Post by Steve on Jul 9, 2008 18:49:15 GMT -5
From: Maria Bamford!
Date: Jul 9, 2008 5:37 PM
Hello Pufflesnugs!
To commemorate the 20-Episode Run of The Maria Bamford Show - which may be taken off the net any day now - I am sending out the episodes in order, with blog commentary for fun and for you to forward to friends, family, invalids, acquaintances, babies, doggies, and The Press. It is not yet available on DVD and my manager, Bruce, is wrangling with the beeswax about it at this time.
Enjoy!
Episode One -- "DROP OUT"
See
www.superdeluxe.com/sd/series/bamford_show
This first episode was based on a one-woman show I performed for about 3 years around LA and in Melbourne, Oz and at the Edinburgh Festival. To go "mad" is both my greatest fear and deepest wish in that I fantasize things would be so much simpler living in my parent's attic and working as a temp in Duluth - so the show explored that fantasy and what it might be like. I haven't had a psychotic break, but I do enjoy ongoing clinical depression, OCD and floating anxieties that are manifested in a myriad of ways. There is mental illness in my family, however, and I have experienced 3 panic attacks so I think I'm pretty well qualified to create a fictional internet series about an issue I know little about. The whole deal was a dream come true -- getting to work with someone else, getting paid well (via the Turner Broadcasting Company) and getting to do whatever I wanted. And with Blossom, my wife-partner.
Damon Jones (the director/editor) and I had just met a few weeks before at lunch with the producer Dan Pasternak and my manager Bruce Smith (which sounds glamorous when I read it, but is just eating burritos) and I didn't know him very well and was a little nervous and the first episode is just straight from the stage show and stand-up jokes.
Kristy Coombs is not based on anyone in particular but an amalgamation of things that have been said after shows in the Midwest, some bad childhood experiences and my own opinion of myself. Amy Sleverson is based partly on someone from high school and partly on the ether. My Mom and sister are direct quotes and exacting impersonations of their true selves and I'm just a channel. That is not true. They are extremely exaggerated caricatures of real, lovely and funny people. The impersonation I do of myself is completely accurate.
From Salon. com, "I LIKE TO WATCH", by Heather Havrilesky,
Don't be afraid of the dark
Then Heather discovered "The Maria Bamford Show" and everything changed. This strange Web show, which appeared on the comedy Web site Super Deluxe with a bunch of other strange but less funny shows, appeared to be filmed entirely in the attic of this person named Maria Bamford's parents' house in Duluth, Minn. According to the opening screen of the show's first episode, Bamford had been doing stand-up for several years in Los Angeles when she suffered a breakdown onstage in 2006, and eventually retreated to her parents' home to regroup and regain her sanity.
Bamford spins a strange comic web indeed, playing all of the characters in the sad little drama that is her life as a lost, half-crazy, sometimes depressed single woman in her late 30s. Among the other characters Bamford inhabits with total conviction and authority are her passively judgmental but supportive mom ("Listen, if you want to get breast implants, we will support you"), her skeptical sister, her nerdy dad and a selection of odd but disturbingly familiar acquaintances from the town of Duluth. My personal favorite is her archenemy from high school, who tells her, "So we saw you on TV or whatever. It's just like in high school -- it's like you're not funny, you're weird.
"
But no recap of Bamford's weird tales or the clever dialogue she writes can do justice to "The Maria Bamford Show," because Bamford herself is such a good performer, churning out hilarious impressions with convincing accents, verbal tics and great comic timing. Her central conceit -- that she's crazy and something of a loser -- is a common one these days, but it works because Bamford is so inventive and giddily odd in her presentation. She manages to expose the most interesting quirks and flaws of her entourage without actually coming out and suggesting that she has a nasty attitude about any of them. Bamford's family, friends and enemies usually get the upper hand, while Bamford herself is continually kicked in the teeth by life's little foibles.
From the Harvard Crimson- "The Best TV You Didn't Watch"
Staff Writer Abe Reisman
"The Maria Bamford Show"
( www.superdeluxe.com/sd/series/bamford_show )
Okay, this one isn't technically a TV show, but bear with me. Maria Bamford is one of the funniest women in America (Sarah Silverman can go to hell and take her shoddy material with her), and has quietly reinvented the entire concept of the sitcom with a budget of roughly $25 and a cast of one. Without delving into the world of "wacky voices," her show features a cast of roughly a dozen characters, all deftly played by the inestimable Ms. Bamford. It all hinges on elegantly cheap editing and rich character illustrations—oh, and also she's really funny. But what keeps you coming back for more is the fact that, beneath the technical innovation and hilarious writing, Maria's tale of living at home after a series of career failures describes clinical depression in such a frank, open way that you'd be heartless if you didn't feel a deep, cathartic belly laugh rise from your guts. Catch her before she's famous.
Date: Jul 9, 2008 5:37 PM
Hello Pufflesnugs!
To commemorate the 20-Episode Run of The Maria Bamford Show - which may be taken off the net any day now - I am sending out the episodes in order, with blog commentary for fun and for you to forward to friends, family, invalids, acquaintances, babies, doggies, and The Press. It is not yet available on DVD and my manager, Bruce, is wrangling with the beeswax about it at this time.
Enjoy!
Episode One -- "DROP OUT"
See
www.superdeluxe.com/sd/series/bamford_show
This first episode was based on a one-woman show I performed for about 3 years around LA and in Melbourne, Oz and at the Edinburgh Festival. To go "mad" is both my greatest fear and deepest wish in that I fantasize things would be so much simpler living in my parent's attic and working as a temp in Duluth - so the show explored that fantasy and what it might be like. I haven't had a psychotic break, but I do enjoy ongoing clinical depression, OCD and floating anxieties that are manifested in a myriad of ways. There is mental illness in my family, however, and I have experienced 3 panic attacks so I think I'm pretty well qualified to create a fictional internet series about an issue I know little about. The whole deal was a dream come true -- getting to work with someone else, getting paid well (via the Turner Broadcasting Company) and getting to do whatever I wanted. And with Blossom, my wife-partner.
Damon Jones (the director/editor) and I had just met a few weeks before at lunch with the producer Dan Pasternak and my manager Bruce Smith (which sounds glamorous when I read it, but is just eating burritos) and I didn't know him very well and was a little nervous and the first episode is just straight from the stage show and stand-up jokes.
Kristy Coombs is not based on anyone in particular but an amalgamation of things that have been said after shows in the Midwest, some bad childhood experiences and my own opinion of myself. Amy Sleverson is based partly on someone from high school and partly on the ether. My Mom and sister are direct quotes and exacting impersonations of their true selves and I'm just a channel. That is not true. They are extremely exaggerated caricatures of real, lovely and funny people. The impersonation I do of myself is completely accurate.
From Salon. com, "I LIKE TO WATCH", by Heather Havrilesky,
Don't be afraid of the dark
Then Heather discovered "The Maria Bamford Show" and everything changed. This strange Web show, which appeared on the comedy Web site Super Deluxe with a bunch of other strange but less funny shows, appeared to be filmed entirely in the attic of this person named Maria Bamford's parents' house in Duluth, Minn. According to the opening screen of the show's first episode, Bamford had been doing stand-up for several years in Los Angeles when she suffered a breakdown onstage in 2006, and eventually retreated to her parents' home to regroup and regain her sanity.
Bamford spins a strange comic web indeed, playing all of the characters in the sad little drama that is her life as a lost, half-crazy, sometimes depressed single woman in her late 30s. Among the other characters Bamford inhabits with total conviction and authority are her passively judgmental but supportive mom ("Listen, if you want to get breast implants, we will support you"), her skeptical sister, her nerdy dad and a selection of odd but disturbingly familiar acquaintances from the town of Duluth. My personal favorite is her archenemy from high school, who tells her, "So we saw you on TV or whatever. It's just like in high school -- it's like you're not funny, you're weird.
"
But no recap of Bamford's weird tales or the clever dialogue she writes can do justice to "The Maria Bamford Show," because Bamford herself is such a good performer, churning out hilarious impressions with convincing accents, verbal tics and great comic timing. Her central conceit -- that she's crazy and something of a loser -- is a common one these days, but it works because Bamford is so inventive and giddily odd in her presentation. She manages to expose the most interesting quirks and flaws of her entourage without actually coming out and suggesting that she has a nasty attitude about any of them. Bamford's family, friends and enemies usually get the upper hand, while Bamford herself is continually kicked in the teeth by life's little foibles.
From the Harvard Crimson- "The Best TV You Didn't Watch"
Staff Writer Abe Reisman
"The Maria Bamford Show"
( www.superdeluxe.com/sd/series/bamford_show )
Okay, this one isn't technically a TV show, but bear with me. Maria Bamford is one of the funniest women in America (Sarah Silverman can go to hell and take her shoddy material with her), and has quietly reinvented the entire concept of the sitcom with a budget of roughly $25 and a cast of one. Without delving into the world of "wacky voices," her show features a cast of roughly a dozen characters, all deftly played by the inestimable Ms. Bamford. It all hinges on elegantly cheap editing and rich character illustrations—oh, and also she's really funny. But what keeps you coming back for more is the fact that, beneath the technical innovation and hilarious writing, Maria's tale of living at home after a series of career failures describes clinical depression in such a frank, open way that you'd be heartless if you didn't feel a deep, cathartic belly laugh rise from your guts. Catch her before she's famous.
