janus1172

@Ben I'm also a little floored that not addressing the Zach situation in LHR was a sticking point for the judges. If having to address the event was part of the judgment, it should have been stated in the rules. For a sketch show, I wouldn't want to hear about the guest they didn't get to use anyway! If you have a live sketch show and lose an actor or guest on the day of a show, you cut their sketch and replace it with something from the vault. -- I think a different mindset applies for the chat shows depending on how they recover. If it's just the two hosts on a show that normally has guests, then you have to address the no guest situation. If you recover with another guest, then you wouldn't say anything! I also feel I wouldn't want the hosts to dwell on the loss or name the guest in most situations, unless I was going to an event billed as having that certain guest. -- I'm hoping that not mentioning Zach in LHR's submission doesn't factor into the judgment. They wrote, recorded, and did fx for a passable sketch in 30 mins. That's amazing! Especially considering they spent all week prepping for an interview, which is something they never do! The other shows did not have to write anything and needed very little prep time; they just had to be funny. TL did a great job, and appeared to actually think on how they might handle their recovery. LDDC are funny guys and have a great vibe with each other, but them stringing together indignant, repetitive jibes at the situation hardly feels like a good use of their time in this challenge. How long would that go on if this was an actual episode (which is part of the conceit of the challenge)?? -- If LHR gets eliminated because of this challenge, I don't feel like this reflects on them at all as up-and-coming comedy writers. That they managed to pull anything funny out of this situation I think is a credit to them. But man did they just have really tough competition this week.

@Ben I'm also a little floored that not addressing the Zach situation in LHR was a sticking point for the judges. If having to address the event was part of the judgment, it should have been stated in the rules. For a sketch show, I wouldn't want to hear about the guest they didn't get to use anyway! If you have a live sketch show and lose an actor or guest on the day of a show, you cut their sketch and replace it with something from the vault. -- I think a different mindset applies for the chat shows depending on how they recover. If it's just the two hosts on a show that normally has guests, then you have to address the no guest situation. If you recover with another guest, then you wouldn't say anything! I also feel I wouldn't want the hosts to dwell on the loss or name the guest in most situations, unless I was going to an event billed as having that certain guest. -- I'm hoping that not mentioning Zach in LHR's submission doesn't factor into the judgment. They wrote, recorded, and did fx for a passable sketch in 30 mins. That's amazing! Especially considering they spent all week prepping for an interview, which is something they never do! The other shows did not have to write anything and needed very little prep time; they just had to be funny. TL did a great job, and appeared to actually think on how they might handle their recovery. LDDC are funny guys and have a great vibe with each other, but them stringing together indignant, repetitive jibes at the situation hardly feels like a good use of their time in this challenge. How long would that go on if this was an actual episode (which is part of the conceit of the challenge)?? -- If LHR gets eliminated because of this challenge, I don't feel like this reflects on them at all as up-and-coming comedy writers. That they managed to pull anything funny out of this situation I think is a credit to them. But man did they just have really tough competition this week.

@Ben The sketches challenge forced most of the shows to generate content outside their usual genre. This challenge does that in a way, but also forces them into a new process. 30 mins to prep and produce 5 mins is not a wildly different process for chat shows, and the content is pretty similar (just no guest). Improvised sketch without foley and fx is a completely different thing from audio sketch and is still tough to do in 30 mins—otherwise we'd get a new Superego every week. Maybe they'll have a sketch in their back pockets to pull out, though. Who knows. --- An analogous situation might be having each group only have one person be able to work on a submission with no outside help. That would greatly change the content and process for LDDC and TL. LHR would have the advantage in that challenge and we'd be worried about the fairness. Not saying to do this, but that is a similar way of affecting process in an unbalanced way. --- While I'm also interested to see what LHR comes up with, I think they can do ok. I did get a feel that Besser got how tough this challenge would be on them, but maybe the producers did not. Last week's challenge was also tough for LHR because the process is so different for them, but they did great. And then we hear they had "an advantage" in the past weeks?! I think it's an interesting challenge, it just comes off as doubly shitty for LHR. They spent a week prepping for a challenge outside their expertise, and then get put into another challenge that is especially tough for them. This is a challenge, too, that is more pertinent for what weekly chat shows do than monthly scripted shows. I'm also worried about the judges getting lost with LHR's submission, because the fx and foley and scripting clearly depict it is as a sketch show. I think all of the show can pull something off. But if LDDC and TL aren't a lot better than LHR's submission, one of them should go.

@Ben The sketches challenge forced most of the shows to generate content outside their usual genre. This challenge does that in a way, but also forces them into a new process. 30 mins to prep and produce 5 mins is not a wildly different process for chat shows, and the content is pretty similar (just no guest). Improvised sketch without foley and fx is a completely different thing from audio sketch and is still tough to do in 30 mins—otherwise we'd get a new Superego every week. Maybe they'll have a sketch in their back pockets to pull out, though. Who knows. --- An analogous situation might be having each group only have one person be able to work on a submission with no outside help. That would greatly change the content and process for LDDC and TL. LHR would have the advantage in that challenge and we'd be worried about the fairness. Not saying to do this, but that is a similar way of affecting process in an unbalanced way. --- While I'm also interested to see what LHR comes up with, I think they can do ok. I did get a feel that Besser got how tough this challenge would be on them, but maybe the producers did not. Last week's challenge was also tough for LHR because the process is so different for them, but they did great. And then we hear they had "an advantage" in the past weeks?! I think it's an interesting challenge, it just comes off as doubly shitty for LHR. They spent a week prepping for a challenge outside their expertise, and then get put into another challenge that is especially tough for them. This is a challenge, too, that is more pertinent for what weekly chat shows do than monthly scripted shows. I'm also worried about the judges getting lost with LHR's submission, because the fx and foley and scripting clearly depict it is as a sketch show. I think all of the show can pull something off. But if LDDC and TL aren't a lot better than LHR's submission, one of them should go.

Yet another week where the chat shows (LDDC, TL) are at a major advantage over scripted content (LHR). And yet another week where this will likely not be taken into strong consideration in the judging (the judges not being aware of how hard it was for LHR to pull off a sketch in only 10 mins last week). The prep work for a sketch show is at least 4x more intense than the prep for a chat show, and is reflected in the fact that shows like this (for example, Superego) only do shows once a month not every week. This isn't simply out of their wheelhouse, it's totally out of their entire process. Not only do they have to spend all week prepping for something totally novel, then they have to work to pull out anything funny in a format and environment they don't do. I really feel like if they are even reasonably funny, it would really suck if they got eliminated.

Yet another week where the chat shows (LDDC, TL) are at a major advantage over scripted content (LHR). And yet another week where this will likely not be taken into strong consideration in the judging (the judges not being aware of how hard it was for LHR to pull off a sketch in only 10 mins last week). The prep work for a sketch show is at least 4x more intense than the prep for a chat show, and is reflected in the fact that shows like this (for example, Superego) only do shows once a month not every week. This isn't simply out of their wheelhouse, it's totally out of their entire process. Not only do they have to spend all week prepping for something totally novel, then they have to work to pull out anything funny in a format and environment they don't do. I really feel like if they are even reasonably funny, it would really suck if they got eliminated.

Can I please buy a shirt with a tasteful etching of Matt Besser's face that below says "Hear ya later"?? Please??

I think both of the criticisms of LHR this week stem from the nature of this challenge for a sketch podcast. Having little interaction with Nick from the cast makes perfect sense, given that they had 10 MINUTES to introduce the sketch to Nick, read through, give notes, run it, tweak it, and run it again. Any scripted dialogue with Nick would have really bogged down the ability to get a great sketch together in a short time. The sketch turned out great and I think they made the right choice, even if it meant not having their voices in it much. I also think given the limited time, giving some room for Nick to improvise is smart. Rather than dig through a couple lines giving notes, if Nick gave a good ad lib then keeping it is great. We know they can write great fully scripted sketches, so if Nick added a few funny lines on his own, we know he's not carrying or driving the whole sketch.

Oh hey, guys. Did you know that negative comments can be said in tactful and respectful ways? It's actually possible to disagree and not be asinine about it!

These are mainly suggestions for the next season of the challenge. But I'm feeling like a lot of challenges I thought would come up have not, as we're moving into the final weeks. The sketches challenge felt a bit of a stretch, given that meant many podcasts had to go really outside their wheelhouse. Now we're recycling (with tweaks) some of the older challenges (using guest, content). There are definitely other aspects of a comedy podcast (or really any podcast) that could be judged that haven't. What about a sound quality/production challenge? This is one that could have happened early, with each podcast producing a 1 min clip and judging based on clarity and production value. We had an intro challenge, what about an outro? Each podcast gets 2 mins to go from mid segment to show end. Wrapping up a show well is pretty important, too. I really liked when Matt had the contestants pitch the show to him. What about a challenge that is a pitch to the guest judges? There is no recorded content, just each podcast gets 1 min to pitch and 1 min to respond to the judge's questions. Or something like that. LHR did this and so did LDDC I think, but what about a challenge entailing responding to listeners in some way? Having a call in line, reading emails, iTunes reviews—something interactive. Many comedy podcasts do something related to interacting with the listeners. Again, I think these are mainly things that would work well in weeks 2-6, rather than this far along. But I think they'd be great for next season.

While I'm sure all of the podcasts are going to do well in this challenge, I'm the most worried for LHR. The other 3 shows can prep some good questions or play a fun game and kind of roll for the 10 mins—picking the best 3-4 mins. Prep work just ensures making Nick funny. If LHR wants to do a great sketch they have to be so incredibly prepared to pull it off well. Even a simple 1 min sketch might take 5 mins just to read through and give notes to Nick, and that's a huuuuuuge time crunch. Then they have just 1-2 takes to get it perfect and every second counts. I'm really really hoping they can pull it off, but to produce a clip that works in the style of their show and uses Nick well is going to be a tremendously larger feat for them than the other podcasts. I'm hoping that goes into the judgment.

I think the F+ push-back regarding the "conflicting" notes reveals a bit of why they were eliminated. The notes were not inconsistent or conflicting. In the PFT episode, they got the note that with a longer piece being read they need to break in for commentary to keep it interesting. In the latest episode, they got the note that when multiple people are reading from several posts in a forum, the "commentating" needs to be separated either in style or time from the readings. That these two notes were perceived as conflicting shows that F+ didn't have a good grasp on the spirit of the notes or their intent. They were just seen as "more commentary, sooner" vs. "less commentary, later." Besser and the judges in both cases were right on in their notes. While F+ are clearly funny funny folks, the structure of the show can certainly be improved to make it tighter and easier to comprehend in any listening format.