Olde English - Blog

We’re super-excited to premiere World of Bob, a new...

adamconover — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:00:05 -0500

We’re super-excited to premiere World of Bob, a new cartoon short we made with our friends at PUNY (the Akon Calls T-Pain guys). It’s about a guy named Jim whose dumb friend Bob has sex with a cavewoman, so now everyone in the future is a descendent of Bob. It’s weird, and gross, and we hope you enjoy it!

A ton of awesome people donated their time to this project — our friend Pete Berkman of Anamanaguchi did title theme, Farsheed Hamidi-Toosi did the music video theme, and our sound editor Craig Hillelson did a bang up job on the mix; and PUNY’s animation is, of course, as gorgeous as always. (Seriously, watch this in HD or at Vimeo if you possibly can — the art is amazing.) This project was a true labor of love for all of us, and we hope you dig watching it as much as we dug making it.

Olde English sketch pilot. In 2008, Olde English decided we were...

boringoldraphael — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:37:00 -0500

Olde English sketch pilot.

In 2008, Olde English decided we were ready to have a TV show, and we started pitching ideas to cable channels. Most of our ideas were for themed sketch shows — my (Raphael’s) favorite was for basically a comedy version of TRL, full of original music videos, interviews with real and made-up celebrities, and youth-skewing commercials (we were about ten years too late for the format to have any cultural relevance, but we still thought it would be a lot of fun); we also pitched a road trip show where every week we film a batch of sketches in a new city as we drive across the country in a big van.

We put together the above reel as a sample of what we called our “vanilla sketch show” — just a bunch of sketches with no framing device. If you’ve seen all our videos, you’re not going to discover anything new here, other than the new intro and themed bumpers we filmed, but if you want to revisit a bunch of our favorite stuff all in a row, here’s a good place to do it. If someone had given us a TV show in 2008, this is more or less what it would have looked like.

Hey, New York City Olde English fans! We’re scattered...

adamconover — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:58:14 -0400

Hey, New York City Olde English fans! We’re scattered across the country right now, but sometimes we still get together for fun stuff! To take just a single example, this Sunday Raphael is in New York, so he’ll be joining me to co-host October’s installment of my standup show, Fresh Out at UCBeast! As you can see, we have an awesome lineup, so this mini-OE-mini-reunion is just the icing on the cake. Click here to make reservations!

In honor of Mother’s Day, here’s an e-mail my mom...

adamconover — Mon, 09 May 2011 01:21:00 -0400

In honor of Mother’s Day, here’s an e-mail my mom wrote me last week:

Did I just see Caleb bark on a commercial for free credit.com? On comedy central?
You need to post something on the OE website, or FB or somewhere. Dad is trying to see the commercial but doesn’t know where to look…..

You sure did, Mom! Here you go — Happy Mother’s Day!

- Adam

Olde English TV Tropes

adamconover — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 02:54:00 -0400

Olde English TV Tropes:

If you’re not familiar with the TV Tropes Wiki, it’s where obsessive media fans name and catalogue every phenomenon that occurs on their favorite shows, movies, and web series. It is, in other words, the antithesis of creativity, in that it seeks to pin and label creative work down like so many chloroformed butterflies. Now, finally, some crazed TV Tropes editor has caught us in her net, and made a somewhat-comprehensive list of “tropes” that appear in Olde English sketches. I can’t claim to understand a fucking word of it, but hey — I appreciate the effort.

- Adam

Adam Conover's Personal Brand: In other words, "Writers write."

boringoldraphael — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:30:47 -0400

Adam Conover's Personal Brand: In other words, "Writers write.":

adamconover:

An aspiring comedy writer who’s taking a “Writing for SNL” class and saw this thread on packets on Matt Ruby’s blog wrote me asking for tips on writing a Daily Show packet; she also asked if I had any general advice on writing comedy for television. I replied:

Here’s my advice: A lot of people get hung up on the idea of getting a job writing for the Daily Show, Colbert, SNL, or late night talk shows. The unfortunate truth is that these shows almost exclusively hire working, established comedians and writers; and even if you are one of those comedians, your chances of getting one of those jobs are exceedingly small. It’s my opinion, therefore, that focusing narrowly on “writing for the Daily Show” or “writing for SNL” is just setting yourself up for failure. It’s like studying to be an astronaut without learning how to fly a plane.

Instead, focus on mastering the fundamentals of comedy. Most importantly, focus on doing your own work first. The people who get hired aren’t the people who obsessively study the Daily Show for five years — they’re the people who produce their own work, put it up somewhere visible (whether through standup, live sketch, the Internet, or another medium), and who got enough attention and recognition doing so that they eventually got on the radar of people looking to hire funny writers. The last three New Yorkers I know of hired to write on SNL were John Mulaney and Hannibal Burress, two of the funniest standups in the city, and Christine Nangle, one of the top writers at UCB. They got those jobs because they were being so utterly and visibly hilarious for so long that a producer at SNL finally said “Hey, they’re fucking funny! I want that funny on my show!” — not because they jumped through some arbitrary hoops of “this is what SNL is looking for in a writing packet” or “this is what a Daily Show packet should look like.” (And yeah, they probably wrote good packets too, but the fact is that the funny came first and the packets second.)

So: If you want to write comedy, stop worrying about getting a job and start just fucking writing comedy. Then put it somewhere that people can see it. Then repeat. Success will follow. Good luck!

Now, here’s a big proviso: I haven’t worked on any of these shows, and have barely written for television at all. Still, I don’t think I’m wrong about this; it is, at least, how I’ve chosen to live my life and how I’ve chosen to approach my career. If anyone has a differing perspective, I’d love to hear about and discuss it.

This very funny video was directed by Margaret Laney, good...

boringoldraphael — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 20:09:38 -0500

This very funny video was directed by Margaret Laney, good friend of Olde English and producer of our upcoming film The Exquisite Corpse Project.

Enjooooooooooooy!

-Raphael

"Principato asked a young manager about a client named Raphael Bob-Waksberg. “What do you think the..."

adamconover — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 14:32:00 -0500

“

Principato asked a young manager about a client named Raphael Bob-Waksberg. “What do you think the pitch is on him, other than having people read his scripts?”

The manager answered: “I really feel like he’s a young Charlie Kaufman. He’s somebody who has a limitless mind, who is getting his start, but will eventually be an Oscar-winning writer.”

”

- Raphael got this pretty amazing mention in last week’s New York Times Magazine article about our manager, Peter Principato. The entire piece is a pretty great look into how your comedy sausage is made, so if you’re a comedy fan, check it out.

- Adam

adamconover: caitoradecomedy: This week I talk to writer,...

boringoldraphael — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 16:45:44 -0500

adamconover:

caitoradecomedy:

This week I talk to writer, director and stand-up comedian Adam Conover about writing a screenplay telephone-style, learning from your students and I hit him up for open mic tips.

I’m a big admirer of Caitlin Tegart’s work (which includes Vag Magazine, as well as a ton of terrific shows at UCB), so I was delighted to be a guest on her podcast and talk shop. Caitlin and I have both started doing standup in the last year, so we mostly discussed comedy theory and how it applies to sketch and standup differently — interesting stuff. Enjoy!

God damn it, Adam, if you don’t post stuff like this in the Olde English group blog, what’s even the point of having an Olde English blog?

-Raphael

adamconover: Here’s a video of a set I did last week at Under...

boringoldraphael — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:38:50 -0500

adamconover:

Here’s a video of a set I did last week at Under St. Marks. The video quality isn’t great, but the comedy quality is!

Funny stuff!

-R

Something is coming in 2011.

adamconover — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:36 -0400

Something is coming in 2011.

On October 10th, 2002, Ben posted the above flyer all over Bard...

adamconover — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 19:23:00 -0400

On October 10th, 2002, Ben posted the above flyer all over Bard College. Thirty people showed up to the first meeting. Eight years later, amazingly, five of us are still working together, creating great comedy. There are a thousand more recollections I could pack into this post if I had time — but I don’t, because I have to get back to working on the thing we’re still working on together. So for now, I’ll just say, hey: Next time you’re designing a flyer, take an extra five minutes to make it look nice. It might pay off.

- Adam

standardreview: Dick Van Dyke Show montage for your...

boringoldraphael — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:12:05 -0400

standardreview:

Dick Van Dyke Show montage for your Saturday.

Comedy done right.

-Raphael

eugenecordero: erockappel: At long last, the short film that I...

boringoldraphael — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:46:47 -0400

eugenecordero:

erockappel:

At long last, the short film that I made along with Charlie Sanders has found its way to the internets. We really had a great time putting this together, and if it does well, we might have the opportunity to do some more long form content like this on the site.

So if you like what you see, PLEASE REBLOG THIS AND SPREAD IT AROUND AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!!! SERIOUSLY!!!

Even if it’s not your cup of tea, it’s very cool that FOD let us do something like this. It was a real learning experience for both Charlie and I, and something that I’m very proud of. The running time is just under 18 minutes, but I promise, it will fly by.

Thank you and please enjoy, “THE BIG DOG!”

This fantastic short features friend of Olde English Charlie Sanders and many other people you will recognize. I hope you enjoy it.

owenparsons: dangurewitch: Dance Clubs Are The Worst. An...

adamconover — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:42:00 -0400

owenparsons:

dangurewitch:

Dance Clubs Are The Worst. An original dance song about hating dance clubs. Written by me & Sarah, directed by Vince, with damn catchy music written & produced by Jesse Novak. This one comes from a very real place.

This College Humor video features a new original song by Jesse Novak! Or, to reorder that sentence more appropriately — College Humor made a music video for the new Jesse Novak song!

Before you catch Jonathan Sollis (AKA Jonny Famous AKA He Saved...

dogbark — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:07:00 -0400

Before you catch Jonathan Sollis (AKA Jonny Famous AKA He Saved My Life Once) in the exquisite corpse project we all just wrapped, and before you catch The Fat Jew (AKA The King Of Brunch AKA way too many AKAs) tweeting his putrid life away, you can catch them both in the trailer for their show The skinNY.

I love everyone involved, so I’m glad it’s good so I don’t have to lie to my loved ones. (AM I lying?)

Produced by Nick Gallo (graphics editor at The Onion, and associate producer of the movie Big Fan) and with cameos by me (Caleb) and many good friends including members of both The Auctioneers and The London Souls, Leo Fitzpatrick, Baron Von Fancy’s artwork, and a whole gang of pals I’m too linked-out to link-up, you know it’s gonna be hotter than fuego. I mean it is.

- Caleb

Last week, Daniel Tosh featured our seven year-old sketch...

adamconover — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 03:19:00 -0400

Last week, Daniel Tosh featured our seven year-old sketch “Hello? Fuck!” on his Comedy Central series Tosh.0. Here, in their entirety, are his comments on the sketch.

- Adam

On the Road

adamconover — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:02:12 -0400

iloverap:

Hey y’all,

I’m hitting the road for the next two weeks or so with my lady as we move from NYC to LA. We’ll be posting about our adventures over at Maya, Dave, and The United States of America.

If you need your I Love Rap fix, may I recommend going back to the beginning and checking up on all the classics that you’ve already missed out on!

Otherwise, see you soon.

Should be back by July 7th …

Dave’s on a road trip to LA, and you can follow along!

- Adam

Profiles of the Insecure, Episode 2, directed by Charlie...

boringoldraphael — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:25:49 -0400

Profiles of the Insecure, Episode 2, directed by Charlie Sanders, starring meeeeeee!

-Raphael

Father’s Day Bonus: “Can Susie come out on a...

boringoldraphael — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:45:27 -0400

Father’s Day Bonus: “Can Susie come out on a date?”