Good morning! I hope you had a good week. I did. I saw a bunny.
A thing in my possession: A pocket full of dog treats I don't currently own a dog, but my outlaws, whom I live with do. His name is Viktor, and I think he was names after the character of Viktor Krumm in the 4th Harry potter novel. I point this out, because my outlawas have not, to my knowledge, read Harry Potter recently at all, and did not name the dog. He came as a rescue with that name and they kept it. Viktor is a friendly enough dog, but not to me. I don't know if he had some trauma in the past with a large bearded man, or if it's just personal to him, but Viktor is scared of me most of the time. It's been this way for a couple years now, and I don't know that it'll ever change. I do try to buy his love however, as Viktor is a very, very food motivated dog. He'll do almost anything for a treat or a piece of whatever it is you're eating right now. He'll even take a treat from the big scary guy (me) even though it's really scary. So in a likely futile attempt to buy the love of this dog who doesn't like me, I keep a pocket full of dog treats on my person a lot of the time. He'll occasionally swing by to see if I have a treat and if he's feeling particulrly brave will even take it from me. Poorly Organized Thoughts on: Dropout I don't know if you're already aware of the streaming service/independent network Dropout, but I've found myself trying to sell it to a couple different people this week, so I figured I'd save some time for future me and pot all the reason's Dropout might be worth your six bucks.
Some background: Dropout started life as a website named College Humor. Most people probably don't know remember the original College Humor, but it was one of a bunch of early 2000s websites where people would post funny pictures. College Humor had the particular focus of "college based" funny photos, which meant in practice, a lot of photos of people in compromising positions at frat parties. Along side the rise of these websites, was another college themed website you probably have heard of, The Facebook. The Facebook is a networking webs-- I'm not going to explain facebook you you.
Fast forward to Facebook's "Pivot to video" where they told content creators that video content was getting much more investment than text based articles and so if you wanted to be successful you had to make video content. Of course that was a big lie, but the damage was done anyway. College humor was one of the websites that pivoted to video, and started making original content. Lots of this was sketch comedy and some of it was good! By the time the truth about the Pivot to Video came out College humor had put too much work into making these videos (and even a short lived MTV series, remember MTV?) that they had to find a way to make money on it. That way was the streaming service Dropout.
Dropout was a bit of a wild card, an independently owned streaming service like a netflix, but not as corporate. Dropout chugged along for a couple years making original content, most popular was the D&D Actual Play show Dimension 20, where comedians played D&D together to great entertainment effect.
In early 2020 College Humor was shut down by their parent company and everyone was fired. Then it was immediately bought for a song by former employee and now CEO Sam Reich. Everyone was still fired, but Sam managed to bring many of them back as contractors to keep performing in the various shows. This was only made a little bit harder by the global pandemic that started a couple months after everyone got fired.
But Dropout the streaming service kept going, and eventually became the name of the whole company. And you can still subscribe! Dropout the company has continued to make new shows, and really push the boundaries of long form unscripted comedy on the internet.
Lets get into the meat and potatoes of what's on Dropout. and why you might want to give them six pucks a month (or 5 if you pay on an annual basis!)
Dimension 20: This might be the hardest sell for some folks, as the thought of watching other people play Dungeons and Dragons might be weird. But the folk at D20 might be putting on the best actual play D&D show going right now. Each season is stand-alone so you don't have a massive backlog of a years of content to binge through to catch up(although you can do that.) You cans start with whatever season is starting now (as of this writing, an action movie pastiche called Never Stop Blowing Up) and watch a group of people who know that they're making a TV show first and foremost and put their skills on display as they play D&D and make up a story together. Each season is also in a new genre, ranging from gritty modern day New York to, a John Hughes inspired fantasy high school, to high court game of thrones style politics, to kids at a school for wizards, to outright horror.
Game Changer: I think of this as the flagship Dropout show. Hosted by CEO Sam Reich, each episode is a game show, but the rules are different and the players don't know what game it is they are about to play. They have to learn the rules as they go, and figure out how to win by playing. This show is a little gremlin of a thing, and I am consistently surprised by how creative the designers manage to be.
Um, Actually: This is Dropout's version of a British panel show. You know those shows where comedians ostensibly come on to play a game, but it's mostly about them hanging out and chatting? It's that. A panel of 3 contestants come on to play a game and the game is a very strong core premise to hang a bunch of fun around. The host will read a series of very specific and incorrect statements about nerdy things (of almost any stripe) and then the contestants have to buzz in and correct the statement with the phrase "Um , actually." Some of the contestants are very knowledgeable of the topics, but sometimes they're just blindly guessing, but either way it's a lot of fun.
Make Some Noise: This is probably the show you are most expecting within the genre of Unscripted Comedy on the Internet. Each episode presents the three players with a series of humorous prompts that they then have to act out. It is short-form improv like Whose Line is it Anyway, distilled to the simplest form. I think this show can be a little uneven, mostly based on the quality of the prompts and players but I also think it hits some unbelievable highs, with jokes that I still laugh at whenever I think of them. Dirty Laundry: This is Dropout's other British panel show, but instead of nerdy statements, the host reads secret or embarrassing things that the contestants submitted in advance, and have to guess which contestant submitted which statement. Like Um, Actually, it's mostly an excuse to hang out and tell funny stories. But the stories are very fun and the casts usually have great chemistry and at least know each other a little bit which makes the guessing more fun.
Breaking News: This is probably the most structured of the Dropout shows, in that each episode is entirely scripted. It's just that the cast doesn't get the script in advance. Instead the cast (who is always playing news anchors) has to read off the script from a teleprompter without seeing it in advance and try not to laugh at the ridiculous things they're saying. Whoever laughs the most loses. It's a good time and most episodes are only around 10 minutes long.
Play It by Ear: A long form musical improv show where the cast is only given a title and genre of the musical and then they have to perform the whole thing. Musical improv is a magic trick, and I am blown away by how good these people are at it. I've watched each episode at least 3 times.
Very Important People: Another long-form improv show, a comedian gets put into a makeup chair and given a ridiculous appearance. They then have a couple minutes to come up with a character and sit down for an improvised interview with the host of the show. Like a lot of long-form improv it's a great chance to see some unexpected character work, where the ridiculous is grounded in the reality of the format.
Smartypants: Comedians give powerpoint presentations on the topic of their choosing. This show is probably the broadest in content, and lets them take absolutely wild swings. You never know exactly what you're going to get.
Thousandaires: Each episode features a group of friends who were each given $1000 to spend on eachother. Who ever does the best job, as judged by the host of the episode (who is different each time) wins. We've only had one episode so far, but like Smartypants it feels like a show where people are just getting to go wild and do whatever they want for our amusement. Good stuff.
Anyway, that's all currently airing on the network, and this isn't sponsored (but I'd take a sponsorship if that was the sort of thing they do.) Check out their youtube page to sample the wares, then maybe give them six bucks at Dropout.tv to watch everything.
This week's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Song of the Week is Maybe This Dream
