 AM on July 29, 2007

Had to look up mmorpgs.

Online Gaming Addiction, internet addiction recovery.

Online Gamers Anonymous. "On-Line Gamers Anonymous is a fellowship of people sharing their experience, strengths and hope to help each other recover and heal from the problems caused by excessive and/or obsessive game playing."
posted by nickyskye at 9:31 AM on July 29, 2007

I'm on board for two of those three "best of all time" WoW videos. The first one suffers the same problem as nearly all machinima - voice acting deficit.

Decent music, great editing and visual elements seem somehow easier to build up from the community, but good voice acting demands more than elongated r's and sweeping dipthongs.

Hence, the 'reality based' (or really-well-acted faux-reality based) clips are much more entertaining to me since I don't have to consciously ignore grade-school-monster-voices to appreciate them.
posted by abulafa at 9:43 AM on July 29, 2007

Okay now that was fucking hilarious. It reminds me of the jello raids in CoH. Good times.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:57 AM on July 29, 2007

Leroy Jenkins in the elevator, and at a meeting.
posted by fandango_matt at 10:17 AM on July 29, 2007

"If they won't meet you at mile-marker 72 at three a.m. in the middle of January to help you change a tire then they aren't your best friends. They can't even give you a ride to the damn airport."

Unless you get lucky like me and belong to a guild of people you work with. When I started playing, I suddenly had 15 new friends (as did my wife). And yes, some of those guys would meet me at mile marker 72.
posted by UseyurBrain at 11:30 AM on July 29, 2007

when I saw the mom ignoring her three kids it just really made me nauseous
posted by leahzero at 12:40 PM on July 29, 2007

Like flapjax I had been unaware of any other Leroy Jenkins than the late AACM violinist. But some of my classmates started talking about the "funniest video" they had ever seen, invoking his name. (Actually invoking Leeroy Jenkins, but it sounded the same to me).

As with this guild video, I'm obviously not the target audience. I understood it--enough of my colleagues research gaming and literacy for it to make sense to me--but I must lack the gene that finds this funny. I'd give this the edge over the screaming, idiotic Leeroy videos I've seen--this at least had production values and seemed to be less about testosterone.

Hot? Takes all types, I guess. She didn't do it for me. Had that Helen Hunt look about her.
posted by beelzbubba at 3:42 PM on July 29, 2007

She didn't do it for me. Had that Helen Hunt look about her.
posted by beelzbubba at 5:42 PM on July 29

That would explain it. I think Helen Hunt is one of the top 5 most beautiful women ever on television.

Also rlk, great hit on your mental facial recognition database. I like her in that commercial a lot. I got a "hit" on her too, but I assumed it was some other you-tubish internet something, not a TV commercial.
posted by Ynoxas at 5:53 PM on July 29, 2007

I didn't laugh. Am I missing something?
posted by braksandwich at 12:10 AM on July 30, 2007

Actually, on second thought, if I were a mod, I'd treat this with the same kind of disdain I would a 'Userfriendly' link. Unfunny, not best of web, not even runner-up. Forgive my ignorance, I guess, or celebrate it... either way.
posted by braksandwich at 12:12 AM on July 30, 2007

When I saw the mom ignoring her three kids it just really made me nauseous

This is what as known as satire. Wikipedia probably has an entry on it.

Loved it. Especially the "you're nursing right now? That's so hot..."

Hilarious.
posted by misha at 9:35 AM on July 30, 2007 [1 favorite]