When was the last time you saw the names Jon Hamm, John Stamos, Sarah Silverman, John Cho, Allison Janney, Hank Azaria, Michael Vartan, Steven Webber….(pause for a deep breath)…Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Dule Hill, and Fred Willard all together at once? Okay -- never, right?
Until now!
Backwash, a strange and surreal web series will premiere on the Sony-owned video site Crackle on November 15. The 13-episode series follows three hapless companions (played by Michael Ian Black, Michael Panes, and Joshua Malina, who also wrote and produced the series) after one of them robs a bank with a …large salami.
No, that’s not a euphemism.
As far as that list of stars up there, some of them will appear as guest narrators and others will figure into the storyline itself. Even so, each episode will run less than ten minutes. The idea for Crackle is to craft each of the small segments into chunks of plot that could stand on their own.
“We’ll have 90 minutes of content, released episodically, at a caliber and quality where we can put them out on DVD, sell them on cable or satellite,” said Eric Berger, senior VP of Digital Networks for Sony. Berger says that one of the key differences between a video site like Crackle and competitors like Hulu and Youtube is the target demographic. Crackle intends to reach the demographic of males 18-34, and provides editorial content through its blog and video lists that might appeal specifically to that demographic (which is not to say that women will find the site and its videos uninteresting, just to clarify).
Backwash is one of the four original series exclusively produced for Crackle each year, and the hope is that Backwash can help elevate web series to the mainstream eye – having Jon Hamm and Uncle Jesse John Stamos as part of the start-studded cast may help out, since they're both pretty popular right now due to roles on Mad Men and Glee, respectively. Writer/producer/actor Joshua Malina said that he enjoyed being able to cast and shoot the show without creative restriction, despite the fact that web series’ often have extremely low budgets and short shooting times.
Will you guys be watching Backwash? The concept sounds like it could be funny (it doesn’t hurt that Michael Ian Black is one of the writers – that guy is hilarious) and the list of celebs appearing is a pretty big draw, too. I’ll probably check it out.
Backwash premieres on Crackle.com on Nov. 15, 2010.
Categories: Movies
Posted by
Jena on
11/11/2010 10:15 AM