Who likes to laugh, amirite!? Damn straight! Laughter is like tiny unicorn kisses inside your brain, and should be sought out at all times!
For those of you who are old enough to remember this, Dr. Katz was once a super-hilarious show. Airing in the early days of Comedy Central, “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist” featured Jonathan Katz taking the day’s best stand-up comics to his private therapist’s couch. H. Jon Benjamin was there too, dontchaknow. After a long hiatus, Jonathan Katz is back, and OHIMGOD YOU GUYS I’M IN THE SHOW!
The new show is called “Explosion Bus,” and it’s funnier than Ashton Kutcher times Zooey Deschanel plus that new thing that Christina Ricci’s doing. I can’t tell you all too much about it, but here’s the central gag: Jonathan Katz’s character is watching “American Idol” one day and just can’t believe how mean that Simon Cowell-like character is being to that nice girl up on stage, why would he be so mean to her, huh? So he and his friend (voiced by “Seinfeld” writer Tom Leopold) set off on “a nationwide, non-judgmental talent show.”
It’s funny. Funnier than I expected it to be. Much funnier than I expected it to be. And I’m a judgmental asshole, so, y’know.
The show debuts tonight at 8:30 PM Eastern, exclusively on ExplosionBus.com. We have four seasons’ worth of content waiting for eyeballs, so go and give us a little debut bump, pretty please.
You should totally watch. Do it for me; do it for Crasstalk; do it for America.
And now, a letter from Explosion Bus co-creator Tom Snyder:
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Explosion Bus
(The world’s last animated hope)
Premiering on September 13, 2011 at explosionbus.com
“This exciting new full-length web series will no doubt be referred to, in the future, as the first web series to make grown TV executives cry.” – Me (Tom) 2011
Dear Friends,
Twenty years ago, a dream came true when I got to work with Jonathan Katz on our first TV show together. Before then, I would force my wife to watch endless VHS clips of Jon. Five years later, Jon and I were startled to be collaborating with Tom Leopold, often labeled ‘the funniest guy in America’. Ever since, the three of us have been inseparable, unless we’re apart.
A little over a year ago, production began on Explosion Bus, a 4-season, animated epic starring these two brilliant guys. I created this show, hopefully like no other, expressly for Internet broadcast. Here are a few of its important and unique aspects:
- None of the cast, which includes many brilliant local actors, are exposed to the script until moments before their lines are performed. They find out what is in store for their character as the scene develops. Their performances are ‘in the instant’.
- Our animators, the spectacular artistic director Robert Keough and the smartest artist in the East, Steve Davies, are not given post-production ‘notes’, the bane of an animator’s existence. This is unheard of in the business. (Ask any animator.) Bob and Steve know better than anyone what this world should look like. They are the visual artists.
Back to those local actors, and by local I mean Boston and New York… They all have spent many hours alone in sound booths, without proper ventilation, learning a new meaning of the word ‘flexible’. They have each invented their characters, and there ain’t a one of them that you won’t love. Misch Whitaker, Megan Goltermann, Chris Cook, Jonathan Wilson, Ahna Tessler, Jayson James and Dan Weber have over a billion combined hours of stage appearance, and one of them slightly more.
Explosion Bus also includes amateur and professional performers who audition their acts as part of our animated show. We find them across the land through Craigslist. They are fearless, and generous and talented. We are deeply indebted to these wonderful people, young and old.
Want to find out what it is really all about?
Please visit our web site at explosionbus.com where you will find some fun, pre-launch stuff: trailers, interviews, shopping, etc. And on Tuesday, September 13th at 8:30 PM , it is there that you will watch Episode One of Explosion Bus. We firmly believe that we have the best time slot on the internet!
Til we meet again,
Tom Snyder
