We’re in a new era of zombie media.
In terms of actual zombies, it’s still pretty much just The Walking Dead and its prequel, Fear the Walking Dead. But it seems as though we’ve entered an era in which no TV show is ever truly dead. (Unless it sucks. Like…too much.)
But as long as the show has a dedicated fanbase and one or two studio executives that are tricked into believing it still has an interested audience, there’s a chance it could come back. That, plus the proliferation of new media platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Yahoo (apparently) make it easier than ever to breathe new life into a once-popular show.
Community came back (beyond all reason) three times. Arrested Development famously returned for another season years after its cancellation. The X-Files is coming back next year, along with Full House (as Fuller House) and Coach. And when a show with a sizeable fan base is cancelled,it becomes part of the negotiations to expect to see movements to “save the show.” These are especially targeted towards online distributors, now famous for bringing shows back, despite the fact that it has only been done a handful of times.
No matter what, I think this trend is here to stay. Partially because our culture is particularly nostalgia-obsessed, and we love seeing what we already know. Jurassic World grossed 1.5 billion dollars, and this year has seen releases of Terminator, Peter Pan and The Peanuts Movie, all of which tie into the cultural fetish that we have for the signifiers of the past. Each of these films demand recognition, not original stimulation.
But also, simple business sense means that as the television landscape becomes more and more crowded, that it makes sense to install shows with a built-in fanbase to differentiate themselves in the wide television landscape. It’s here to stay — which makes it important to find a model for these shows.
Enter W/ Bob and David.
W/ Bob and David is a Netflix comedy sketch show starring Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad) and David Cross (Arrested Development), alongwith a host of other alternative comedians and special guest stars. The two play semi-fictionalized versions of themselves, introducing each show with a live bit before transitioning into a mixture of pre-filmed and staged sketches, all of which star Odenkirk and Cross.
Unofficially, the show is a continuation of Mr. Show with Bob and David, a revolutionary sketch show that aired for four seasons on HBO from 1995 to 1998. Featuring Odenkirk and Cross in their original roles, Mr. Show started the careers of several now-famous alternative comedy stars including Sarah Silverman (Jesus is Magic, The Sarah Silverman Program), Jack Black (School of Rock, Kung Fu Panda), Paul F. Tompkins (BoJack Horseman) and Mary Lynn Rajskub(24).
Mr. Show wasn’t revolutionary for anything it did formally. A number of other sketch shows (The State, Upright Citizens Brigade) had running connections and a mix of live and pre-made bits. But it’s the way that it approached its material that made Mr. Show a hit. More than any other show, Mr. Show was alternative comedy that really did, and still does, ultimately feel alternative.
It’s not just Saturday Night Live-style sketches with different energies or rawer production values. Mr. Show felt like an acerbic, aggressive middle finger to its audience that was more than willing to wring every ounce of comedy from its premises. It was weird and uncomfortable and even confusing in a way that was infinitely hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhVbLJvYP8s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdIDwYW_JZg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKE9W0O8bX8
But it’s what is so amazing about this show that is also what’s so difficult to replicate. This show was groundbreaking for its time thanks to the influence it had (see Key and Peele, Inside Amy Schumer, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), and much of its energy was the energy of youth. Young comedians trying to prove themselves are going to write and perform differently from successful, older comedians trying to get back to their old style.
The success of W/ Bob and David comes from the fact that it doesn’t even try.
The ultimate key that W/ Bob and David gives us to television revival is that you have to understand how the show and its audience have shifted.
The concern I have about these revivals, as I have had about many of the aforementioned films (and those still to come: Star Wars: The Force Awakens) is that they believe that trading in on what we already know is enough.
W/ Bob and David understands that Odenkirk and (maybe) Cross aren’t the angry young men they once were. They wrote a new book on comedy and simply reading from it isn’t going to work again. So, they borrow what works: the connected nature, the willingness to wring every ounce of comedy from every premise, the complex connections between sketches.
But W/ Bob and David doesn’t pick up recurring sketches from Mr. Show, and it doesn’t attempt to carve out the same space again. Odenkirk and Cross have softened a bit, and W/ Bob and David accepts that idea by slowing the pace down and allowing for more space in sketches. This is also because of the understanding that Odenkirk (as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad) and Cross (as Tobias Funke in Arrested Development) picked up a few more tricks along the way and capitalizes on the fact that they should use them.
W/ Bob and David understands that the original anger of the show has less weight in a comedy landscape that is out of the rebellious late-90s. It adapts by understanding that we have a landscape more willing to go to weird or surrealist places. It brings its engagement with its form and its odd reality to the forefront of the medium.
W/ Bob and David feels like a revival that understands how the audience, performers and even the original, Mr. Show, changed. Mr. Show was an obscure HBO sketch show that became a textbook for a generation of comedians. More of the same isn’t going to have the impact anymore.
As we continue down our path of nostalgic revivals, this is the lesson we’re going to have to learn. We’ve changed. More of the same simply isn’t enough. If we’re going to ask for more, we need to at least ask for something different.
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