Wilhelm On The Web

Monday is Fatal Farms' "Lasagna Cat"

2008-08-25T01:15:00.003-04:00

We at Wilhelm Comedy all love and cherish Jim Davis' "Garfield" as one of the long-lasting treasures of syndicated comic strips. For thirty years Garfield, Jon Arbuckle, Odie, and the rest of the gang have entertained us with their kooky antics that all pretty much take place in the same room of the same house over and over again.

So how do you twist a tried-and-true formula? Well, Fatal Farms has figured out a way. Watch any one of these videos and you will never look at Garfield the same way again.

It's hard to choose a single video to post, since pretty much each and every one is great. Here's our personal favorite:

Friday Misc. Is the HILARIOUS Weezer track, 'Heart Songs'

2008-07-17T22:04:00.003-04:00

Seriously this thing is laughably great. Keep in mind, this is not a video, just the song put on YouTube with the equally hilarious Red Album cover there.

These are my heaaaart songs....

Monday is "Drunk History Vol. 2 with Jack Black"

2008-06-30T10:57:00.000-04:00

A true classic in every regard.

Drunk History vol. 2 - Featuring Jack Blackfunny videosFunnyOrDie.com

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Saturday Miscellany is 'Look How Fucking Angry You Made Me' by Wall-E

2008-06-28T14:44:00.002-04:00

It's actually by Travis Helwig. From NewsGroper.com, a site for fake blogs.

Enjoy, and GO SEE WALL-E! IT IS INCREDIBLE!

Look how fucking angry you made me

By Wall-E

Honestly. Where did that god-damn PA go? I mean, what is this? I feel like I'm working on Ice Age or like a community college animation assignment or some shit -- God fucking dammit.

This is Pixar. If I ask for a scone or some biscotti, I don't expect to wait ten fucking minutes for some unpaid douche bag with stars in his eyes to get it to me. I don't care if you grew up in Iowa, that doesn't mean you should walk at the same pace as your dead grandmother. Jesus Christ.

Look how fucking angry I am:

Can I ask a question? Honestly, it's not that difficult to answer. How many Pixar films had the name of the star as the title? Hmm? Do you know? Two. Two films. And I bet Ratatouille was helped by people who understood the English fucking language. Listen Juan, I don't want my trailer cleaned right now. Go eat a Taco and get out of my face. Maybe you and the Iowan can be fuckwit best friends. WAAAALL-EEE!

This whole operation is a joke. I'm getting too old for this. I'm trying to be professional. I'm trying to be the bigger man. But how am I supposed to be adorable when I'm surrounded by idiots who would rather stand around jerking off than do their job for once. I am furious:

They wanted me at Dreamworks. Do you know that? I could have done Shrek 5, but I chose to be here.

So how about you be fucking grateful and bring me my latte before the world comes to an end or I learn to say something out loud other than my name. Fuck.

WAAALLLL-EEE!

Thursday is Recess's "Our Constitutional Values"

2008-06-26T18:30:00.004-04:00

Sorry about the lack of content yesterday. I was very busy. Also I'm a fool.

But hey! We're making up for it with a video from GWU's Recess called "Our Constitutional Values: Option C." It is a very funny video.

You will enjoy.

Tuesday Essay: Chris Gethard's "Framsky"

2008-06-24T17:29:00.003-04:00

Yes, it's another Chris Gethard post. But hey! He's a funny guy. We could have a Chris Gethard post every day.

This essay, "Framsky," is one of his many wonderful Hump Day stories updated every Wednesday on his blog. While pretty much every story he's posted is great, "Framsky" is a personal favorite of ours. Enjoy.

Framsky

It’s not abnormal for people to get depressed during their freshman year of college. But in my case, a number of factors lined up, which, when looked at in retrospect, make me feel like maybe my depression was a little less generic and a bit more justified.

My parents sold my house just after I went away, so I could never go home again. A few deaths – one in the family, one of a close family friend, one of a childhood playmate – happened in quick succession weeks after I moved to college. On top of this, I was slowly figuring out that I would continue my family tradition of being bipolar, and was not dealing with it well.

What most led to my depression though, was my foolish decision to attend Rutgers University. Rutgers is the state university of New Jersey, and has a storied and proud history. It is one of nine colleges to exist in the United States during the colonial era, and among its alumni are Paul Robeson, Milton Friedman (the dean of modern economics), and the dude who discovered antibiotics.

My tenure at Rutgers has to have undoubtedly come at one of its low points. The place was packed – there were 40,000 students on my campus freshman year, and I did not have a class my first semester with less than 200 people in it. On top of being crowded, it was completely filthy. My dorm was perched up against the Raritan River, so my view was of that light brown, stinking, stagnant mosquito breeding pit. My roommate was an Estonian nationalist known throughout campus as “The Russian Bear.” The very best thing Rutgers had going for it was a group of trucks called “The Grease Trucks,” which sold sandwiches, one of which was called a “Fat Bitch” and had a cheesesteak, fries, mozzarella sticks, and chicken fingers on the sandwich. Let me reiterate – this was the best thing the place had going for it. My main reason for going to Rutgers in the first place was that they didn’t make me write an essay as part of the application. The buildings themselves were a wreck, and the main stretch of campus was a neverending series of construction sites that was book ended on one end by Seminary Place, a street where lecherous gay men hung out at night looking to suck off college kids, and on the other by the campus library, where those same lecherous gay men spent their days, looking to suck off college kids.

So with all of these factors lined up and pushing me into a very depressed corner, I did what anyone who was 18 in 1998 would do – I retreated to the internet. Specifically, to AOL’s Instant Messenger program.

At any moment where I wasn’t in class (my favorite that semester was “Dinosaurs”, because every time it met, the professor would grab at his hair in frustration and shout, “They’re just birds,” over and over again), or at the dining hall (where my favorite meal was four separate bowls of Cocoa Krispies, a plate of cheese fries, and for some odd reason, copious amounts of cranberry juice) I was online, talking to friends. Friends from high school, family members, friends from my own dorm. I was doing anything and everything to avoid dealing with the reality of my actual existence, so I spent hours long chunks of time sitting online.

My name online was Framsky. And Framsky, due to the fact that it’s much easier to hide things in the medium of typing messages on a screen as opposed to let’s say, talking, was not half as sad or miserable as Chris was. Framsky was getting me through many days, and even more nights.

Which is why, when Framsky was taken away from me, I exacted a methodical and swift revenge the severity of which surprises even me, to this day.

One night at about eight, I got a frantic message from an acquaintance of mine, Rob. Rob was a friend of some friends I had met at Rutgers.

“Chris!” his message read. “WATCH OUT!”

Before I could even finish typing and sending the word “why”, over 30 strangers randomly messaged me with no provocation. And while I was trying to sort out what Rob’s message was about, and what the strange feeding frenzy of online messages was for, they all began to warn me.

Instant messenger is like the Wild West. It has very few actual rules or regulations, and its policing is instead left up to its own members. Like a weird, cybernetic form of frontier justice, people who are offended by things other people say to them through the service can click a button marked “Warn.” As one racks up warnings, their percentage goes up. When one’s percentage is high enough, they are no longer able to access the program.

When I found myself unable to access my precious instant messenger, I immediately found myself undertaken by a rage that only a person with Irish blood raised by a melodramatic mother in a neighborhood full of self-hating Catholics can feel. Even though no one else was there – not even the Russian Bear – I let out a scream as I looked up to my filthy, cracked ceiling.

I immediately ran to the phone and called the friends who had introduced me to Rob. They gave me Rob’s telephone number. I called him. He lived right down the road, as he went to Princeton University.

What he told me was astonishing, for its calculated nature, for its senselessness, for its evil core.

Someone who lived on his floor came into Rob’s room earlier that day and wrote down a handful of random names from his Buddy List. It wasn’t until just before he tried to contact me that Rob – or PrfsrFrink, as he’s known online – tried to let me know what was going to happen. It turns out that this kid – Amir – had been perpetrating these “IM Bombs” the entire night for his amusement.

The very first thing that got me angry about what Amir, pronounced Ohm-er, had done was the act itself. The second was that his name was Amir. I am not a fan of anyone with a country club-ish name. No Blakes, Blaines, or Sheffields are ever going to really be friends of mine. One signifier that you have a pretentious name is if it looks like it should be pronounced one way but you insist it be pronounced another. If Amir was Ah-meer, this would not have been a sticking point. Unfortunately for him, it was indeed a sticking point.

Another fact about Amir had already all but sealed his fate in my book. He, like Rob, attended Princeton. Now, being a Rutgers guy, for better or for worse, means that at least a small piece of you must resent and hate Princeton for all they stand for. They are only about 30 minutes apart, driving, yet they could not be more different. Rutgers is almost exclusively attended by people who grew up in New Jersey. Princeton is almost exclusively attended by blue-blooded privileged kids from all corners of the globe. And while their academics are great, their attitude is not, and everyone from Rutgers, even the people like me, who hate everything about Rutgers, knows it and is offended by it.

The next thing Rob told me about Amir further solidified that I was going to act on all of my negative impulses. Amir was Canadian. From Toronto. Now, I have nothing against our peaceful, correct-on-the-health-care-issue neighbors from the north. But I do have a problem with any Canadian who thinks he’s going to walk into my turf – New Jersey – and pull a fast one on me. Simply put, it was inconceivable that some Ivy League, snooty named Canadian of all people, was going to win this battle he didn’t realize was a battle. As a New Jersey resident, as a Rutgers student, and as a depressed lunatic, it offended me on all levels.

I took action. That action was opening my door. The kid across the hall from me was a ridiculously tall and skinny half-Asian guy named Andy Miner. Fate had put us together for this evening - he was the only person more depressed and crazy at the entire college than I was, plus he had a car. On any given evening, both of us could be found sitting in rooms across the hall from each other, both of us on our computers, talking about how we were both lonely and had no friends, never thinking to just hang out together.

“Andy,” I said. He turned around. “Want to drive to Princeton and beat up some Princeton kid?”

Without missing a beat, and without looking confused or surprised, Andy answered yes instantaneously. We called our other friend Jeff, who came running over. All three of us dressed in black from head to toe – black puffy jackets, as it was December, black pants, black wool hats. We got in Andy’s car, and we made our way to Princeton.

When we got there, we quickly realized a number of things. The first was that Princeton was in every way the opposite of Rutgers. It looked beautiful, it was quiet and serene, and most striking to us, it was physically clean. Princeton was clearly not the type of place where you got in without writing an essay.
The second thing we realized was that dressing in black from head to toe was a bad way to try to disguise ourselves. On the Princeton campus, you stand out if you’re not wearing khaki pants. This is the type of place where people see someone dressed in jeans and they’re terrified, let alone people dressed up like James Bond movie henchmen. We knew we had to act fast or the police would be on their way. We knew the name of Amir’s dorm – Rob had given it to us – and we were chagrined to realize it was in the opposite corner of campus from where we parked the car. We sprinted, knowing we probably wouldn’t make it there. Luckily for us, it was as if the Princeton-ites couldn’t even see us. No one blinked an eye. It’s my assumption that we had roughly the same effect on them as Columbus’s ships did on the Indians – none, as they couldn’t even logically fathom that we existed in their reality.

We made our way to the dorm and found it locked. You needed a magnetic swipe card to enter. This surprised us – at Rutgers, anyone can just walk into any dorm at any time. No one cares. We responded in the only way we could think of – we tried to kick the door down. But dorm doors are generally pretty well made, and it wouldn’t give. Luckily for us, a young gentleman in a pair of khakis and loafers saw us in our frustration and walked by.

“Need to get inside?” he asked, smiling. We grunted yes. He swiped us right in, again not sensing that we were clearly up to no good.

Now, when we had left for Princeton, we planned on scaring Amir good. We didn’t really think we were going to do any serious damage to him. But what we saw in the lobby of that immaculate, well maintained dorm changed a lot of things for us that night.

Gathered in the middle of the dorm were a group of about 15 kids. All of them – all of them ¬– were wearing sweaters and/or turtlenecks. They were standing around the dorm’s grand piano. And they were singing Christmas Carols.

To drive from the banks of the muddy Raritan, from the 400 person classes, from the bug infested living areas, from the realization that every day for the next four years was going to be a lackluster one, to Christmas Carols, to the blind, uncaring, unbothered, able-to-belt-out-a-good-Silent-Night world of Princeton and their Christmas Carols, pushed a button inside all three of us. We were real Jersey kids, from a real place, and we walked into a fantasy world where there were very few problems. Without speaking about it, all three of us knew that we planned on doing our damndest to destroy that fantasy world.

The kids around the piano, in what we noticed was becoming a trend, didn’t blink twice at three shady kids dressed in all black lurking around in their background. It was as if they should have been singing “We don’t know that we’re in danger! Fa la la la la, la la la la!”

Rob had told us the number of his floor, which was also Amir’s floor. We made our way there, and were yet again thwarted by the presence of a magnetic lock. We banged on the door for minutes, and as each one passed, we realized what a bad idea it was to come here in the first place. Just as we were giving up hope and coming to our senses, the door opened from the other side.

The boy standing on the other side was pudgy. That was the first thing you had to notice about him. His large eyes blinked behind his glasses, as if this level of human contact was jarring to him.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked.

“We’re friends of Rob’s. From Rutgers. He told us we should come here and wait for him until he gets back,” I said.

“Well, you can wait with me, I guess,” he said, slightly bothered by us. “My name’s Amir.”

I knew Amir knew nothing about Framsky’s identity. In other words, I knew he had no idea who we were or why we were there. He almost seemed tragic to me in that moment, not knowing the level of fear to which he was going to be introduced tonight. I said nothing besides mumbling my thanks for his hospitality.

He turned his nose in the air, than turned his back to us. Without turning around, he said, “There’s some people drinking down the hall. I guess you can come.”

We got to the room in question. There were about ten kids spread out, all with their backs to us, all laughing and drinking. Amir entered and we sheepishly followed. Amir announced us.

“Guys, these are Rob’s friends from Rutgers,” he said.

Without even turning to look at us, one of the young ladies said, “Oh, I thought something smelled funny in here all of a sudden.”

We were furious. I felt bad for Amir again. Whereas we had shown up to scare one person, we were now feeling the urge to snuff out the life of everyone who had ever or would ever call himself a Princeton student.

Amir spun on his heels and led us out of the room. We went down to the other end of the hall. He entered his own room. It was huge, at least three times the size of the space I shared with the Russian Bear. There were chairs everywhere. Amir sat in one of them.

“You guys can have a seat on the floor,” he said with a cocky smirk. This disrespect was my personal last straw.

“Actually Amir,” I said in a voice as calm as could be, “I’m going to sit wherever the fuck I want.”

His head dropped, and he slowly turned around. He suddenly had the body language of someone who realizes that they’re in some pretty deep shit – the type of deep shit where you invite a stranger over, disrespect him a number of times, then realize you know nothing about him.

“I -,” he hesitated. “I’m sorry, I never got your name.”

“My name’s Framsky,” I said.

He went white as a sheet. All color drained from his pudgy face, and without saying it out loud, everything about him suddenly screamed “I want to be back in Toronto right now.”

He tried his best not to let us sense the fear that we could see washing over his body.

“And your friends?” he asked. “What are their names?”

I snapped.

“THEIR NAME IS FRAMSKY TOO, MOTHERFUCKER. DON’T YOU EVER FUCK WITH ME AGAIN.”

All the rage I had at my everyday life teamed up with the massive amount of disrespect I had felt since arriving at this dorm. My voice came forth aggressive, attacking, trying to beat Amir down verbally. He stood up.

“You have to go,” he stammered. “You have to go right now.”

I paid no attention.

“Don’t you ever fuck with me,” I repeated. “You have no idea what it’s like out there - you have no idea who I am.”

He realized I was right. Tears welled up in his eyes. That’s when I said what is probably the coolest, toughest thing I’ve ever said.

“I am in your house, motherfucker.” I grinned. “I am in your fucking house. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He looked at me, and the first tear escaped.

“You have to go, right now.”

He took a step towards me.

“I am in your house.”

He took another step.

“Go. Leave.”

“I am in your house.”

He took one more step and he pushed me. I grinned even harder, at this point completely lost in a maniacal rage. I spun around.

“Framsky,” I said matter-of-factly, making eye contact with Andy, “shut the door.”

When I made saw my two friends, I snapped back to reality. For they were looking at me for what I was – a person who had lost control and was about to do something really horrible to another human being. For a brief moment I looked at them and they looked at me. It was Jeff who finally spoke.

“We need to leave right now,” he said. And we did. We took off. We sprinted from that dorm, leaving a fat crying Canadian with a really bright future behind us. We ran down the stairs, through the lobby past a stunning rendition of Feliz Navidad, back across that beautiful campus, and into to Andy’s car. We made it all the way back to Rutgers, where we sat up all night waiting for a call from the Princeton police. A call that, thankfully, never came.

That night had some lasting effects. It still stands out to me as a time where I came closest to completely losing my mind. And even though I, and my friends, had no pride in Rutgers, it did give us some small bit of dignity to be able to defend both ourselves and Rutgers by looking at the have in the face and letting him know that we, the have-nots, could walk right into his house whenever we felt like it.

Two years after my mission to Princeton, I returned there. I had to be in the area anyway, so I headed over to campus to get dinner with Rob. As we crossed over campus, he pointed to a dorm.

“You know,” he said, laughing to himself. “That kid Amir lives in that dorm now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, actually in that corner… on the ground floor.”

Well, I had to.

I walked over to the window. It was late spring and hot, so there was just a screen. Again utilizing my God given abilities of being a born and raised Jersey guy, I jimmied open the screen and stuck my head in.

Amir was there, sleeping, in his tightie whities, on his back, his crotch splayed towards me. An oscillating fan was pointed towards him.

“Amir!” I whispered, harshly.

He shot up out of bed and reached to the windowsill for his glasses. He fumbled with them for a moment, then put them on and looked my way.

“Framsky?” He said, fear in his voice.

“I’m always watching, man,” I said. “So you be good. You be good.”

Monday Film: The Darryl Strawberry Show: Ep. 3: The Pope

2008-06-23T00:01:00.001-04:00

From Chris Gethard, a very funny man who is a very funny performer at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater.

Saturday means Tim and Eric: Awesome Record, Great Songs! Review by Sean Rose

2008-06-21T11:24:00.003-04:00

From What IS This Shit: Sean Rose's Music Blog

The faces of genius.

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS DIRECTED AT TIM AND ERIC FANS ONLY

We all knew this day would come. I can't pinpoint the exact moment I realized it, but I'd wager that once I heard Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!'s "Sports" theme - a nutty little techno ball-buster featuring a video of Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, and a bunch of hairy dudes miming their instruments in ridiculous New Wave garb - I knew that Tim and Eric were two of the most talented songwriters of their generation.

Ok, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. But not much of one. Come on, you know what I mean. I'd wager that the songs on Awesome Show are some of the funniest - and catchiest - to come from a sketch comedy show in a long long time. Hell, Awesome Show is almost more of a musical show than a sketch show anyway. Tim and Eric have produced a shit-ton of various musical bits over the course of two seasons, and I'd wager that about 90% of them are great. And now they're all on CD and claimed for musical history! Huzzah!!

Now, I'm sure I don't need to explain the appeal of these songs to you, fellow fans. If you, like me, consider Awesome Show to be the best sketch comedy show since Mr. Show and UCB, I'm going to guess that you've been passing around CDs of music ripped directly from the show since season one wrapped. So you might be saying, "shit, Sean, why would I need another Tim and Eric CD? I've got all these songs ripped already!!"

Well for one thing, you're a putz. Tim and Eric deserve your money and you fucking know it. Secondly, it's an official CD approved by Mr. Heidecker and Mr. Wareheim themselves! NEAT! And thirdly, there's a lot here that you're not going to hear from the show. Extended lyrics, remixes, covers, guest vocalists - and not only that, but each song is edited down to its very essence, narrowing the tracks down to about a minute-and-a-half each without any unnecessary sketch banter (honestly, if you're a Tim and Eric fan, you're going to know where "Pizza Boy" and "All Of My Life" are from - you don't need context). Also, the sequencing on this CD is very appealing, bucking chronological order in favor of an appeasing mish-mash of various songs from the first and second seasons of the show; it allows for an appealing kaleidescope of Awesome Show's music, showcased in all its glory.

"But what songs are on this thing, Sean?" ("How does it taste, Steve?" - a little in-joke for all you guys, hehe.) That's a fair question. To put it bluntly, this baby's got all your favorites: you've got every Kidz Break, every David Liebe Hart song, and almost every Casey and his Brother; you've got the popular weirdo singalongs of "Do Dah Doo Doo," "Sit On You," "Beach Blast" (yes, that's James Quall's acapella surf ditty), and "Long Legs"; you've got the crazy dance-techno freakouts of "Beaver Boys," "Pumpers and Tumblers," and "Sports"; you've got guest appearances in David Cross's "Pizza Boy," Maria Bramford's "The New You," Aimee Mann's "Hearts," and Bob Odenkirk's "Here She Comes"; and, of course, you've got some wonderful one-off songs, including the inimitable disco-breakdown "Petite Feet," the best-friend vacation theme song "Raz," the weird "Everybody's Talkin'"-takeoff "Lost at the Wheel," and the absolutely disgusting "Love Slaves." If you're in any way a fan of Tim and Eric, the song choices here will not disappoint.

Oh yeah, and they're extended too! I mentioned that earlier! For instance, every David Liebe Hart song is extended, making songs like "Marcama" even creepier (hearing Hart say "You and I can make a nice milkshake together... we can make little whipped-cream babies" to a female puppet is nothing short of life-changing), and other random songs like "Do Dah Doo Doo" and "Dirty Socks" feature extra lyrics that only make them more entertaining. There are some wonderful remixes here as well that you might not expect - "Rolo Tony," for instance, features Tim and Eric's legendary jingle dialogue laid out over a techno beat, finally segueing into the awesome "Rolo Tony Brown Town" credits music (also featured here in its full form as a bonus track). One of my favorites here would be DJ Douggpound's take on the Awesome Show opening theme, which magically shifts from a basic dance remix of the theme into a dense sound collage featuring layers upon layers of various song snippets not featured anywhere else on the disc. These include, but are not limited to:

- The "My New Pep-Pep!" theme
- The "B'owl" theme
- Glen Tennis's "OH BOY!" exclamation
- The "Lazy Horse Mattress" theme
- Eric's "Goodbye!" ringtone from Tim's funeral
- That creepy "OOH MAMA!" music
- Zan's "What Do You Call That?" instructional video
- The "Gravy Robbers" background music

...and many many more. It's like one long Tim and Eric fangasm. Other great bonus tracks here include the Shins' cover of "Wipe My Butt" (I'm not a big Shins fan, but hearing them sing "My brown crusty stains are an environmental issue" with a sweet acoustic backing gives them some major cool points in my book), Built to Spill's crazed rock cover of "Come Over," an 8-bit version of "The Snuggler," two great re-mixes of "Sports," the rock version of "Salame," and much much more that I'll let you discover for yourself. If you're like me, you might be upset with the exclusion of some great songs - including but not limited to the "Tony and Tim" theme, which doesn't show up here in any form (maaaaaaaan) and Tim and Eric's inexplicable beat-boxing from the "Abstinence" episode which only appears briefly in the "Awesome Show" remix. But y'know, that's nitpicking. I will reiterate - if you are a Tim and Eric fan, buy the fuck out of this album and wear the motherfucker out. Throw it on your iPod or Zen or whatever and sneak "Sports" and "Come Over" into your party mixes. Make your friends bow to glory of Tim and Eric. (If they stop being your friends, well, maybe they never were real friends.)

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS DIRECTED AT PEOPLE WHO KNOW LITTLE TO NOTHING ABOUT TIM AND ERIC ONLY

OK, I don't know how your tastes run. But lemme ask you this - do you like comically bizarre music? Do you have any interest in the likes of Ween, Frank Zappa, or the Zip Code Rapists? Do you chortle at ridiculous karaoke public-access videos from the late '80s or so? To you have an appreciation for a catchy techno beat?

Well, then you might like Tim and Eric. They're great songwriters. But then again, maybe you won't like them. Their sense of humor is incredibly divisive. I can't really explain why I find a middle-aged woman singing "I've done my chores, I've swept the floor / you make me wet when you come in the door" incredibly funny. Or hearing a a awkward little man-child scream in the middle of a song about hamburgers. Or hearing a chorus of singers chanting "I bet they'll french kiss all night long" and "I wish we knew which hole he's gonna poke her through." Maybe you don't find this funny at all. I can understand that. Kind of.

But you've got to admit, these songs are catchy. They're zippy, fun, and they don't linger too long. Give 'em a try! You might like them, if you like weird shit! Or you might not like them at all, and resent me for the recommendation. That's fair. But honestly, you won't find better music coming from a TV show nowadays. I swear it.

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS DIRECTED AT PEOPLE WHO PREFER TO WATCH "FAMILY GUY" OVER "TIM AND ERIC" ONLY

We have nothing to discuss.

View the original HERE!

Thursday is Friendz Video Updatez

2008-06-19T10:02:00.003-04:00

On Mondays, we'll bring you the freshest comedy videos from the pro's-but on Thursday, we throw caution to the wind and bring you cutting edge, underground stuff from our pals and buddies.

This Thursday, we're proud to present Bleak! Dating, a video sketch from our good friends at Bleak! Comedy, a sketch group out of NYC's School of Visual Arts. We go way back. So here we go: Bleak! Dating:

Thanks, Bleak!

See you in the future,
Stephen Winchell

Wednesday's Comicxsz-PHIL!!!!

2008-06-18T10:59:00.004-04:00

Hello, and welcome to Wilhelm on the Web's Wednesday Comics. Generally, every Wednesday, we'll update with a handful of fresh and funny comics. However, there's a lot to work out for that; cartoonists demand internet money, they have to discuss things with their agent, and if sexual favors aren't exchanged, then the whole deal may be lost completely.

So, in the interim, I encourage everyone to visit a website I run with my friend Ben called Have Your Phil. PHIL was the smash hit of the Daily Campus last year, and Ben and I love writing it so much, we just HAD to keep going this summer!

HaveYourPhil is updated EVERY MWF with a brand new strip, and has a full archive if you want to start from the beginning. And, hey! Here's TODAY'S comic!

Next week we'll have all sorts of comics for you. But don't come back until you've Had Your Phil!!!!!

-steve

Tuesday Essay: My Plans Concerning a Time Machine by Ben Vigeant

2008-06-17T10:14:00.003-04:00

From Astounding Essays:

Sliced so delicately that when your tongue touches it, each fiber of meat collapses into pure flavor. Slathered with the finest barbecue sauce, it tastes like what man has killed to put into your mouth should. Most places they would just get some crap Wonder Bread for their rolls, but these rolls are authentic. Cooked by the wisest old man baker in the back using a baking stone which doubles as the Tablet which God handed down the commandments from on high to Moses, the bread is a celebration of carbohydrates. Unless you get the all wheat one, which calls to a wild animal past which only those who have a bit of the jungle in them still dare put into their body. The sauerkraut was made by a quiet German, a tentative Hun who lives in a shack out back. He doesn’t speak any English, or really at all. His life is his sauerkraut, what might have once been known as Liberty Cabbage liberates your mouth from the dull grayness of ordinary life. Barry’s BBQ made the best pulled pork that you could find ever. It closed three years ago. If I had a time machine and only one use of it, that’s where I’d go.

I’ve been looking into time machines. I find traveling generally tedious, a whole lot of waiting for no real payoff. Some people think that sitting in a cramped little corner for nine hours and walking out to a place where everyone talks funny is a great thing to do with your time. I am a little more realistic. Traveling like that is just a waste of time. Time traveling, by definition, can’t be a waste of time. I’m no big sci-fi geek. I don’t worship Kirk action figures or anything like that. I just want to travel through time; it seems like something that would really help me. Time machines are essentially miracle workers. A time machine can take something that was once destroyed and make it live anew, like Barry’s pulled pork.

I don’t know the first thing about building a time machine. I have had a few thoughts. Most of them involve hooking clocks to things. I know it’s stupid. I don’t see anyone else making a serious effort though. We have the smartest scientists in the world working on lip gloss that tastes like fruit, not advancing us to the next plane of existence. There should only be two things that qualified scientists work on in the world, yet they’re the most ignored. The first is time machines. If we got all of the scientists in the world, do you know how quick we’d have a time machine set up? Second we’d need some sort of device to make sure that nobody would ruin time, which scientists can work on concurrently. Until the day when scientists realize that control of time is what will save us all, humanity is just going to have to put up with my stupid clumsy attempts.

There are so many days that I would consider if I were going back in time that it would make this one use extremely difficult to pick. January 16th, 2003 a day after my first son was born. Barry’s was having a two for one pulled pork sandwich sale. I went in and sat at one of the tables while Barry smiled and winked at me. He called back to his friends in the kitchen and told them to put together two pulled pork sandwiches for his best friend. I laughed; I knew I wasn’t his best friend. Barry was secretive and shifty. You could never quite trust him. There’s only one thing that I have learned to trust in this world, and it’s the reliability of pulled pork. Looking back, I doubt that Barry had any friends. He sure was friendly though, and in the end that’s what counted when you were running the best BBQ the planet had ever seen. I ate the two sandwiches, and I was satisfied.

Maybe I’d go back to the hot June 17th of 1996. I was younger then, and my palate wasn’t terribly advanced. It was advanced enough to know that this was the best that I ever was going to do. It was a day after that first steamy love session I had with the woman who eventually became my wife. Frankly it sold me on the whole deal. This is before Barry had gained too much weight, and he had a lot more hair then. I can remember now, but he had green eyes. It wasn’t something you noticed in his more jowlier days. To get to the point, Barry’s BBQ was having a free sample day where you would get just a cup with the pulled pork, and no sandwich. I took it home and made a pulled pork shake. It was the first of many.

If there was ever a time that really screamed to go to Barry’s BBQ it would be the first time I went, September 18th, 1990. I can remember that day clearly, because the next day my father would die in an entirely unexpected car accident. You can understand though why I never got to see him that day, because I spent the better part of it experiencing Barry’s BBQ. They say that the first time is the best, and let me tell you the truth that when my mouth had first contact with that food I fell down on the floor. Barry had to call an ambulance because he thought I had passed out. I had. When I came to, I was in an emergency room, and I was pissed off. I knew that there was only one thing I wanted and it was a pulled pork sandwich. As soon as I could, I got out of that damn hospital and back to Barry’s where he was waiting with the rest of the sandwich for me. I bet mom was pretty mad she had to go to the emergency room twice in two days.

I start to salivate when I think about going back in time to go to Barry’s. I start to worry, though. What if something goes wrong? Maybe I shouldn’t go back in time on those dates because if I come in contact with myself I’ll toss the entire universe askew. I don’t want to permanently damage anything, I just want the most succulent meat this side of the universe in my mouth slowly melting. Is that too much to ask? I want my salad days of meat. In 2007, no one understands how to make a good pulled pork sandwich anymore. I hate being weighed down by this linear time system which sees that all things must age and be destroyed while we humans sit and watch… as the same things happen to us.

I know that I’m crazy to have theories like this. I already told you that my method of just sticking clocks onto heaps of metal is dumb. I am not a scientist; I can’t make the world a better place just by putting glasses on. Read this though… would you give up everything to experience one moment again? A moment of clarity. A moment where everything in the world seemed just right and you didn’t care about war, death, or any of the other horrors of existence? That’s what I felt when I was in Barry’s. I felt a gasping existential weight being lifted off my shoulders. The only way I will ever be at peace again is if I feel that, at least one more time. I would sacrifice everything I owned, everyone I ever knew, just for it once more. Time travel is the only way. Have you ever loved so much it hurt and tore you apart? That’s how I feel every moment since Barry left town.

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Monday's Film: Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis w/ Michael Cera

2008-06-16T08:57:00.002-04:00

From FunnyOrDie.com

Saturday means Deutsch-Österreichisches Feingefühl

2008-06-14T18:19:00.003-04:00

For your weekend, we leave you with Deutsch-Österreichisches Feingefühl's CODO, a lovely piece of Austrian Pop music from the 80's. And yes, this is real.

The Waldo Ultimatum

2008-03-07T13:12:00.001-05:00

The Waldo Ultimatum - Watch more free videos

LEGENDS #1- Stephen Colbert

2008-02-27T12:50:00.002-05:00

Welcome to a brand new segment here at the Wilhelm Comedy Blog; LEGENDS. We'll be highlighting some true pioneers and visionaries of comedy up in this place, and for our first installment, I'd like to honor one Mr. Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report.

Everyone has seen these clips. But everyone needs to see them again. This is one of the ballsiest, bravest things I've seen a comedian do. I mean..THE PRESIDENT is RIGHT THERE. Wow.

Thank God I was born in the Era of Colbert.

-sw

Bruce Springsteen Is Better Than You

2008-02-16T23:11:00.009-05:00

That's right, I said it. Bruce Springsteen - DA BOSS himself - is better than you. All of you. Not only that, but he and the legendary E STREET BAND are better than any other band you can name. This is not something that can be argued. This is proven fact. In fact, the E Streeters are so much better than every other band in existence that they have the ability to physically destroy any band that gets in their way. Any band... that isn't worthy.

These men are poised to kill. Do not make direct eye contact.

But I don't know. I'm sure there are some people - some foolish, foolish people - who will say, "Gee, Bruce Springsteen? He's nowhere near the best rock and roller in the world. What about my favorite band 311?"

Well, you're wrong. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are the best. Questioning this equals death. Their sax-driven heartland rock will invade your brain and destroy your love for any other band much in the same way the Nazis invaded and burned down the small Czechoslovakian town of Lidice. They're just that great.

Oh, but I'm sure you need more proof, you fools. Fine then. To prove that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are inarguably the best and most powerful rock band ever, I will compare them to some loser band that foolish fools seem to like and show you, based on a number of criteria, why they are better.

Hmm. Who should we start with?

Oh jesus. Linkin Park? Seriously?? This... may be a little to easy.

But no. It must happen. Linkin Park had a number 1 album on the charts last year. They have fans in the millions. They are ripe for the picking. They are the antelope to Bruce Springsteen's fierce lion. (Laugh at that metaphor, and he will come for you.)

Let's do this.

BACKGROUNDS:

Bruce Springsteen: Springsteen bought his first guitar at the age of 13; he had wanted to become a rock star since the age of 8, after seeing Elvis Presley perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. At 16 he started performing in several local New Jersey rock bands, inspired by such luminaries as Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and Gary U.S. Bonds. He formed the E Street Band in the early '70s, who quickly became known for their electrifying nightly stage performances and unique mixture of pre-Beatles rock 'n roll and pre-Motown R 'n B.

Linkin Park: After seeing a Limp Bizkit video for the first time, Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda - maybe the worst duo in the history of popular music - decided that rap-metal was nowhere near as annoying and shitty as it could be. After bribing some record executives into giving them a contract, they released some of the most boring, cliched, overwrought music you could possibly imagine. Influences include Satan.

Ok, listen, Springsteen is going to win this one. Hands down. There is no point in me continuing on. But I know you fools - you dumb dumb Linkin Park boosters - won't take "SPRINGSTEEN IS GOD" for an answer. So let's move on.

BREAKTHROUGH ALBUM COMPARISON:

Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run: Considered by many to be one of the finest rock albums ever made - to the point where Greil Marcus compared it to The Iliad - Springsteen delivered his biggest and most beloved work in 1975, combining the romanticism of Orbison, the poetry of Dylan, the production of Spector and the swagger of an early 60's bar-rock band. It was the third album of his career, after a decade of working hard and honing his skills finally paid off. A classic in every regard.

Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory: A derivative piece of shit Korn would be embarrassed to put out. Became the best-selling rock album of the 2000s because bored teenagers needed some angry-sounding music to listen to while playing Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX.

Come on, look that that! After a fully-detailed comparison like that, you still aren't convinced? Ok. Fine.

COLLABORATIONS:

Bruce Springsteen has written songs for such influential rock artists as Patti Smith, The Pointer Sisters, and Manfred Mann, and has performed with the likes of Neil Young, R.E.M., and the Arcade Fire.

Linkin Park did a shitty mash-up album with Jay-Z, which can only be considered the absolute nadir of Jay-Z's career.

OK. I'm tired of this idiocy. If THAT didn't convince you, then I'm gonna have to bring out the big guns.

PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS:

Bruce Springsteen:

Wow. What an impressive hunk of man.

Chester Bennington:

Ugh... UGH. That is just... eww.

Come on, ladies, WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE??

Well, I'm done with this. If you aren't convinced by now, I'm sure Bruce Springsteen is on his way to break into your house and visit with you personally. If his affable New Jersey swagger doesn't win your heart, he'll rip it out of your chest and feed it to Max Weinberg. That's all there is to it.

Yeah, Linkin Park was an easy target. But don't worry; I won't be done proving Bruce Springsteen's greatness until I've compared him to every band that has ever existed, ever, and destroyed them all. Because that is Springsteen's ultimate goal. Domination... of your music tastes.

Until next time.

P.S.: I was close to making an easy joke about the above picture. I didn't. Because really, what needs to be said?

Kresstionable Behavior : Audio Weaponry

2008-02-14T14:58:00.002-05:00

hello, wilhelm comedy blogger. I hope you're enjoying the cold (muahahaha)

I felt compelled to comment on an interesting new development in audio technology that i stumbled upon whilst perusing the greatest news site in the world atm imo (at the moment, in my opinion...dummy) digg.com.
http://gizmodo.com/356090/inferno-speaker-blaster-makes-you-vomit

say how do to the Inferno Speaker

basically what this 3 foot pain-in-the-ass does is emit a 125db noise that is so unbearable, it "induces vomiting, chest pain, and vertigo". Several manufacturers have already started cranking out these fucking headache machines, installing them in nuclear facilites in Russia, various shops throughout Europe, and even as a theft deterrence measure on cars and vans.

Frankly, I feel morally obligated to effectively stamp my namesake on this thang and deem it
HIGHLY KRESSTIONABLE

A few months ago, I learned about "mosquito tones", high pitched noises that operate at such a high frequency that they are inaudible to anyone above the age of 30 (at this age hearing has degraded beyond this frequency). Students have begun using them as ringtones to receive calls in class without drawing attention, and in Europe shop owners will play these squealing tones as a way to keep goldbricking kids from loitering in front of their stores.

this interested me to the point that I actually bought one of these ringtones (much to the chegrin of the younger members of my extended family) but it also opened my eyes to the silly and obnoxious hobby of meddling with sound frequencies. Well, if the mosquito tone is a 7 on the obnoxious scale, the Inferno Speaker is easily a 12 (in theory)
Some asshole audiologist, whilst tinkering in his Frankensteinian lab, discovered this horrible technology and marketed it, and now I'm going on record to say that this technology, if it catches on, will turn up the dickometer on security systems.

Imagine, if you will, you live in a peaceful suburb in a two story with kids, a dog, and a power mower. The year is 2018. A prowler breaks into your home, and unbeknownst to him you've installed the latest in home security: The Inferno Speaker 9000.
You hear the sound of glass breaking, you jump up and grab the nearest baseball bat/golf club/obligatory home defense bludgeoning weapon. Your heart racing, you enter the hall.
AND THE OBNOXIOSPEAKER ENGAGES
Suddenly the prowler drops to his knees clutching his chest. The nausea forces him to vomit all over your Persian foyer rug. your dog rolls over and whimpers, vomits, eats his vomit, and repeats. Your wife comes out of the bedroom gripping her ears. she vomits. the kids wake up, screaming "daddy! daddy!" in between heaving chunks of macaroni and cheese on their dora the explorer bedsheets.

now thats kresstionable

Rich Piepho: Comedian, Beloved Friend Dead At Age 21

2008-02-02T00:15:00.000-05:00

OK, he's not really dead. Like, physically dead. Just symbolically dead. And by "symbolically dead" I mean "not living in Connecticut at the moment."

But yes, Mr. Rich Piepho, beloved friend and member of Wilhelm, has gotten a writing job in L.A. While we are saddened to see him leave - he was the only attractive member of our group, after all (nah just jokin', I'm pretty good looking) - we are also very, very proud of him and wish him the best. Our little boy has grown up.

I say "little boy" because, unlike the other two members of Wilhelm, I can say that I have known Mr. Piepho for almost my entire life. We were both born in upstate New York, in the small town of Lakeport. We met by chance at a Coal Miners Family Convention - you see, our fathers were both coal miners, and desperately wanted the two of us to continue our families' legacies. But the moment Rich and I met at the ages of 8 and 9 respectively, our fathers touting us around the convention floor as if we were soot-covered trophies destined to be apart of the New Coal Generation, we knew that this shallow life wasn't for us.

It was then that the two of us heard of the magic that was the Connecticut comedy scene. My older cousin, attending the University of Connecticut at the time, invited us to see his sketch comedy group - the Razzlin' Dazzles - perform. I'll never forget what I saw that night: the lavish backdrop of the Von der Mehden Theater, filled with eager comedy aficionados waiting to have their artistic visions fulfilled, talking excitedly to one another in nervous anticipation not unlike those who were about to witness Leonardo da Vinci's paintings for the first time. Once young Rich and I saw the Razzlin' Dazzles' dead-on impression of former President George Herbert Walker Bush shouting "READ MY NIPS!!", the both of us knew it. We were destined to be Connecticut Comedy Stars.

For years we practiced. At first, things were golden; Rich and I shared similar comedy dreams and instincts, and some of the sketches we wrote back when we were 12 stand up even today (ask me and I'll send you the "Deep Brew, the Chess Playing Beer" sketch; great comedy knows no era). Not only that, but we practiced improv non-stop, much to the chagrin of our fathers. I clearly recall Rich and I in the middle of a scene about a gay cop and his son who turned out to be Carson Daly, making each other laugh furiously in my bedroom, when the ominous THUMP THUMP of my father's mining boots came from right outside my door. The moment he walked in on Rich and I, dancing and serenading each other in a hilarious fashion, he looked at us with cold, cold eyes; the soot had covered his entire face, except for those eyes, yellowed with age. He truly looked like a demon. With total bemusement, he handed me a shovel, told me to "get down to the mine" and walked away.

It was never the same after this. Rich and I stopped talking. The only time I would see Rich would be at the Coal Convention, but we would barely talk; neither of us knew if we would ever escape the coal trap our fathers had made for us - even worse, we were unsure if this whole "comedy" dream was worth it. Once I finally escaped that hell hole and bused it to Storrs CT, I was rid of that evil town forever - but I never saw Rich again.

That is, until late 2007. Steve Winchell and I had started Wilhelm Comedy, and desperately needed talented performers. As far as I knew, Rich Piepho could have been a dead man, buried under miles and miles of coal in Lakeport - surely, even if he were alive, he'd probably given up on our comedy dream. So when he walked into our audition room, shot me a smile, and performed his new revision of our old "Tom and Jerry Visit A Gay Bar" routine, I almost cried. He'd never forgotten our dream of escaping the coal mines and becoming Connecticut Comedy Stars - and now, we'd fulfill those dreams, at long last.

The rest, as they say, is history.

I've sure Winchell and Kress have their own stories about Rich, but I assure you that they are no where near as interesting as mine. I mean, come on. Mine had George Bush Sr. in it.

But I will say that on behalf of all of us, it has been a wonderful semester working with you, Rich. You're an immensely talented writer and performer, and we know you will kick some serious ass in L.A.

Just don't kill anybody. That will reflect badly on the club.

RICH PIEPHO: WILHELM MEMBER AND BELOVED FRIEND 1986-2008

Shiny New Segment

2007-12-27T01:38:00.001-05:00

hey all. Kress here
I sincerely hope that everyone's remaining days of 2007 are pleasantly drifting by. I, for one, will be glad to return to school and resume my life up north, but until then...
Upon some deliberation with the other Wilhelm gents, we made the democratic decision to start adding more content to our blog, so that we may lure more of the faceless masses sifting through the internet to us, much like the bird with the brightest feathers attracts more potential mates. Each of us is churning away on our own exciting and intoxicatingly hilarious segment to be posted on the blog at regular intervals in an attempt to add fuel to the fire of our collective comedic passion...
so open your mouth and close your eyes as i am about to spew forth my own comedic passion fuel, in a segment I like to call:

KRESStionable Behavior

Let's get right into it with everybody's favorite University president Mr. Mike Hogan. I have heard from a reliable source that Mr. Hogan has a parking spot on 24-hour reserve near Beach Hall. Not only that, but this parking space is not to be graced by any other Goodyears but his, as the "24-Hour Parking for President Hogan" sign in front of it flagrantly indicates.
Now, I can imagine the location of this parking space has some strategic value to our beloved prez, allowing him minimal travel time between his automobile and his various circular offices and ultimately minimal travel time between his home and those very same offices. I'm also aware that the duties of a president--moreover the duties of a university president--are many, and as such he is effectively on call for all 24 hours in the day. Should the need for his executive decision on a crucial matter arise at 3:45 in the morning, the last thing he should worry about is finding a spot in front of the building housing the big red button.
While I can recognize how having a designated 24 hour parking space could have some benefits for our collegiate commander in chief, i feel compelled to deem this behavior:

A bit KRESStionable

here's a man who, since his inauguration, has made it a point to get down on the student's level in an attempt to further reinforce the illusion of equality between students and their ivory tower administrative overlords. Call me crazy, but to my knowledge there isnt a person living and breathing on the university campus that has their own designated 24 hour parking spot. Seems to me like our good president hogan is being a jekyll and hyde president. Sure, he'll shake your hand and kiss your proverbial baby, but at the end of the day your ass is scrambling around X lot, trudging through rain and snow, while he's rolling into a sweet parking spot and enjoying prime rib and executive priveledge in a climate controlled circular office. Equality? Maybe that could pass for equality in Nam, mr. president, but here in america it looks like you're having your cake while simultaneously eating it.

How could president Hogan better himself and cease his KRESStionable ways, you ask?
My mindbrain can only think of but two options for our beloved prezzy prezzington.
The first route Hogey could take to restore his old mission of currying the student body's favor would be to 86' his paved private property and schlep like his loyal subjects. I officially challenge president Hogan to relinquish this one presidential perk and get to his office using the same means as the students. make a right turn out of your palatial estate's hillside driveway for a change, park up at W lot and stand shoulder to shoulder with the serfs. Ride a fucking bus, Hoges, and maybe you'll earn a little more respect from your people.
Another option for our boy is a more environmentally friendly one: cut out the gas-guzzling middleman. By my estimate, the distance between the front door of the presidential manor and the hallowed parking space is about a quarter of a mile. assuming president hogan travels to this parking space and back once a day for seven days a week he rakes in 1.75 miles per week, accruing just under 90 miles in a year, roughly the distance i travel, door to door, from my home in Norwalk to school in Storrs. If Hogey Hogey Hippos were to hang up his driving gloves and maybe telecommute, he would save natural resources, university funds, wear and tear on his car, AND a parking space outside of Beach Hall. Again, I may be crazy, but with such insanely economic alternatives to driving to work, Hogan is simply MAD for using such an analog means of getting shit done rather than investing 29.99 on a spongebob webcam and saving everybody, not the least of which being mother fucking earth.

well, i think i've spewed enough knowledge for one post. Thank you for reading the first edition of

KRESStionable Behavior

Next time on KRESStionable Behavior:
Wilhelm's Youtube videos have been seeing a horrific lack of views, so much so that a certain individual very close to Wilhelm has accumulated more views on just one youtube video than 100 times the combined number of views for ALL of our videos.
to add insult to injury, the video in question has to do with some seriously nasty and unfunny-by-comparison shit (no pun intended)
more on that next time...

Wilhelm LIVE: Part 2 in a 3 Part Series

2007-12-16T12:54:00.000-05:00

On Saturday December 1st, 9:05 PM on the Student Union Lobby Stage, Wilhelm performed 10 sketches for a pretty sizable crowd. It was fun, and honestly, it was the quickest 45 minutes of my life.

Reproduced here are the 5th, 6th, and 7th sketches of the night, filmed by Emily Tritsch. Enjoy!

KIDS AND TERRORISM

FREEZE FRAME

GUM

We'll have the last three sketches up within the week. Enjoy your break. Also, you should probably join our Facebook Group if you really like us like us.

We love ewe,
Stephen Winchell

Wilhelm LIVE: Part 1 in a 3 Part Series

2007-12-14T15:08:00.000-05:00

On Saturday December 1st, 9:05 PM on the Student Union Lobby Stage, Wilhelm performed 10 sketches for a pretty sizable crowd.

Reproduced here is the first 4 sketches, filmed by Emily Tritsch. Enjoy!

DAN GETS FIRED

GAMESHOW CALLING

SIGN STORE

GUESS WHO, SHERLOCK HOLMES

With some luck, we'll be able to get the rest of our set up here. We'll also need an external hard drive.

As always, we love you all. Show the love back! Join our Facebook Group to get up to the minute Wilhelm news and updates.

Take it to the streets,
Stephen Winchell

Daily Campus Comics - Finals Edition

2007-12-09T19:29:00.000-05:00

So the semester is finally over, and if you've been following my updates since September you know that it's been a doozy, especially for the Daily Campus comics page. We've had some laughs, some awkward pauses, and even some tender moments (mostly thanks to EggSalad). But all good things must come to an end.

Some comics are staying in the paper after the break. Some comics are finished and are never comic back, ever. I bet you can't wait to find out which ones are leaving.

Well, let's take a look.

Lucid TV, for all intents and purposes, doesn't seem to be going anywhere. This is a good thing because Lucid TV is wonderful.

Hell, these are repeats from last spring and they're still great.

Brothers Watt will, as far as I know, continue to be the resident "pretty-funny-but-way-too-much-like-Calvin-and-Hobbes" comic in the DC next semester. That's fine, I guess. Every college newspaper needs at least one.

It will also continue to make "kids don't get old technology" jokes, I'm sure. I don't know. Why do people assume all kids born in the past decade or so are space-age technobuffs who sleep in the Silicon Valley with their futuristic doo-hickeys? Has the Brother Watt depicted in the latter comic been sleeping in a cryogenic tube half his life?

Eh. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Pirates and Ninjas will probably still be around next semester and continue to be zany zany zany. I haven't posted this comic much because I don't really care about it. It's kinda that one comic you just automatically gloss over, without even reading it. It might as well be blank space. There's really nothing there.

Wow, playing a 47-year-old woman in a play is pretty embarrassing, huh? Jeez, what an awkward moment. I can say, though, that this comic gives us what could be one of the most frightening punchlines ever delivered. Look at the man standing behind our protagonist in the last panel - lurking in the shadows, his shirt half-unbuttoned, his crotch oddly accentuated, his speech bubble creeping jaggedly down the side of the panel. "I play a 47-year-old man every day."

Thank god there is no fourth panel.

In lighter news, Poor Richard will still be around. It's a cute comic.

I wish I had more to say about it.

Here's an interesting case. In the comment page of our last DC comics update, I was taken to task by a particularly vigilant reader for not going after Phil, accusing me of favoritism since Stephen Winchell, Phil's illustrator, is a member of Wilhelm as we all know. Now, I've always considered Phil out of bounds for these entries since I expected Winchell to make his own little post about it.

But he didn't. And do I like being accused of favoritism? No, no I don't.

So let me put it this way: Phil is a comic for chumps. I could draw a Phil in my sleep. Hell, I could improve it in my sleep. Just watch and learn:

And there you go. Two seconds.

Noted improvements include:
-Full blazing color
-Character development (Phil's blond friend, who desperately seeks Phil's approval; Phil himself, who we can now see is an albino)
-Bodies, dynamic movements, and teeth
-Easy-to-read font
-From the get-go, we know EXACTLY who Phil is
-Funny, observational jokes anyone can relate to

Winchell, consider this a gift. I don't give this kind of valuable criticism to just anybody. Take it into consideration for next semester.

Oh, wait... that's Franklin Pierce, isn't it? Shit. Forgo everything I just said.

Yessir, Effed Up will still be around to charm us with its incredibly busy art. Sage advice here, freshmen: don't daydream while studying. Books will sneak up on you, and murder you. Presumably.

Whatever, it's Effed Up, we all know what to expect.

FTW will probably still be around, and will probably still make no goddamned sense.

You know, in retrospect, FTW is kind of a wannabe Pirates and Ninjas, which in itself is kind of a wannabe Based on a True Story. Kinda like how Sgt. Pepper's was influenced by Pet Sounds, which in itself was influenced by Rubber Soul. Great artists inspire one another.

Speak of the devil...

Based On a True Story is gonna be... oh, ugh, God. Eww. Ahhh... ohhhgggg.

OK, listen, I'm no prude, but I don't want to see the cast of Based On a True Story engaging in any kind of vaguely sexual activity. Ever. I mean, at least from a comic like Freshmen 15 I EXPECT to be thoroughly grossed out by horribly-drawn little people fucking incessantly.

I mean... ok, the joke doesn't even make any sense. Unless you're having sex in the goddamned snow. Seriously, Ms. Dunning, if you had just thought to yourself "Hmm, this joke is kind of stupid, maybe I'll hold back on drawing myself having sex," we could all be spared this... I don't know.

I would gladly see more of this:

Cutesy dumb shit. See? That's fine. And this:

See, this is... oh, God, who am I kidding. I can never look at these little cartoon people the same way again. It's like walking in on your parents having sex.

Ugh.

In other news, Musings of the Girl Next Door will also be around next semester. Also, it's gone a little batshit insane.

Yeah, that's not one, but two comics about ugly Christmas sweater parties. In the same week. To repeat a tired phrase, one would probably be too many.

Karen, I believe in you. I know you'll get back on track next semester. I don't want to believe that you're running out of ideas. I can't accept that.

Well, those are the comics that I know - barring some unforseen circumstances - will be gracing our comics page for at least another glorious semester.

But now, with a heavy heart, it's time for us to say goodbye to the new...

COMICS OF THE MONTH!

This month: Stickcat, Stiw Kit, and Freshmen 15

Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen. The following three comics are officially kaput. Over. Done with. In the graveyard.

This is going to be rough.
So Stickcat is over with. I'm sure everybody on campus is cheering, eh?

Honestly, though, I would be lying if I said Stickcat was the worst comic in the paper. Hell, it's far from it. It's mediocre, sure. But it's hardly the worst. It's just been stuck at the very top of the comics page for at least two goddamned years, and it's never gone away.

But it's leaving now. Okay? Forever and ever. Hell, even Stickcat himself can't stand the comic anymore. Let's just move on and erase it from our memories forever.

So the writer/artist of Stiw Kit, Scott Daros, commented on our last DC Comics update, expressing some regret that he hadn't been included in any of our previous updates.

Well, Scott, let me set the record straight: I haven't posted Stiw Kit in this blog because I really, really enjoy it. It's remarkably well-drawn, charming, cute but not overly so, and is easily one of the best in the paper. Yeah, I've talked about Lucid TV and Poor Richard and other comics I've enjoyed in the past, but I very much regret not talking about Stiw Kit earlier. It's a fine piece of work and it's a shame that it's only been in the DC for one semester.

So to make it up to you, I'll plug your blog and be done with it.

Just as a bonus, here's one last slice of Stiw Kit loveliness before we get down to... you know, the ugly stuff. Enjoy it, folks, it'll be the last you'll be seeing in a while:

Well... okay. Let's get down to business.

I'm prepared.

Freshmen 15. Yes, it's leaving. But it's not leaving... without our souls.

So here's some standard Freshmen 15 for you, printed about a week ago. Like we expect, characters' heads are perpetually hugging the edge of the panels, as if they're peeking out from under something. We can probably attribute this to the artist's total lack of ability to draw... you know, people.

But for the last week, something unusual began to develop.

That's right. Full body shots.

But that's not that bad, right? I mean, it's not like it's gross or weird or anything. They're just full-body drawings of Freshmen 15's rat-haired protagonist. But... what could this be leading to?

Ohhh... ahhh... eeeeuhhh...

I... well, okay, come on now. It's not that bad. It's just... rat-haired girl's ass. Ughhmmmm.

Well, at least it's the last comic, right?

Err, wait, I guess it's not, there's one more he-

Uerrr. ah. AH.

AHHHH. OH. OHGGAHH.

MERRAHHHHH

GABAHHHHERAHHHH

...Heather Dunning, consider yourself forgiven.

-Sean Rose

BONUS!

Sean Rose's Pick: Best Non-Comic Text Printed in the Daily Campus, Fall '07

Mr. Coffee: A.I. by R.J. Fried and Jared Miller

2007-12-06T20:47:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine, R.J. Fried, is a writer out in L.A. I know him through the comedy magazine Nutria, which he created and I wrote for. He and his writing partner/cousin Jared Miller started to make some videos, and this one ended up on Funnyo or Die. Hope you like it.

Check them out at MillerFried.com

JUKEBOX THE GHOST, a break from your troubles!

2007-12-03T22:27:00.000-05:00

We've come to that point in the semester where things are starting to get hairy. I myself have three papers due this week, and I know that's just the tip of the iceberg for some of you. Not to mention, finals start Monday, and God knows Christmas is getting closer. And the weather! jeez!

Why not take a break from all of this frizz-frazz? Lord knows every once in a while you need to listen to some catchy, groundbreaking music from a real up and coming band. Why not join Wilhelm Comedy on Thursday night (December 6th) for a performance by JUKEBOX THE GHOST at Hamden CT's The Space? What do you say? A half hour drive, ten bucks, a night of pop/rock/new music (described by many as Ben Folds meets They Might Be Giants meets Soulja Boy Tellem) sounds pretty good to me.

But you know what sounds better? The band. Take a listen on their Myspace page: http://www.jukeboxtheghost.com/

Take a look at these guys, they are, in my humble opinion, the face of change in the music world:

And hey, why don't you check out one of their live performances?

In all seriousness..I am a hard man to please when it comes to music. When I heard this band, it was like they tapped into all the greats and put something together I really haven't heard before. They're from DC, and they won't be up this way very often. I highly recommend a trip to see them.

Jukebox the Ghost: Officially Endorsed by Wilhelm.

...not that that means anything.

With love,
Stephen Winchell
(Who hopes you AT LEAST check out their songs. And who hopes you do go on Thursday. Because Jukebox the Ghost is pretty much the greatest thing out of DC since Slick Willy)

If you WEREN'T at our second live performance EVER...

2007-12-02T16:11:00.000-05:00

Here's a taste of what you missed:

*Steve Kress freezing time and causing mayhem...sometimes

*Emily Neumann, honorary girl, telling her three children that their school was blown up by terrorists...then her children cheered in celebration

*Stephen Winchell calling his buddy from a gameshow...just as his buddy's son was coming out

*Rich Piepho creating the perfect logo: the Nike swoosh with googly eyes

*Sean Rose once again donning those 80's Sunglasses, and once again jerking off a dead man

And, of course, the question that comes up is, why WEREN'T you at our second live performance ever? It was a blast and a half, with great shows from our co-bills HuskyImprov and Agents of Improv.

To those of you who did come, thank you very much for the support. We also love you.

And, as an added treat, here's a picture of Kurt Johnson, our logo, getting attacked by a bunch of other Kurt Johnson robots:

With Love!
Stephen Winchell, on behalf of those other guys in Wilhelm

nockFORCE by nockFORCE

2007-11-29T13:30:00.000-05:00

Both Sean and I frequent a website called SomethingAwful, and one of our fellow members is a guy who does a flash cartoon. Now, there are thousands of people who post on this site, and I went into these cartoons with a healthy does of skepticism. But I found them pretty much hilarious.

If you like the criminally underrated cartoon Home Movies, you'll like these. If you don't like Home Movies...well, they're only a minute each, so it's worth a look anyway.

I present to you, some choice selections from nockFORCE:

Episode 9: The Bay Bridge

Episode 7: Marriage Magazine

Episode 11: Rappin' Rollercoaster

There are 24 nockFORCE qucikies up on their youtube page...which is here: http://youtube.com/user/nockFORCE I'm sure I'll link a few more at some point in the near future. If you did enjoy, though, I encourage you to go check it out.

-Stephen Winchell

WILHELM UCTV SHOW PROMO

2007-11-25T20:31:00.000-05:00

This is a very quick promo for our upcoming UCTV show, patched together with clips from our first and second episode.

Enjoy, talk to your friends about it. Hell, why don't you blog about it yourself?

And, as always, keep an eye out for updates. Wilhelm's got a pretty busy few weeks, it looks like.

-Stephen Winchell

Chairs: A Thanksgiving Treat

2007-11-20T23:05:00.000-05:00

We told ourselves we would wait to release any recorded material until after our UConnTV debut, but the HECK with it! It's time to have a little pre-thanksgiving treat.

So here it is: The Wilhelm internet debut with our first sketch EVER to hit vast precipice that is the internet

delicious sketch...nom nom nom nom nom

-Wilhelm

Daily Campus Comics - October/November

2007-11-15T23:13:00.000-05:00

Wow. I'm an asshole. I said in my last update that I'd start making my little survey of UConn's comics page a weekly thing. That was over a month ago - an even longer gap than last time! YIKES.

Well we might as well get the ball rolling again. Things have been going really well.

Musings is finally cutting the bullshit and asking the big questions. And it's not just limited to the random, invisible strangers this particular comic is targeted at. She's not stopping there.

Nope. She's going after her own friends. Who she sees every day. She's putting her own social life at risk, for the sake of art.

If anyone's wondering, this is what "cutting edge" is.

Yeah man, Hot Topic is so not cool anymore. Once it got all emo and goth and shit it just got lame. What a shame. I, for one, remember when kindly old Mr. Baker started what was known as "Ye Olde Hot-Topick Toffee Shoppe," where the children would laugh and play and were given free toffees because Mr. Baker was so old and kindly. Man, how times have changed.

Maybe you're all too young to remember this. But I'm glad someone else does. Hot Topic sure has changed.

Finally, a pot joke in the Daily Campus Comics Page! At long last!! We haven't had any good pot jokes since the heyday of Matt and Greg, a comic about two cool stoner dudes who smoked weed, hung out with pop culture icons like Oscar the Grouch and Link while smoking weed, and then smoked weed. Then they smoked weed. Those were the days.

Also I think the other kite should be saying, "I'm also as high as you, because I'm also a kite. We're both kites. I find nothing unusual about this situation."

Effed Up is finally taking a stand against a common enemy on UConn's campus: the infirmary. Fuck the infirmary, man! If you've got an injury just take care of that shit yourself. Like Christian Scientists.

"Ice it and keep off of it. How do you keep off of 'IT'?" Now there's some observational comedy worthy of Jerry Seinfeld. Really, what's the deal with "ice it and keep off of it"? What does that MEAN? I mean, there's no way that it could mean "put it on an ice pack and lay down for a while" or anything, right? I'm just totally clueless here. Doctors are so confusing!!

Also that doctor is lookin' snappy. Maybe they shouldn't trust him. Maybe he isn't a doctor. Maybe that's the joke.

Bill Watterson's back, ladies and gentlemen. Or he's been reincarnated in one William Wilson. I mean, let's be honest here... "William Wilson" just SCREAMS "fake name."

Welcome back to the fold, Mr. Watterson. How'd that whole "painting 100 works of art and burning them" thing work out?

So apparently being "original" means "wearing a scarf, communicating with exaggerated arm gestures, and being brunette."

Being original is also being cute, apparently.

Oh man, that is horrible. And he's holding the kid. Oh jeez.

I love this comic.

Hey this is kinda nice too. This is very nice.

I'm in a good mood.

Guess it's time for...

COMIC OF THE MONTH!!

This month: Freshmen 15

So the characters in Freshmen 15 are gettin' laid, drunk dialin', hookin' up with hot dudes and lots of other super-slutty stuff that cool girls do at UConn. It's really cool and shit. Because it's what cool college kids do.

I just hope this new wave of trendiness doesn't spread to more cerebral, respected comics.

NO NO GOD NO

Promise I'll do this sooner next time. Have a good'un.

-Sean Rose

Ivan and Mr. Hoppy by Monkey Dust

2007-11-13T12:44:00.000-05:00

Monkey Dust is a very dark British sketch comedy show, which ran from 2003 to 2005. It's animated, which is strange, as I've never seen an animated sketch program before.

Anyway, here is a montage of one of their reoccuring characters, Ivan Dobsky. These clips are a bit long (9 minutes each), but totally worth it. About time we put some British sensibility into this mundane American humor blog.

Ivan and Mr. Hoppy Montage 1

Ivan and Mr. Hoppy Montage 2

Comment if you love us
-Stephen Winchell

If you WERENT at our first live performance EVER...

2007-11-09T05:29:00.000-05:00

here's a little taste of what you missed:

*Sean Rose miming the act of grabbing a deceased man's junk whilst wearing 80s style sunglasses

*Stephen Winchell as Sherlock Holmes getting his ass handed to himself by Dr. Watson in three rounds of Guess Who

*Rich Piepho's glorious cockneyed accent as he sought his father's killer

*Steve Kress, in a leopard print dress, blonde wig, and serious lipstick going to town on a wedge of chocolate cake to the tune of "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck

*Emily Neumann (our unofficial fifth member) carrying the child of a dressmaker's son, also displaying a glorious cockneyed accent

and furthermore, why WERENT you at our first live performance EVER? seriously...what the hell...you're not invited to our joint birthday party anymore

to those of you that DID come to our first live performance EVER : we thank you, and we love you

-kress, on behalf of those other guys in Wilhelm

Bleak! Dating

2007-11-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

The Better Man : Time and Eric Awesome Show Remix

2007-10-31T23:37:00.000-04:00

The following is a (very) brief clip from one of our first sketches to be completely filmed and edited.
the posting of this clip is inspired by two things. The first is as an homage to Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of "Time and Eric Awesome Show: Great Job" and the hilarious mindfuckery that is their editing. The second being that after a little bit of tooling around with the editing software, i figured out how to emulate their jittery bugout ways. enjoy

Better Man: The real version coming soon
-Big Steve

Grady Murphey: Toast Tosser

2007-10-31T15:21:00.000-04:00

By Kumail Nanjiani and Robert Buscemi, arguably the two funniest comedians in Chicago right now, (although Kumail just moved to New York, which is great).

-Rich

Larry David on Hannah Montana

2007-10-22T21:52:00.000-04:00

I'll let the clip speak for itself

Daily Campus Comics Curmudgeon - Part Deux

2007-10-09T01:09:00.000-04:00

Man, it's been a while since my last review of UConn's campus comics, hasn't it? I should try to make this a weekly thing.

A lot has happened. Let me fill you in.

Based On A True Story has finally made the jump from a cutesy diary comic into a complete mind-fuck. What used to feature a girl complaining about how hard it is to talk to people on AIM and fantasize about Carmen Sandiego has become... well, this.

I don't know which one I prefer.

Yeah I just don't fucking get it.

Do attractive women commonly chill out with their bros in the forest?

More importantly, is it me, or are they having a shitting party? Because if they are that's just great.

I don't know if this was meant as some kind of super-ironic joke, but this comic was re-ran over and over again. For like a fucking month.

Also maybe it's just a stylistic thing, but that professor clearly has a bar code stamped on his face. This was a brilliant artistic choice.

If this comic were replaced with "The Adventures of Bar-Code Face" I would be very happy.

Honestly, if this were the last comic this "Frank" guy ever made, it would be the greatest comic ever. Man, just look at how happy that Stickcat lover is! Who on this earth would ever, in their right mind, love Stickcat that much? It is completely beyond reality, and yet there he is. Also note the Daily Campus that looks like a stone tablet, and the completely blatant erasure marks in the first panel. Man, Frank, you've got the world in your pocket. Don't ruin this masterful one-off by making any more.

Oh wait, you did and they weren't very funny. Oh well.

Now I would like to reveal to you a disturbing - but inevitable - recent trend: Daily Campus comics realizing that they are indeed terrible.

This is correct. You don't.

Chopsticks, you've been in this paper for a little over a month. Thank you for saving us the two-plus years it would have taken you to come to this conclusion.

The following comics, though, have not been as merciful.

Yeah haha you recognize that you do pot jokes, har har.

Again, like almost every DC comic, I keep thinking this one is a kind of post-modernist joke but I am consistently proven that it is not. It hurts my brain. And breaks my heart.

Finally, our brave hero Stickcat realizes that he has lost the good fight. Nobody cares about his boring, drawn-out escapades. Hell, the author had a whole hand-drawn story arc running a couple weeks back featuring Stickcat eating a giant sandwich. But no, Stickcat is and will forever be hated, and the fact that it remains at the top of the comics page doesn't help it any.

Having said that, this is probably the best Stickcat to come down the pike in a while; he walks in, he doesn't do anything stupid or annoying, and then he leaves. Thank you. If this ran every day for the rest of Stickcat's tenure at UConn, I would be a happy man.

Otherwise we'd just have this shit.

Well I find it hard to believe that this is the first time the author of Freshmen 15 heard someone talking shit about her comic. Then again, people talking shit about Freshmen 15 would require people to give a shit about Freshmen 15. So I guess it makes sense.

...zing.

As for the second comic, it is completely 100% true except for that last panel. Nobody is chuckling.

Nobody.

Well, I guess it's time to me to name my Comic of the Week! But since it's been so long, I guess I'll have to make it my...

COMIC OF THE MONTH!

In my last entry, I featured a little comic called Musings of the Girl Next Door not once, but twice. This is because Musings, at first glance, baffled me.

But times have changed. Now I understand.

Life is hard. Life doesn't have any easy answers. Life doesn't have "punch-lines". Life is just what it is... life. =As it goes on, we repeat our daily routine, and not much happens. Most people understand this, but only true artists live this, with unbridled passion. Karen Farver is one of these people.

Sure, this comic could have taken the easy route. It could have kept on making all those "UConn, Great Pick!" jokes, all those pot smoking jokes, all those Ugg Boots jokes that I don't understand because I don't know what the fuck Ugg Boots even are. But no - Musings is brave enough to stop, think, and come to a reasonable conclusion. Man, isn't it rough when you forget to read a book for class? Yes, Karen. Yes it is.

What can we hope to gain? What can we hope to achieve? Nothing but resentment, the drudgery of common life, fleeting and ultimately pointless feelings of joy. One day, your fridge is packed; the next day, it is bare. Overnight, our innocence is robbed, and we are blind to it until it's too late.

Not even the solace of sleep can solve our problems. What was once an ancillary, barren comic is now one of the most unforgiving portraits of human life ever to grace the DC comics page.

Karen Farver, I will probably never meet you, but if you are reading this, know that you now have my heart and soul in your hands. Please be gentle.

- Sean Rose

Minesweeper:The Movie

2007-10-05T16:29:00.000-04:00

-big steve

Busted

2007-10-01T23:54:00.000-04:00

this guy friended me on youtube a few months ago, but i didnt get around to checking out his stuff until the other day

-big steve

Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell: Waiters Who Are Nauseated by Food

2007-09-29T15:26:00.000-04:00

The two biggest Daily Show alums on The Dana Carvey Show in the 90's:

-Rich

No Direction, Period by The Post Show

2007-09-27T11:22:00.000-04:00

I was linked to this sketch by my friend Nick who knows I'm a pretty big Bob Dylan fan. Doing the most minimal amount of research I could, I found out that it was made by a group of three guys who run an internet sketch show called 'The Post Show', possibly for SuperDeluxe.com. Here is more info on them:

Bob Dylan: No Direction, Period, is described by the group as
"Yet another side of Mr. Zimmerman as envisioned by NYC's Post Show ensemble. Bob Dylan, the omnipresent Top-40 songwriting god, has never seemed more lucid.

Brought to you by packs of feral animals and Super Deluxe. "

Enjoy.

-steve winchell

The Child Beater

2007-09-25T01:51:00.000-04:00

Remember when it wasn't cool to wail on your kids?

i know its staged, but goddamn this shit tickles me

and uh...texas

-the bigger of the two steves

Kress's Post Makes Me Look Apathetic

2007-09-22T21:39:00.000-04:00

Hello to the half dozen readers of this blog! I'm Rich Piepho, the fourth and final member of Wilhelm. Since Steve took the time out of his day to post on here and welcome himself, I somehow feel obligated to do so as well. But I REALLY don't want to. Kidding.

Anyway, I'm really excited to be working with three really funny guys. This is something I've been wanting to do for a real long time now, and I'm glad I finally have the chance. After our last meeting I got a brand new notebook and have been scribbling ideas nonstop. So as not to toot my own horn, I will toot our collective horn by saying I honestly think we are going to make some hilarious stuff and there is a lot to look forward to.

More about myself: I'm a senior from Southbury, CT. I'm kind of obsessed with comedy. I love New York City, Mexican food, The Ramones, my girlfriend, etc. Flight of the Conchords is also a current obsession of mine.

Here's a video made by my improv teacher at the UCBT, UConn alum Will Hines. (He's the guy on the left):

Funny.

Finally, this may not be the appropriate venue, but I'd like to take this opportunity to address my estranged parents: Mom, Dad, I'm sorry about everything. Please come back from Iceland. I can't microwave my own chicken dinners anymore. I'll even stop belittling you verbally. I love you.

Great to be here.

-Rich

Rookie on deck

2007-09-21T09:53:00.000-04:00

sup.
This is Steve Kress, one of the newly appointed members of Wilhelm.

I had a few minutes to kill, so i thought id get my blog on.

A few things about me:

I'm a senior at this wonderful university we like to call UConn. My major is psychology. I live in neighboring Willington with two roommates and a ball python.

my favorite color is green.
i enjoy cutting construction paper, su doku, and smelling the bindings of brand new textbooks.

i learned of Wilhelm on the day of auditions (this past tuesday 9/18) whilst enjoying a cigarette outside the library. I rarely read the chalk talk peppered about this campus but the word "sketch" seemed to jumped out at me from the concrete (take from that what you will). So i jotted the time of the audition and the room number on my hand and later showed up at said room at said time for said audition.

it was a blast, imho

after a few warm up improv games, several of my fellow auditionees simply got up and left. perhaps the collective "game" of the remaining people was "too tight" for them.

long story short, i was offered a position as a core member of Wilhelm the next day, which i immediately accepted.
I've been looking for an oppurtunity like this for quite some time, and i finally found it! As if that wasnt awesome enough it's in a group with dudes that are actually funny
imagine that.

so yea. keep an eye peeled and an ear to the ground for Wilhelm Sketch Comedy!

-s

Audition Dates and New Flyers

2007-09-12T17:21:00.000-04:00

Finally, after attending all the meetings we could possibly need and working a few things out with USG, we've got our audition date down as well as a lot of other neat stuff.

Auditions will be September 18th, 9 P.M., in the Student Union Room 318. Steve and I would like it if you brought a sample of a sketch you've written, but it's not required. Definitely recommended, though. It'll get you a gold star in my book.

Not much else to say besides that, but definitely be sure to keep a look out for our new fliers, chalkings, or whatever the hell else we'll be doing to advertise all over campus. Here are a couple samples as a little treat. Hope to see you guys next week!

- Sean Rose

Greetings from Wilhelm!

2007-09-10T17:03:00.000-04:00

I’d like to once again welcome you to Wilhelm Comedy’s blog, Wilhelm On The Web. Given that there are now several fliers around campus directing you to this website, I figured now was as good a time as any to explain who we are, where we stand, and how to get on our good side.

My name is Stephen Winchell, and I’m the President of this fine organization. As of now, there are only two members; myself and Vice President Sean Rose. Back in April, the two of us decided it’d be a laugh to start our own sketch comedy group. But, given the nature of the summer months, not much work was completed until school started. So, after a few weeks back at U.Conn, here we are. We filled out our paperwork, we attended our required meetings, and now look at us! We have a real life blog and fliers we had to pay for ourselves!

So, what is Wilhelm? Well, for starters, it’s a stock movie scream you’re probably familiar with:

Apart from that, Wilhelm is a sketch comedy club. According to our official documents, Wilhelm Comedy is a club focused on writing, producing, directing and performing live and video sketch comedy. That’s about it, in a nutshell. Our plans for this upcoming school year include creating a TV show for UCTV and scrounging up as many live performances as we can. We’re influenced, as many people in the sketch world are, by all sorts of different comedians. We like Monty Python’s Flying Circus. We like The Upright Citizens Brigade. We like The Kids In The Hall. We like Mr. Show with Bob and David. We like (older and funnier) Saturday Night Live.

Sound good so far? If you’re still reading, I take that as a good sign. Perhaps you’re thinking, “Oh, wow! I also enjoy sketch comedy. Boy, oh boy, I do very much laugh at Kids in the Hall! Gosh, I would love to get an opportunity to do this on my very own campus for my fellow students!” If you’re thinking that, then this is the place for you.

Sean and I will be holding auditions for the group early next week (hopefully on Tuesday the 18^th, but considering we’re not eligible to reserve space until tomorrow, that is all eligible to change). We’re looking for people who have some experience writing and performing sketch, and we’re looking for people who are dedicated to comedy. This isn’t a club to learn how to do it, nor is it a club to simply dick around with your friends. If you’ve got the gumption, the drive, the motivation, and if people think you’re funny, what do you have to lose? Come on down next week and audition for us.

And if not, hey, don’t worry about it. Why don’t you just relax, come on by every once in a while, and watch the various videos we post up here? Take a load off. Watch “The Most Awkward Kid in the World”. Take it easy. Read our reviews of popular Daily Campus Comics. Tell your friends. Have a laugh. It’s on us.

To get in touch with either of us, you can email WilhelmComedy@gmail.com, or if the mood strikes, you can find either of us on Facebook. Keep an eye on this site for updates on auditions, and keep an eye around campus for our various fliers and chalk drawings.

Enjoy, and truly yours,

Stephen Winchell

The Most Awkward Boy In The World

2007-09-07T13:29:00.000-04:00

Let's start things out easy with, "The Most Awkward Boy In The World Rides an Elevator"

"The Most Awkward Boy In The World Goes To The Doctor"

"The Most Awkward Boy In The World Goes to Ranch1 Chicken"

"The Most Awkward Boy In The World Answers a Payphone"

And, finally, "The Most Awkward Boy In The World Hails a Taxi"

If you like what you see, please don't hesitate to check out www.cutmanfilms.com/

-Steve Winchell

Daily Campus Comics Curmudgeon

2007-09-04T23:45:00.000-04:00

I've been at UConn for two years now, and during those two years I have followed the Daily Campus's comics section every single day since I came here. Why? God knows. I was under the impression that a college newspaper would be a hotbed for unbridled young talent.

How wrong I was.

We've been back on campus for a week now, and it's not looking much better. Let's check out a sample, shall we?

Great art, great dialogue, great poop jokes. This year's off to a great start.

Oh great, half the comics are blurred beyond recognition - in the first issue! Man, this year is shaping up to be the best yet.

This is what I like to call "taking advantage of the space you have." Hell, you might as well get rid of the last two panels; the first one is just perfection. Maybe not though, 'cause then we wouldn't be treated to the girl's rapidly expanding head in panel 2.

Finally, we get a rare peek into the creative process of the minds behind FTW! What an honor. I can't wait 'till next week when the characters talk about what type of ink the authors use, followed by a week-long story arc about the new tablet they just bought.

And no, I guess UConn cannot handle another Crazy Whacky Random comic. Nobody can. You guys are totally original and unique.

"Shout out to my peeps in UCMB! Nobody else reads this paper except my boyz in the Marching Band. Hey, notice how I drew Amanda and Daryll and John in there? We're all totally in the DC!! HAVE A GREAT SEASON GUYS!!!"

Look at that first panel. Do people at UConn - screw it, ANYWHERE - talk like that? Maybe I have not met these people. "Hey Joe, wanna head on down to the New U for a burrito tonight? Oh man, the poorly-drawn sign says it's closed. GUESS UCONN AIN'T SUCH A GREAT PICK. REMEMBER THAT CRAPPY COMMERCIAL FROM LIKE THREE YEARS AGO?"

OH BOY. I can't wait! What a wild and whacky semester we're in for!! Uh oh, watch out freshmen, you're about to get ZINGED!

I really dig the subtleties in this panel, especially the little "Lauren's Brain" sign on the door. You may not catch all these in one reading, though. This is a comic that rewards repeated viewings.

Ugh, here we go with - oh wait. Lucid TV is great. It's the best comic in the paper.

I have nothing more to say. It's great.

Alright, Stickcat's back! That one comic that everybody hates is still around, after two years! It's NEVER gonna go away, will it?! Of course not! I can't wait or another year of this! Really!!

I'm sure I'll be posting another DC comics entry in this blog. Many more, even. As long as I keep reading the comics page, I will continue to... well, have an opinion of it. That's the nicest thing I can say about it without resorting to empty curse words.

By the way, keep an eye out for any Wilhelm publicity around campus. We'll be having auditions. soon, we hope.

If any DC comics page writers are reading this now... well, I'm sorry. Please do a better job.

- Sean Rose

The Final Days of Orson Welles

2007-08-22T13:41:00.000-04:00

Orson Welles, a man who brought us Citizen Cane, the fiendish villain of The Third Man, a man reduced to selling champagne in the twilight of his career:

While this is funny in it's own way, this next video really takes the cake. I've laughed at this clip consistently for over a year. I present to you, Drunken Orson Welles:

Muah-ah-ah the French...

-Steve

The Onion News Network

2007-08-03T19:18:00.000-04:00

So I've recently discovered the Onion News Network, a live-action take on the Onion that parodies broadcast television news in the same way that the website/magazine parodies newspapers. And... well, it's pretty damned funny.

I know what you might be thinking - "Hasn't the Daily Show done this kind of thing already?" Well, not really. Onion News Network parodies the news in a much more faithful, straight-up way; it's as if normal news anchors were given bizarre, unusual stories, a sharp contrast to the Daily Show's winking self-awareness.

Anyway, here's a segment that tickled my fancy, "Time Magazine's 10,000 Least Influential People":

Time Releases Annual List Of Least Influential Americans

Have a good'un.

- Sean

The Return of Trapped in the Closet-Epic.

2007-08-02T23:12:00.000-04:00

It's about damn time.

-Steve

Blog Update for Today's Internet

2007-07-28T02:04:00.000-04:00

So as of this post the Steve:Sean post ratio is 5:2. Honestly, I can't help but feel a little... well, intimidated. Hell, I'm not even busy or anything, and I'm not posting. God, I'm a tool.

Eh, sorry, that was inappropriate. I'll limit the emotional outbursts for now and take some time to tell you all about a great man: Bill Dance.

Bill Dance is an angler fisherman. He has his own show. That's pretty much everything I know about this man. I have never seen an episode of "Bill Dance Outdoors" and I really have no desire to. What I do know, however, is that this man is responsible for some of the funniest bloopers ever made.

You'll find plenty of blooper reel videos all over the internet: cats clawing genitals, bridesmaids toppling over each other, newsmen mistakenly muttering "FUCK" with their mics on. But there are no bloopers that seem to match the sheer scope of Mr. Dance's fishing mishaps; the way constant misfortune follows this man is near-Shakespearean. Watch Bill knock a cameraman into a pond, only to worry about the camera equipment more. Marvel as Bill somehow manages to hook his fishing line onto his own nose. Weep as Bill kicks the crap out of a harmless tree snake. And of course, gaze wordlessly as Bill completely fails at following his own advice.

For me, these bloopers go beyond the realm of simple giggles at another's misfortune and become something of a character portrait: a sad old man, stuck in his home-grown fishing ways, constantly being shat upon by Mother Nature herself. Hearing Bill shout "Oh good GOSH" - respectful enough not to use the Lord's name in vain even at the height of his frustration - is truly a moment for the ages.

There's two absolutely brilliant Bill Dance videos I meant to link here but haven't been able to find recently and must have been removed from Youtube - one of Bill throwing his fishing rod across the water in rage over a musical montage, and one of Bill trying to finish a Chevy Truck ad while cows moo over his every word, the latter of which may amount to the definitive Bill Dance moment. Until those videos are found, Bill Dance fans can either search for him on assorted internet video sites or buy the entire blooper DVD anthology for the low low price of $11.49 American. Now that's a deal that'll make you squeeze mustard all over your pants. (Eh, sorry, bad Bill Dance in-joke. In a perfect world, everybody would catch that reference.)

Before I go, I'd also like to say that I have witnessed The Simpsons Movie, and I have been thorougly underwhelmed. Don't be surprised if either Steve or I end up posting links to some of our favorite Simpsons moments from its Glory Days. Kinda like this one. Oh Milhouse, you card.

Enjoy the rest of your July, folks.

- Sean

Kanye West and Zach Galifianakis: Together At Last

2007-07-25T23:44:00.000-04:00

This is absolutely the most ridiculous music video I've seen in a long time.

Comedian Zach Galifianakis sings Kanye West's new song, 'Can't Tell Me Nothin'

I recognized Zach Galifianakis from his guest spot on Tim and Eric's Awesome Show Great Job!, but upon further digging, he's been in Dog Bites Man, The Comedians of Comedy Tour, and is, apparently, a very popular touring stand up comedian.

Watch and share, keep on reading.

Improv 101 Redux

2007-07-23T18:56:00.000-04:00

The time-honored tradition of this blog is to leave personal stories and experiences out and strictly keep the comedy in. With that in mind, I’ll breeze over the details of my past week in New York City and leave you with the real meat and potatoes. Last week I started Improv 101 at the Upright Citizens Brigade Training Facility, and, that very Sunday, I ended my whirlwind education with a graduation performance at the UCB Theater.

The experience was humbling, very fun, and opened up in my eyes the wonderful world of New York underground comedy. That being said, I want to share with everyone just a tad of what I got to experience.

I had two teachers during the course of the week, Joe Wengert and Gavin Speiller. And, as a service to them and a service to you, I’d like to share with you some pretty funny stuff.

Gavin, my afternoon teacher, seemed very familiar to me, and after a few moments I realized that he was the star of the Channel 102 show Cakey! The Cake from Outer Space. Cakey is one of those things that…that changes you.

Joe, my morning teacher, was a familiar face from my favorite internet sketch, Cufflinks.

And, to close things up for this update, I generally don’t like pimping out my own stuff, but considering how deep into the grip of Harry Potter most people are, I figured I’d share this Harry Potter sketch that my group, Precious Roy, made a few years back.

See you later,
-Steve

Hello there, I am not Stephen Winchell

2007-07-19T01:22:00.000-04:00

Hey there internet! My name's Sean Rose and I'm the Vice President (and currently the other half of) Wilhelm, a brand-new UConn-based sketch comedy group that I guarantee you will be really great. Steve and I decided to form a group because we both think that we're really great and funny guys and we figured this would be a nice way to boost our egos even further. That may make us delusional, but hey, it feels pretty good.

Haha, see, that was a little self-deprecating joke there! I hope you enjoyed it. But in all seriousness, we're going to be having auditions very early on during UConn's fall '07 semester (probably sometime in September) and we're hoping for a nice turnout. I'm sure plenty of you will be seeing Wilhelm fliers all over campus next year. For some of you, these fliers will become a nuisance very quickly. But for those of you who think you are "funny" and enjoy "comedy" you will love and cherish these fliers, because they are made just for you.

What we're really looking for are smart, talented people who can write and perform sketches with us - people who genuinely love comedy. We're also looking for dedication; people who have a thousand club duties on campus or can only make one meeting a semester need not apply. Also it helps if you have the same taste as us, 'cause I think we have pretty good tastes. If you're a brilliant comedian and you happen to think that "Accepted" is a great film, I have to admit, I will kind of think less of you. (We'd probably let you in anyway.)

Anyway, I can't think of anything else to say, so I'll get the ball rolling and post up some links to some of my favorite sketches.

- I'll start off with my favorite Mr. Show sketch, "Shoecourt Shoe Interview". One of the best, tightest sketches I've ever seen. "IT WAS FOR CHARITY!"

- I can't decide on my favorite Kids In The Hall sketch so I'll go with "Citizen Kane". It seems to sum them up pretty well. Sorry for the crappy quality.

- Here is my absolute favorite Will Ferrell moment, the "Mr. Tarkanian" sketch from SNL. If you've ever wanted to hear Will Ferrell shout "Get over here you crazy black man, I'm going to make you drink my piss" or "I am this close to raping you" on live television, then this is the sketch you've been waiting for.

- Hey, here's a funny Stella short I just watched for the first time like five minutes ago! Hurrah!

- And finally, to delve into the unintentionally hilarious-barrel, here's a little Gamepro TV. No, it's not a sketch, but if you've been playing video games for as long as I have, it might as well be the most entertaining video on the internet.

Have a good night, folks. (See, saying "folks" makes me feel rustic.)

- Sean

When Dave Matthews Takes a Prolonged Pause, We’re All Gonna Scream

2007-07-16T07:12:00.000-04:00

(This essay was featured in my friend Paul's blog, Stuck In Chicago, on July 12th. I laughed. Enjoy! -steve)

When Dave Matthews Takes a Prolonged Pause, We’re All Gonna Scream

by Evan Colmes

Everyone got that? Is that agreed upon? I don’t want to be the only guy in the standing room only section cheering Dave on when he takes an extremely long moment of silence in the middle of a song. There’s a reason why he doesn’t have those 20 second long pauses in his records, and that’s because he’s counting on us. The fans.

Alexis, Ted, you listening to me? I know we’re still on the highway, but now is a good time to think about what you’re gonna be screaming. “WOOO!” is fine for the first few intervals, but by the second encore, if all you got is a tired old non-word, well then maybe he just won’t go into that eight minute scat solo for us.

I know, I’m freaking out here, too. That would totally ruin our plan to smoke our last blunt during the encore scat breakdown. That means we have to meet him halfway. So Ted, use your deep voice as an advantage. Maybe a deep, hoarse “I LOVE YOU DAVE!” would be funny, or even “I WISH YOU WERE MY DAD!” That’s bound to get everyone else into it, and hopefully the energy will spread like wildfire. Alexis, we’re counting on you to yell out this list of obscure songs we all want to hear, seeing as you are the most attractive. If he gives you eye contact, we’ve got him hooked for at least one classic rock cover. Get in there, and don’t let him go.

Now, I know there have been some nervous thoughts, for instance: what if everyone around us is just there to get drunk and high, and not watch Dave? Maybe they’re all there for the party aspect, which is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but they could totally kill our Dave experience. We could also be in front of some young kids and their dad, who’ll make it his personal job to ruin our DMBuzz. I’ve had nightmares of those parental shoulder taps, or even worse: passive aggressive lines such as “Should you really be shotgunning that joint in front of my kids?” That could potentially threaten our party with Dave, and don’t think I haven’t shivered at the thought.

But we can’t dwell on the negative, guys! As of now, there’s a plan: I’ll score us free weed with the rich pushover kid, Ted is the muscle who can protect us from drunk Bros and rubber bullets, and Alexis is the chick who’ll get dudes to buy us beer and be with us when we ask girls to show their tits, cause it’ll be less stalkery. We’re all in this together, so let’s stick together.

So start drawing up a list of things we can scream when he takes those pauses. I know it’s your guys’ first Dave experience, but let me tell you: if he’s feelin’ it, he’ll take a whole song’s length to get his quiet point across. One time I saw him where he stopped one song because he thought he was gonna sneeze. The whole band just stopped and waited. It would have been hella awkward watching him struggle with his allergies, but we were there to catch his back. Every time he pulled back with an “Ahh…Ahh..” we were already screaming him into his next bug-eyed, passionate guitar jam breakdown when he finally did sneeze. It was an experience, and if we don’t prepare for anything and everything, this whole road trip would have been a waste.

Plans for the Week

2007-07-16T07:03:00.000-04:00

So, I am off to New York City for the week. While there, I'll be studying Longform Improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, which I already highly recommend for those of you trying to make their way in this whole comedy business.

What does that mean for all of you? It means a show in the near future! That's right, I will be performing on Sunday, July 22nd, at 1:15PM. The Theater is located at 307 West 26th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenue). So if you need an excuse to go into the city on a Sunday, look no further than myself and a bunch of strangers just grasping the basics of Longform Improv.

In the interim, Sean will be posting as frequently as he can. I'm going to leave you guys off with an essay my friend Paul wrote, but, other than that, I'll see you in a week.

-Steve

Welcome to Wilhelm on the Web!

2007-07-15T16:05:00.000-04:00

You've finally found it. Congratulations. I know you've been searching and traveling for a while. Well, here it is.

Welcome to the official weblog for Wilhelm, UConn's newest Sketch Comedy group. As of this writing, Wilhelm is composed of myself, Stephen Winchell, and the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Sean Rose. We're both alumnus of the Agents of Improv, another UConn-based comedy troupe.

Wilhelm was founded at the conclusion of the Spring 07 Semester by Sean and I, and we hope to add a few more people to the mix once the Fall Semester rolls around. If you're interested in auditioning, keep in contact with either one of us, or keep an eye on this blog.

So, what is going on with this blog, anyway? Why bother keeping a journal about a club that hasn't even really been formed, yet? Well, there's plenty to be done here. Until things really get going in September, Sean and I will be updating this page with a few different things:

-We'll be posting links and compiling an archive of things we've discovered on the internet that we find entertaining and/or particularly funny. Think of it as a CollegeHumor without the money or the resources or the mass appeal.

-We'll be updating all of you as to the status of the developing club. There's still plenty to do; design fliers, work out audition schedules, ask for props, costumes, locations, etc. for filming, and so on and so forth. Just the kind of mundane things that you all love to read about.

-And, last but not least, we'll let all of you know what we're up to. Our buddies, colleagues, and the two of us have plenty going on that you all should know about. Check this place for updates on the scene.

A simple weblog. A simple mission.

To contact either of us, email WilhelmComedy@gmail.com . Keep your eyes open; we'll be updating pretty frequently.

-Steve