Fo' Show

I often say that I creatively peaked in high school. I was heavily into drama, acting, making short "films" and writing, not to mention the structure of high school gave me plenty of free time during the day to exercise my drawing skills. I sometimes think I peaked in 8th grade based solely on the fact that X-Kids Unlimited, the 10 page comic series based on my characters that I did from 5th to 8th grade (29 issues total), was at its best where I was drawing scarily well, doing all sorts of crazy things with format and story, and actually illustrating the background. These issues (I think 20-29) are my pride and joy.

But lately, after getting involved in the improv scene, I've started thinking about the highlight of my college career: Fo' Show, the sketch comedy show I was inspired to create after taking Multi-Cam Producing and Directing and reading Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. My vision was to take my hilarious friends and the great bands of Murfreesboro and place them front and center on MTTV, a channel known for talk shows and the news. A scripted show was rarely attempted on our college's station.

Those initial meetings in the summer of 2005, when the format of the show, the type of humor, the cast, all of it, when it was all coming into play...that was great. It felt like the beginning of something that I was going to be proud of and it was a delight to see others take ideas and run with them on their own. I had a great support group and, by the time we taped episode one, I think we already had a strong group mind.

Two episodes and a best of were done that first semester, a lot less than I intended. School and work got in the way. A lot. The next semester we finished up "I Love the 1880s," the episode that got the most reaction, and taped our best material for the never finished third episode. If only we could have had more time, less school, more funding...things coulda been great. As it stands, I'm pretty darn proud of Fo' Show and, when we got episodes done, I think we accomplished what we set out to do.

Everything but the first episode and one sketch from episode two is up on YouTube now, which got linked on Nashville Cream without me knowing. We were viral for a second.

HIGHLIGHTS:
"Bad Show" A parody of a horribly produced cable access talk show with a gloriously eccentric host. The opening credits, which I did with PhotoShop and Windows Movie Maker, are lovely.


"Brawl XXX" The sound is fine, trust me. It just got wonked up when it was put on YouTube. Still, it's just a bunch of screaming, so the sound isn't important. The most violent thing I've ever done.


"I Love the 1880s: Canned Goods" All of these little bits are equally funny and were a pain to edit. A pain. But worth it.


"Fred & Bing" We became viral because of this.


"Huge Spill" Us being weird.


"Sweet 16" Not for Fo' Show, but everyone involved with this was involved with the show so...