Oct302006
Comedy Available in Super Deluxe
Filed Under Funny 2.0
With the web finally becoming hospitable to new ventures again, there’s been a lot of people jumping into the broadband comedy pool as of late. Today Turner announced the upcoming launch of a new broadband site called Super Deluxe, which will feature both known and unknown talent side-by-side.
There’s two interesting factors to this announcement. The first, unlike Motherload from Comedy Central and LaughLab from TBS, Super Deluxe has no ties to any cable channel. It’s living on its own merits and doesn’t have a second master to make happy. Particularly meaning there’s no existing standard & practices to limit content so they can focus on being the web rather than being TV. Almost all the successes for web comedy I can think of (The Onion, College Humor, etc.) have come not from big media but from the outside. This may be a great way to mimic that ethos but with the tentacles of a big media site.
And the second is that’s it’s being developed in the same offices as Adult Swim, and if they’re following that model, it can only mean good things. One point mentioned in the release is that their expecting the site’s “creative freedom” to be one of the main attractions for talent. If the leash is truly long for talent, that will lead to creators coming to do innovative material specifically for Super Deluxe rather than just giving them something they couldn’t get a network to buy. Experimentation with a budget, even a small one, might be the tipping point for a lot of comedic talent who’ve been ignoring the web.
As far as that talent, there’s no names mentioned in the release. But previously, Eugene Mirman mentioned he was working on some films for an upcoming Turner site. If Eugene is a marker for what they want this site to be, then it could be amazing. I’ve heard rumblings of other names but nothing I can confirm. Also, no launch date. So there’s more to come, I’m sure.
Update: There’s is a url however, and it’s superdeluxe.com. You should check it out - turn on your pop-ups. Don’t worry, they’re very playful.
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Eugene showed an episode(?) of something for the broadband site during his September Comedians of Comedy show in Providence. It was called “Space Talk from Planet Eugene.” It was a very funny, strange talk show. Eugene played the host, there was a band, and Jon Benjamin was interviewed as the “alien” guest. Am looking forward to the launch!