Cloudy drink kills frog: the Onion's "Sex House"

How dark can it go? And can Frank find redemption?

six sexy americans

Frank's only shot at redemption would be if he somehow is the key to their escape (note, not at all convinced they will ever escape).

Has there been much buzz/discussion about this elsewhere on the internet? The casting/editing is so spot-on I forgive occasional lapses in funniness.

i think the host is actually becoming the most intriguing character

The ominous speaker and mist really don't pull back the curtain any further, do they?

Has there been much buzz/discussion about this elsewhere on the internet?

recent episodes have between 100K and 200K views -- we should feel ashamed as a nation and as a culture that it's so low

this started out great but i feel like they really exhausted these characters by the third or fourth ep

It's not about the characters anymore, or at least not as much. It's about how weird the circumstances continue to get.

"to call this place 'evil' implies a clarity of purpose that i do not want to attribute to anyone involved"

I'm pretty convinced at this point that the humor is being used to deliver some seriously dark Sarah Kane-style nihilistic theater of the absurd and not vice versa.

xpost Yeah, Derek keeps getting all the best lines, still dying over "This definitely...isn't a house. I think we might be underground, or on a ship of some kind."

Kind of a grim irony that the smartest dude is also the only black guy and the only gay person in the home.

uh....what?

this should have been The Prisoner remake and not that amc thing.

Smart gay black men are almost a reality show trope at this point.

(btw, I AM AWARE THERE ARE PLENTY OF SMART GAY BLACK MEN IN REAL LIFE AND THEY EXIST EVERYWHERE)

Being a double-minority and being smart so you really understand your plight in this hellhole

yeah, haha re: nihilistic theatre of the absurd - seriously, it's verging on social experiment gone horribly wrong. and/or horror movie. let the darkness descend!

i have nothing against frogs, but i find all the gruesome, close-up frog death pretty hilarious

I just love the collision of generic reality-show tropes with really weirdly specific, arbitrary oddities, like the frogs and the mountain of bananas and the sealed-off mold-filled room, none of which are cliches of either the reality genre or nightmarish creeping horror theater. Nice to see a parody that actually stakes out some new ground.

mold room = best supporting actor

I thought maybe some of that stuff referenced fear factor and survivor and the like.

Hrm, probably right on Fear Factor, and there's definitely elements of both in the challenges and that kind of stuff but I dunno...still feels really out of the clear blue imagination of the Onion people somehow.

I thought the underlying gag w/the banana thing is just that whoever is producing the show is desperately mismanaging the budget and not buying food for the house so they found a sponsor who will supply free bananas as long as they are incorporated into the show as much as possible - seemed like a pretty general jab at reality show contests & sponsorship, not referencing any particular show

i'm with Doctor C, this has long since transcended being a parody of something and is now its own magnificently insane thing. it is no more a parody of reality shows than twin peaks was a parody of cop shows.

though I don't get tired of the reality show editing/music

Yes, that and the deliberately insipid descriptions of the videos on youtubeake it clear that this is a mighty complex piece of work.

reminds me of palahniuk's haunted, though the threat's external, not internal

Yeah, definitely a huge source of the humor/weirdness is that even though they're getting this increasingly creepy and awful footage, it keeps getting edited and tagged and pop-up-videoed as if everything were proceeding according to plan. The machine's left hand is oblivious to the warnings coming from the right. (Like, the host and the authority he represents are clearly not pleased with how things are going, but tell that to the musical cues!)

Cont: yep, I thought of Haunted and Kane's Cleansed.

aren't bananas and mold-filled rooms staples of reality tv though?

no, you're thinking of actual reality

i do know real-life people who own settlers of catan and bananas... maybe should warn them to check their rooms.

Can't remember, have they made any attempt to go out of the windows and/or found them to be fake?

yes (just watched ep 2 because of this thread)

(they were boarded up)

Ahhh yeah. Figured there was some moment like that but couldn't pull it out.

share a heated fruit cup with your lover tonight!

really brilliant show.

feel like this last episode jumped the shark, always happens when 'drugs' are introduced

would love for the whole thing to end in some sort of resident evil/silent hill opening FMV sequence (the makeup is already getting there)

that's what I'm totally thinking too

I do like how nebulous they make the production of the show. Like, are things designed poorly on purpose? Is that part of the show? Is the host in on it or just clueless? Did they pick such a mismatched bunch on purpose, are are they just incompetent? Are we on some Bunuel level can't leave "Exterminating Angel" plane, or is it supposed to be funny that they just don't try to get out? Will the show actually allow the pregnancy storyline to play out? How far is it willing to go?

w/ the exception of frank (part of what makes him hilarious) the mismatched bunch is standard reality show boilerplate

In the intro episode, it was just awkward that there was one gay man. After you figure out it's a sealed house, it just became... worse.

the heating/cooling system was the first point at which i realised I didn't have a handle on this at all.

wd not be surprised to see "a game of sexy russian roulette" at some point

The lone gay guy and locked doors/blocked windows in Ep. 1 were pretty good clues that the writer(s) were fans of Sartre's No Exit.

Don't know how long they can keep the descent into Hell funny.

finally watched this last night. yikes.

The lone gay guy and locked doors/blocked windows in Ep. 1 were pretty good clues that the writer(s) were fans of Sartre's No Exit.

yeah, figured it was a horror movie p much from the start. but i watch a lot of horror movies.

I mean, I wonder if it will develop that getting the cast to have sex is not really the premise of the show? Because lone gay guy, married with kids guy, virgin ... and the two cast to be most sexually compatible have yet to have sex, mostly due to the house or the producers. I def. am getting more of a Bunuel vibe than a Sartre vibe, though.

to call it sartre might be attributing a clarity of purpose etc. etc. ;)

and yet i just watched all six episodes. it doesn't really pick up until the third ep. at least they're short

I watched the first four eps of this today, holy shit

Three more are waiting for you.

josh in chicago is kind of scaring me itt

send him to the mold room.

65.

There is something pure and brilliant about casting this guy to play Frank: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jessedabson

good find

Mmmm... Maid Rite. That's one of those restaurants where you tend to just assume the one in your home town is the only one on earth because it's so un-franchise-like. Also, loose meat sandwich lol

Dabson is the best of a bunch of good actors.

holy shit this is amazeballs

"T or D? Nice."

my permanent expression while watching the latest few episodes is O_O.

I think the twisted events pivot on the idea that the unseen show-runners (and host) can only understand human interaction through reality show devices, and at such an extreme that actual humans can barely survive the conditions. It's a comment on how demented and far from reality actual reality shows practically go to fabricate "interesting" television.

Onion humor like to throw demented curve-balls in there but they seem to stick to that thread in their parody thematically.

likes*

Watched all of this tonight. The fact that their physical decline is obvious in the talking head segments is excellent.

I never connected the forced hot air blasts with the locked doors & windows. Yeah, this is No Exit.

Yes, thank you, people of this thread, for reminding me that this was happening. It's probably my favorite "comedy" thing of the year.

Horrifying Planet, another Onion show, is pretty good too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGl4VdHVG_8

and it gets a bit gory

oh man: http://twitter.com/SexHouseHost

http://twitter.com/AshleyLobo
cloudy drink kills yfrog

Lea Pascal ‏@Lea_Pascal

Final shoot of #SexHouse with #theonion. I cannot wait for my reality show family reunion. And then so much sleeping.

As of August 21st, they filmed the last of it I guess. What's the timeframe for post-production on these things? I'm guessing there are probably 10 episodes total or so?

Frank has redeemed himself. Horribly.

jesus fuck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JYCSgCPVBQ

omg that was amazing

"Jesus fuck" otm. That was horrific / amazing.

haha omg

(i wasn't clear why we don't just link the eps here?)

well I for one like a nice clean text thread without a lot of youtube embeds. I understand that certain posters, not forking any clovestofu, are otoh fond of youtube embeds

WAIT WHAT IS THIS WHERE IS THIS

i've had images turned off for like two years now

sorry for the emphasis but this sounds like a line drive right into the jjjusten sensibility

oic it is on youtube

jesus fuck - cosign

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9j5ehptvA1qzbngeo1_500.png

ha where's ^that from

want to excitedly recommend this series to ppl I know but it's mean I have to deprive myself the fun of describing the final scene in ep 8

*it'd

random tumblr fan

My god...

Frank!

O M G

"The housemates plan an orgy. Alex gets herself in the mood with the Sybian and Derek puts those sex shackles to good use. Frank can't keep it in his pants."

The use of Youtube is really top notch.

"i thought i was already dead"

wait, is this the final episode?

there was a preview for next week's

Yeah, there's at least one more (hopefully two more).

10 sounds likely

frog moving diagonally across the floor during frank / hockeymask scene is some next-level shit

Yeah, I was just about to comment on that. It was perfectly framed.

"you could have had it all, sex house"

God, the annotations.

"Thumbs up for the Sybian repairman."

omg i just watched all eight of them

fucking incredible

frog moving diagonally across the floor during frank / hockeymask scene is some next-level shit

otm

Feeling slightly ill after this ep.

I just watched it a second time. Arguably harder to get through than the first time.

sex house i love you, but you're making me feel bad about the universe.

"juicy dugout"

love the shot of the frogs having sex in the preview for next week

hoooooly shiiiiit

was this the first time we saw shots of the camera crew? It's kind of weird to think of them as also being trapped there

That is the surreal part of it, in that the camera crew is omnipresent but invisible. They don't exist in the context of the show and we are not to question their plight.

"juicy dugout"

― jack chick-fil-A (dayo), Thursday, August 30, 2012 4:57 PM (2 hours ago)

lol, came here to mention that

we've seen the camera crews in earlier eps. Glimpses, at least.

juicy dugout is tremendous

yes, it is

after watching this i actually got a jolt of fear when i stood up and knocked over a pair of sunglasses, thinking it was a frog

i am having a hard time believing that a room full of mold would fuck you up that bad that quick. like maybe it's a special kind of death mold or something.

fuck, just that there is a show featuring a "room full of mold"

calm down bro

p. sure the lethal quality of mold is being overstated here

That's whats hilarious- that the mold is that intense and deadly. Kids don't hide moldy pumpernickels in your armoires. The more you know.

i'm currently enjoying the live commentary of a friend watching it for the first time and still feeling that it's a mere reality show parody. looking 4wd 2 his corruption.

haha i totally forget there was a point when we were all "that indie girl is so spot on"

pumpernickel literally means "devil farts". now we know why.

Feeling slightly ill after this ep.

― ledge, Thursday, August 30, 2012 6:01 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see i have felt queasy about every ep thus far and now i'm like deciding in a pretty vexing, what-are-my-values way whether or not i want to even bother

but it's just getting good!

odds on the entire cast getting executed offscreen by a group of producers who turn out to be imprisoned themselves?

low, yeah

crüt showed up at work today and after a few minutes he turned around and said "oh shit, it's thursday. new sex house episode!" i told him he was not ready. none of us were.

Curious as to the exact moment when this turned from show parody to survival-horror

I was going to say it was when they couldn't leave the house, but people on Big Brother can't leave either, right? Maybe when the food started getting moldy.

blast of hot air hits tara in ep. 2

Oh yeah, that seemed like a small thing at the time, but fairly serious in retrospect.

i love how this ep included both a self-defense killing and the murder of an innocent sybian repairman, just to keep things horrible

Did Frank actually kill the guy in the mask? Looked like he just hit him on the back of the head with a glass.

loved that, btw. mask looks to beat frank's head in with a club, just going to town, but frank toughs it out. then cold wipes the mask with one bottle (or glass or w/e) blow to the back of the head. like a sack of potatoes.

Yeah, they're hanging the mask guy up afterwards, the voiceover is I think asking for them to release him.

"Has there been much buzz/discussion about this elsewhere on the internet?"

There is a long thread on Something Awful. It is awful. People are shouted down for suggesting that Frank is not a rapist.

The phrase "rape culture" appears in the thread 8 million and six times.

I have no problem with that except I'd assume SA is in favour?

No, they're definitely ag'in it, but the reading of Frank's character is very tonedeaf, college-freshman/Marc Loi-style.

Caught up on all this last night. Brilliant, hilarious etc. but it inspired some of the most vivid and terrifying nightmares I've *ever* had.

Frank is so awful and all of my biggest lols have come from him. Him being photographed in that horrible bondage mask. Esp. esp. when they were all fucked up on cloudy drink. "We were in the kitchen enjoying the yellow lines. FRANK came in with his BLUE lines." The way he says "explore each others' bodies" in the same ep, so creepy. Any time he talks about his wife or daughters. Just brutal. And hilarious.

I do have a tiny bit of sympathy for him for being so clearly the bottom of the pecking order. Tombstone pizza prize winner!

frog moving diagonally across the floor during frank / hockeymask scene is some next-level shit

agreed but I thought it was a Lara Branigan Self Control vid "suggested Italian orgy" type mask, which is even worse/more fitting

yeah, that was an eyes wide shut kinda thing

I'm hopeful this show won't just get lower and lower, since it's already hovering somewhere near "Hostel"-level, but I have a bad feeling about this.

I am willing to bet that sympathy levels with Frank are highest in married dudes in their 40s -- I think this includes some of the Onion's writers.

Tombstone pizza prize winner!

lol...Tombstone

I thought the Tombstone winner thing was one of the best things about the show. Like, it's even a lame contest.

Also, would love to see how the contest was presented. On the back of the frozen pizza box, win a chance to be on ... Sex House?

holy shit this show.

really enjoyed the masked dude getting completely winded while administering frank's beating, really driving home the horrifying mixture of cruelty and rank incompetence on the part of the producers & crew.

this show is brilliant

"DO NOT DO ANYTHING THAT AMERICA DOES NOT WANT TO SEE"

somehow the fact that frank wasn't dead didn't make it any less dark.

"DO NOT DO ANYTHING THAT AMERICA DOES NOT WANT TO SEE"

^^ That in particular. I am thinking that this is possible the closest to an American program on the same 'wavelength' as Chris Morris' Jam / Blue Jam.

YES. I hadn't made that connection myself, but its sensibility is certainly very Jam-esque.

guys, frank nailed his penis to the floor!
just sayin

i still don't know whether i actually like this or not, but i am horrified and captivated

@SexHouseHost is now following me.

also:

SexHouseHost ‏@SexHouseHost

@interzoned In the coming weeks, we'll be making a special announcement about #SexHouse season 2. Stay tuned!

3:36 AM - 1 Sep 12

!

http://i48.tinypic.com/1076ohz.jpg

hey so i know the point of this show isn't to generate a simmering will they won't they romantic plotline BUT it did totally seem like erin was going to hug frank in a display of unsuppressable affection once he said he'd killed the guy. really rooting for these guys to work out their differences & for frank to leave his happy family to make a go of it.

lol xp

for all w know frank is ben linus manipulator behind sex house, and is in fact francis tombstone, ceo of tombstone pizza.

HAHA

Driving a huge nail into his penis really seals his commitment to deviousness.

I wonder if they are going anywhere with the cameramen remaining unmentioned.

This show is pretty amusing, but I feel like people are kind of overselling it itt.

haha yeah. it's picked up with the last couple of eps though (7/8)

I learned about it from this thread which starts with "how dark can it go" so I think I might have come at it from the wrong angle.

yup, overselling

I enjoy Tara's relationship with the frogs

"they remind me of my mom and my dad and my suicide brother!"

Good work on new board description.

!

totally thought that ILE would be the new juicy dugout

It's the sexy thing to do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFuuf5V3QRE
last episode. yikes.

No, that last?! ;_;

i don't know much about amphibian husbandry... but i'll learn

Haaaaaaaaa. Fuck. Yes.

No, that last?! ;_;

For now, maybe, but...second season on its way!

Thought it dragged a bit through the middle episodes, but that finale made it all worthwhile.

"it's the sexy thing to do"

release the sibian man

She will almost certainly drama.

we can always make people watch pre-roll for terrible gum or something...

great. that's our plan.

"We should put it back up" is perfect.

Wow.

last ep was next level

whatd they call their months 'crists' what was that all abt

I think bcuase the address of the house was 42 Cryst Dr or something. It's written on a whiteboard in the background.

BARLEY

Catharsis achieved. Bravo Onion dudes.

'little D.V has never urinated' omg.

there should be some meaningful award for this thing, it fucking ruled.

given the end of series credit roll and the fact that it clocks in at right around 40 minutes, it looks like a given that this will show up as an hour special on IFC. I will tape the shit outta that.

"Should they eat the Goon instead? Comment!"

didn't catch this:
"Erin did not have a baby. What she was holding/calling her baby was the dildo from the sybian. That is why they pixilate it everytime you see it, why it has never urinated, why the blanket she is making for it is long and narrow, and why they named it after that dildo, Danny Volmer.  It reinforces that everyone in Sex House has gone nuts."

wow. i just assumed there was a huge time jump.

yeah I was wondering why 9 mos later everyone's hair was the same length; I just figured it was due to small budget

I'm gonna go ahead and call a "Kubrik faked the moon landings and confesses it all in the Shining" on that sybian dildo revelation. Amusing basement dweller fantasy, but not a good read of the material.

wait, no, i thought it was TOTALLY clear that it was some object from the house, not an actual baby, but it didn't occur to me it was the dildo, that's brilliant

The script originally called for a real baby but they couldn't get medical clearance to bring one on set, because of the mold.

The baby hadn't signed the legal releases, yet.

Kids get pixelated on reality shows constantly. It's standard practice.

it would have been like a six inch long baby guys it was obviously not the baby

this is also a good reality show about settlers of catan:
http://vimeo.com/40503001

no mold or dildo babies but someone does drama.

Knocked this down in one sitting, and I'm glad I watched it that way. Like some have also mentioned, I experienced the captivated/horrified thing, and and for that reason it really lent itself to the all-in-one-go treatment. I'm not sure I'd have been able to stomach having to go back to it once things started getting really messed. I think its secret was how well disciplined was the timing of its descent from straight up reality show parody fakeout to complete macabre absurdity. Pitch perfect. Not sure how I'd recommend it to people in a way that captured what kept me watching it, though. Trying to think of some antecedents but it's pretty unique!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmxjFCdpNX0#t=941s

Frank gets stabbed in Death Wish IV by Tuvok!

Check the scene at about 15:40 in

don't think that's Tuvok?

It's not? Then my vulcan spotting ability is way off

More Frank spotting (at around 5:30)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRM6QjB5CQI

Surprised he didn't impregnate Blossom.

that is... a black guy, but doesn't look anything like the tuvok actor?

tim russ is at 11:00 and 1:27:00

nother ep?

Watch the thrilling conclusion to Sex House tomorrow, September 13 at 12:00 EST.

And join us tomorrow at 12:30 EST on Reddit where the Sex House writing staff will be conducting a short Q+A session. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/

guess they thought they needed closure on the baby/dildo controversy

...Say whuh? Okay, that's cool.

woo hoo!

please please please let it be a totally deranged version of the modern post-reality show contestant panel wrap up

i need to know who wins!!!

hello

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJmw9LTu_0k

Published on Sep 12, 2012 by TheOnion
Watch the thrilling conclusion to Sex House tomorrow, September 13 at 12:00 EST.

And join us tomorrow at 12:30 EST on Reddit where the Sex House writing staff will be conducting a short Q+A session. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/

can someone transcribe and edit that q&a and then post it here so i can stay the fuck away from reddit?

oops. did not see that earlier post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s31fWsk6lMQ

please please please let it be a totally deranged version of the modern post-reality show contestant panel wrap up

― O_o-O_O-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, September 12, 2012 7:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Coolio's my boss.

not quite as deranged as I wanted but still hilarious

"prepare for mist"

the Paul revelation is what I was really hoping for

lol @ dengue survivors

WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF

That was great. Love the running blog gag. But no follow up about Frank's penis?

Hasn't Frank's penis done enough already?

"they're both very real"

the therapist video so well done.

"It was a crazy, crazy, crazy-ass schedule, shooting all 10 episodes in 5 days"

wow

wrap-up episode was disappointing, going full-circle back to tame reality-show parody, but the previous 9 were so great i don't really mind

"The ten episodes we did are basically what we wanted to do all along. We've talked about doing some kind of second season but I doubt it will happen."

;_;

I would have liked Ep10 to be a reunion still in the reality of the Crysts - audience force-marched in to watch them after they've created a semi-functioning Sex House society or something.

ep 10 was great

wrap-up episode was disappointing, going full-circle back to tame reality-show parody

I didn't find it disappointing at all. I wouldn't endorse a second season, though, so I'm glad that's not happening.

I think ten eps and thatsyerlot is exquisite and correct but then I come from the land of Fawlty Towers and The Day Today and so forth

i appreciated the concept of ep 10, but i wish they hadn't mentioned the purgatory thing or anything like that

hah yeah i was also like "nothing about frank's penis?" but i loved his transformation into LA douchebro

"We never settled on how much time passed between 9 and 10. A few Crysts, to be sure. We wanted ten to be a total reset. In nine they've given up all hopes of being normal human beings, and in ten they are well into the only lives now available to them as former reality tv show rejects. They have been destroyed. That is how our comedy webseries ends."

Wait, why is the host blind? Cloudy drink?

Remember they threw cloudy drink in his face by accident?

That was a subtle punchline, I thought, to the whole thing. He's still performing his smug role even though he was blinded! Loved the "oh, I just gave away the baby" stuff, too, and that Frank has had no contact with the twins he had with his therapist.

there's brutal satire in how life must, at all costs, go on - it has to because you need to update your blog every day or risk losing readership and thus reasons to keep going on with life!

i think they are probably now in hell tbh

Blogging in hell.

hell is other people's personal-brand blogging

The cuts to the harsh, extended shrieking of the audience were great.

u guys are crazy, this was the best ending possible

ya. it's all about the context maaaan.

cast should have done post-interview on today now.

I have no idea how a second season could have been possible, but I'll watch whatever I see these guys next.

erm I'll watch whatever these guys do next, rather.

Would not watch all-frog San Diego Sex House, tbh.

zer0hedge 2 points 7 hours ago

I have one sexy question. Did you ever consider having Derek "not make it" to the reunion show to help the episode 9 story?

OnionDigitalStudios[S] 11 points 7 hours ago

There was an early draft where Derek killed himself between episodes 8 and 9, and it would be barely referenced in 9. The audience would just see his body in the background of a couple shots. But after talking about it we decided that we wanted to stay true to Derek's character and make him a heterosexual maître d'hôtel employed by Coolio. That just made more sense. - MP

lolllll

okay: the institutional grates on the windows and the guest basket of pumpernickel

gotta stay true to yourself

"Sex House, by correctly representing the class struggle as one between cast and producers, refuses this ideology."

ummm... http://jacobinmag.com/2012/10/sex-house-and-the-refusal-to-fuck/

haha i love jacobin so much

i just feel like that article is 1000x less radical and interesting than the series itself.

the lefty equiv to the coda to starship troopers, maybe.

Dunno if it's all that farfetched -- the New York based video dudes have been throwing in big chunks of Communism lately (the weather report that starts as a lame "hipster" joke) and have reason to be pissed at the bosses. Enjoy this stuff while it's here.

when my gf and i started watching 'the cabin in the woods' the other night we were like "this is just sex house: the movie!"

We watched this over the weekend and had that same thought.

porkin' across america is also pretty well done. i'm starting to think that genre parody is my favorite genre.

thanks for the heads up on that; definitely checking it out.

oh hey; they're doing TED talks too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

the TEDs are great too -- wasn't sure if they were suitable for this thread since they aren't dark, just ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4NL9i-Fu15jdlr2KQf_lyhXl5f0PFnzF
^just watched all the porkin' across americas; this shit is astonishing

yeah, i tore through all the eps they've posted last night. the onion is just so fucking good at this stuff

i did too, but it was probably a lot better watching episode 6 first and not knowing that 1-5 actually led up to it every step of the way

Watched ep 1 of porkin' and was less than impressed. Should I keep going if I'm not hooked?

yes. it improves drastically.

yeah, it descends further into the void in the same way 'sex house' does

Are there only those six episodes? I just watched them and I guess going any further would be absurd, but maybe I wanted a further descent into said void.

they've been coming out every thursday so i'm guessing they didn't put one up on thanksgiving - i'd assume there's more tho

they also have an antiques roadshow parody called 'lake dredge appraisal' that i haven't seen yet

it is also quite good but far more dry

lake dredge appraisal is my fave

I was crying during this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ5D5MrN9Cg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt6-0LIfUA4

hahaha i dunno why exactly but that is pretty great

after watching porkin' across america i'm really craving pork. maybe a slightly sociopathic response.

i am... pig?

"they dressed me in historic king clothing!"

"we can have it all." these guys are doing high literature here.

the comments about the food kill me, esp. "you can really taste the cooked pork!"

Brad Holbrook is the actor's name, and he plays a LOT of newscasters.

http://www.bradholbrook.com/

Porkin almost feels too pure and simple in it's story to be satire -- it's bordering on on greek myth. Or at least Nathanael West.

the way the guy keeps trying to fix the problem by literally throwing money at it
if i have cash, this can't be an issue
who needs insurance? can't i flush garbage down the toilet? i am... pig?

There's something beautiful about his faith in cash and pork and driving across america. "we blew it".

porkin' is now darker than sex house if you can believe it; probably deserves its own thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udhwe4VHjng

Wow.

Porkin and Sex House feel like they're trying to go beyond satire into furious indictment or something

Holbrook's site says there are 8 episodes of Porkin'. Also, I didn't realize Today Now! was another actual Onion production (probably because I don't have IFC).

i don't think i can handle it. i watched a random porkin' (ep 4 i think) and could barely make it through the darkness, not to mention the 'pork salad'.

Now I feel like a dope...there are Today Now! clips on youtube going back five years.

the pork salad is easily the worst thing in the show, Jordan

porkin is really hard to watch. so is sex house, which I couldn't finish.

both are amazing

porkin is really hard to watch. so is sex house, which I couldn't finish.

yup. made it through two eps of porkin and even tho neither was awful at that point, there was a palpable sense of doom and I just said nah

I think it'd be much easier to take if I weren't watching them by myself

nb at this point I don't even know what the ~turn~ in porkin is!

Porkin and Sex House feel like they're trying to go beyond satire into furious indictment or something

also agree with this---even though I am a weak baby that can't take the darkness, I applaud them for going...wherever it is they are going

porkin' is hilarious and amazing

how many episodes of porkin are left? i want to watch them all in one go.

This was the 7th, so there's one more.

"thought you was one of the pig freaks"

this show feels like an underground project cooked up by an anarchist character in a pynchon novel.

just reading "cloud drink kills frog" makes me nauseous now, what is wrong with me

Sex House and Porkin' are total emocore socal satire. Behind the make-up is a disfigured face screaming eternally. Let's put the make-up back on.

social, although Southern California may also be involved.

my wife and I watched all of SH in a blast two nights ago. so good.

love sex house. some elements of porkin' are too dark for me -- killing the dog in the second episode was too much too soon. once the 'turn' starts it gets more palatable.

"palatable".

sort of astonished that a google search for this series and "Circe" has no hits.

The dead dog was the funniest part of Porkin. The way the woman on the phone said "he's dead now" cracked me up for some reason.

Lake Dredge is hilarious though. Lake Dredge > Porkin > Sex House

what do you like about lake dredge? seems very one-note. watched a bunch of episodes -- does it get better, or are they all sort of the same?

It's really undercooked (and I say this as someone who would love a better takedown of Antiques Roadshow), but then its probably the Onion's lowest budget production. The finale "Kim's Dark Mirror" is the only one I think's a keeper:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iuORrDFv5I

i love pilferin' pete

also the sound the little boat makes as it displays the appraisal cost is really funny

Not sure how I feel about this last episode.

aaaaaaaa the producer wearing sunglasses at the end is my old roommate!!!!

Last ep is quite a dud.

aaaaaaaa the producer wearing sunglasses at the end is my old roommate!!!!

― ❏❐❑❒ (gr8080), Sunday, December 9, 2012 2:51 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

!

it's funny because I know some Chicago actors and so all the way through sex house and porkin I was keeping an eye out for anyone I'd recognize and then there he was in the last scene

I like the last ep a lot!

yeah, it seemed kinda weak way out to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1BTH6Sm3dg

That dude is a hero.

http://jacobinmag.com/2012/10/sex-house-and-the-refusal-to-fuck/

already posted itt

The major problem for reality TV is that real life is too dull to make for compelling television

Stopped reading at this point. GF stopped at the paragraph before when the writer tried bringing Tronti into it.

dunno if "america's best" is going to turn into something spectacular or not.

seems kinda weaksauce right now

is it more one-offs like lake dredge appraisal?

yeah it feels sort of tossed-off and directionless. but they're only three eps in, so i'll see where they take it.

This was a step up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHmyRQnS9Gs

good way out i thought
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMiAi4Xx41I

(moved from other thread)

I just watched the pilot of Onion News Empire on Amazon Prime and thought it was pretty solid, didn't blow me away, but a lot of good laugh lines skewering both the news and the genre of the newsroom drama. Was hard not to think about the fact that the criticism of Big Corporate Media was being funded by a Big Corporate something else that is trying to compete with Big Corporate Media, and that took a little of the bite out of it for me.

― huun huurt 2 (Hurting 2), Saturday, April 27, 2013 9:27 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

had sort of a 30 rock feel to the writing, although didn't seem likely to produce characters anywhere near as good as jack doneghy and liz lemon

so it's not on youtube?

it's free if you have amazon prime, don't know if it costs otherwise or what.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQLdhVpLBVE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQLdhVpLBVE

:)

never tell anyone your name, never

loved this. i know one of the writers from college and his stuff is generally not my thing but this was great.

i watched it twice in a row

had to keep pausing to catch all the text

http://i.imgur.com/tekAx0n.png

lol wut

hahahaha

v basic satire, k3v, done q well

hahah i took that same screenshot

so good

i posted it on facebook like 5 mins after you did

is there a newer link? looks like it's private now

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1528825/thumbs/o-FOR-PROFIT-ONLINE-facebook.jpg

It's private, somebody tell me what it was, if it has to do with Sex House I must watch it

it doesnt really have to do with sex house its just like sex house

actually maybe it does have to do w sex house i guess the guys who wrote it used to work for the onion so idk

its called For Profit Online University and it was made by adult swim and appears to have gone off the nets

which is a shame because it's great
but i bet they're gonna do it with the same crew as a show so maybe not so much a shame

should we do a "actually good web series 2014" thread?

^i'm on board

in the former onion writers/adult swim category i really liked xhow last year (it's probably mentioned upthread but at least this is a newer one)

http://youtu.be/ojxvrirgACU

it seems like they're doing very similar things on the onion site recently too - http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onions-tips-for-last-minute-holiday-shopping,34837/

^ first vid is borderline nsfw

lol

joe sch ‏@on3ness Jan 7
@wildaggressive where did For Profit Online University go

Wild, Aggressive Dog ‏@wildaggressive 8m
@on3ness the video is back thank you for your patience a sandwich will be mailed to you shortly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmRxJEqgdWA

lol

A+

six sexy americans

not really a narrative series but lmao:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5lgwopmKMw

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4NL9i-Fu15hYD2O2Ea0YkJA8b6b8ceMA

Hahahaha

EDGE is live
http://www.onionstudios.com/series/edge

just watched this again, holds up!

I did the same a few months ago and 100% concur.

I remember the last ep not working for me, but the rest...

I rewatched this last year, close to the start of lockdown, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I still enjoyed it.

this series is pretty good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIoWVm2jkxM

six sexy americans

― ciderpress, Friday, August 24, 2012 12:09 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.vulture.com/article/sex-house-jen-spyra-the-onion-interview.html

I hadn't seen this show since it came out, so ... almost ten years? But so brilliant, and soooooo dark.