Okay, first: My Show has one episode. Will there be more after its Channel 101 cancellation? That’s beside the point. The job’s been done with the one, blithely titled “Episode 1.â€
What begins as a recitation of Between Two Ferns in sensibility — an under-produced talk show where the host doesn’t give a shit — gives way to become much more nuanced performance art.
Written, directed, edited by, and starring Caron Clancey as our host named “Your Host,†My Show quickly lifts past the same old fare of stilted exchanges engineered to make the viewer feel like they’re witnessing a train wreck. No, this show takes discomfort to a new dimension. With a silent (save for some deep breaths and creaking smiles) co-host named Deborah (Chloe Badner), forced “audience†participation (shout-out Stanley Wong), a sudden solo tap-dancing exhibition, and a 20-second montage of unrelated stock footage masquerading as a commercial break, My Show is less a rickety homage to the talk-show form than an outright mockery of it.
It’s got strong Tim and Eric influences for sure, and Clancey’s recognition of fertile comedic ground in the pomp of anything hosted isn’t revolutionary, but there’s something more going on. Clancey, as a creator, has an eerie earnestness to her style and a special ability to confuse me to the point where I’m honestly not sure if I’m watching something really, really bad or brilliant, and that — in that tiny vein between professional subverters and unsculpted “noise†— is where alt-comedy feels the freshest.
Oh, yeah, watch Clancey and Hawley Allen in Snakes on Your Face, too. Two in one week, y’all!
Luke is executive producer at Big Breakfast and a watcher of many web videos. Send him yours @LKellyClyne.