Maria Bamford was doing comedy about mental health before it was cool and remains the queen of the form (as well as the queen of arguably all stand-up in general). Her 2009 comedy album Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome gets its name from her lifelong struggles with a particularly acute form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and her gone-too-soon Netflix series Lady Dynamite tackled her time in psychiatric-inpatient facilities and a bipolar-disorder diagnosis. Given a microphone and a camera, Bamford is able to take dark, personal subjects and turn them into something both honest and wacky, and the world is better off for it. Today, the world improves just a tiny bit more with the announcement of her latest project.
Titled Noooo-CD!, Bamford’s new creation is billed as “a comedy series about intrusive thoughts.” It begins with the following table setting: “At the age of 10 years old, comedian Maria Bamford began getting unwanted intrusive thoughts, a type of OCD. By the age of 51, she was unable to leave her home. She made the following internet content as a cry for help.” Bamford says that she wanted to tackle “this specific type of OCD because it’s kind of really creepy, sometimes stigmatized, and the therapy is really funny. It’s really quite scary.” In the first episode of the prospective series above, the comedian struggles to go to her friend’s house for a simple meal. Her intrusive thoughts, played by Bamford in a clown wig, keep butting in with violent fantasies and unwelcome commentary, which she tries to ward off in ways both silly and dark.
We say prospective web series because episode one is technically a pilot. Bamford is launching a Kickstarter today to produce two more episodes, “and in the future up to 12 … dependent on audience interest.” On her Kickstarter page, Bamford breaks down the costs of shooting a web series while paying a crew fairly and making a living for herself as well. If successful, Bamford will film the other two episodes over the course of a year, in an innovative “mental-health-friendly schedule” she calls “VSC (Very Slow Content AKA Slow Business).” And if we’re all frothing at the mouth for more? She’ll make more, “barring the collapse of Western civilization.” If you want to know a bit more about what to expect, Bamford describes the series as similar to her 2004 web series The Maria Bamford Show, but about intrusive thoughts. Give her the resources to make content forever and ever, we say!