Shortly before the 30th episode of The Biggest Problem in the Universe, Maddox and I were asked to turn a podcast that had a lot of potential into a live “talk show” by YouTube. I generously include myself in that previous sentence for sake of brevity. We were given a budget of $5,000 and some stipulations:
1. Make it 15 minutes long.
2. Have guests.
3. Record it at the YouTube Space: Los Angeles.
For those of you who don’t know, The YouTube Space: Los Angeles is where comedy goes to die. It’s a giant, multi-million dollar mausoleum for fun, built to look like an Apple Store, run like a Scientology, and serving the same purpose as nuts on a trailer hitch: showing off how big your nuts are. But The YouTube Space: Los Angeles is not why the Biggest Problem YouTube shows failed. They failed because of us.
Conceived, planned, recorded in a month, and then painstakingly edited over the course of two-months by a walking, talking case-study in the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and then re-edited by a professional, the YouTube shows were released onto the Internet February 17th, 2015. Here is a selection of the initial response:
“Holy shitting christ this was completely terrible.” -Slixor
“Wow. This sucked. Like, really bad.” – Dio Brando
“So all these fucking people, this entire stage.. and all they got is a 15 minute show? Also how the shit did this take 14 years to edit?” -kapytanhook
“Get raped.” -Mr. Burgers
You can see more comments and watch the actual video here.
Or read the original launch post on The Biggest Problem in the Universe, Episode 40 – Mirror.
People have been asking what the fuck happened with The YouTube Shows since they received their first thumbs down, so I figured that since The Dick Show is closing in on episode 40, now would be a good time to give an honest appraisal of the entire debacle. This is a story about how bad things get made well. It’s a cautionary tale of design by committee, of failure by design, and of experimenting in the face of success.
I thought this story would take 20 minutes, but I was wrong and it ended up taking over two hours, so buckle in because you’re going for a ride.
There is one last question, however, that I didn’t answer in this episode. If Maddox couldn’t do a podcast with me because my values are so morally reprehensible to his effete, Hollywood sensibilities, why is he still running videos of our content on his YouTube Channel, why does he still have the podcast published at all for that matter?
Maybe he’s too busy disavowing his book, friend requesting listeners girlfriends on Facebook, and shamelessly sucking up to everyone at UCB as if forced, prolonged exposure to his meekness will guilt from their mind the creeping realization that he’s a despicable and manipulative scumbag, to delete them. You’ve got to read the sentence twice to get the “to delete them” part. That’s my trick!
Speaking of YouTube, check out The Dick Show’s YouTube channel for clips, highlights, and remixes from the show, such as this gem.
Am I Thinking or Am I Drinking? Thumbnail by Brandon of Maximum! Panic.