Webshows are an especially tricky game, and part of the trick is balancing being niche enough that you're interesting and broad enough that you can appeal to enough people to make it worth while. That's a curious intro to a show involving monster puppets and an oddly meta-referential plot about their television station... but, there you are.
Transylvania Television takes wildly clever advantage of the twist of internet television in that before you can fully form your blank stare into a question, or remark... it's already over. I realize that sounds like a criticism, but it isn't. I quite seriously think it's a wonderful move insofar as knowing your medium and using it to your best advantage.
You've got to get in and get out, and you have to do so in such a way that not only gets people to come back, but gets them to tell their friends. Transylvania Television has been managing the trick for over two years, and the third season is kicking off soon.
It's strange. It's weird. It would probably notice a dancing, blue, cunning plan (and get the reference). And, it's probably just one step short of thoroughly convincing you not to watch it again, and that may be exactly where such a show needs to be, because one step short is still watching again, and is still odd and wacky enough that it sticks with you.
Transylvania Television series follows Furry Ackermonster, a yeti with an associate’s degree and a dream as he works at a low-rent UHF station deep in the Carpathian Mountains. Furry finds TVTV being run into the ground by a group of business misfits—an aged and acerbic vampire grasping to stay relevant, a beatnik bat lost in a time warp of his own, and a hand-stitched janitor monster. Furry hotwires the station’s ailing antenna to the fabled Frankenstein Device, and chaos ensues. Now, with worldwide broadcast range and the unpredictable power to reanimate dead TV shows, the only thing standing between the bad guys and world domination is themselves.
Now with two seasons available on DVD, and a pretty serious following, here's a webshow that has proven it knows what it's doing, even if it doesn't particularly want you to know what it's doing. Check the show out at http://www.transylvania-tv.com/ and get acquainted with past episodes. You'll thank me.
New episodes to look forward to so watch colbert report online only at Clicker.com.
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About Marc Eastman
Marc Eastman is the owner and operator of Are You Screening? and has been writing film reviews for over a decade, and several branches of the internet's film review world have seen his name. His reviews have brought him personal praise from the director of a major motion picture, and have been used as required reading in a course at a major University. These priceless rewards, along with just bags of cash, keep him from straying from freelance writing. He is also a member of The Broadcast Film Critics Association and The Broadcast Television Journalists Association.
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