Sunday 14 August 2016

Case Study of Comedy Television as Art

I have been listening to Marc Maron's podcast WTF this summer. The Atlantic gives a charming account of Maron as an American Ancient Mariner. Indeed, he is someone who cannot stop talking about himself, and, in so doing, compels others to both listen to him and become a version of him.

WTF has been around long enough for people to compile best-of lists. One of the podcasts that appear on many best-of lists is the second part of his special 500th podcast with comedian Louis CK.  This episode contains CK's account of the creation of his webseries Horace and Pete. Maron gives CK free rein to describe the entire creative process behind the creation of CK's webseries.

Listening to this account gave me a view of what it is like to put together a project that has no precedents. Louis CK is not an unknown person, and as he admits, he was able to use his fame and his past success to help him fund and produce his project. To hear CK talk about the project, money (it was his money) was not an issue for him. Instead, what CK wanted to do was to allow himself to be creative and then allow himself to work towards getting his creative ideas to an audience.

CK talks about everything in the production of this podcast. For those who aren't interested in behind-the-scene details, this is not the podcast to turn to. But for those who want to hear the details of how someone gets an original project off the ground, from writing to casting to marketing, this should prove a useful case study.


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