Acceptable.TV
At first glance, the premise of VH1's new Acceptable.TV seems like the product of committee thinking. Each week, the show screens five brief shorts. The audience votes (online or via mobile phone) for two of them to continue; the others are replaced by new "pilots." Each episode also features one fan-submitted pilot that earns its way onto the show through online voting. Creators Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab (who wrote last year's Oscar-nominated animated hit Monster House) honed the show's precepts through their online television station Channel101.com, whose user-submitted content stays or goes depending on feedback. Then they—and executive producer Jack Black—added a sketch-comedy element to create Acceptable.TV. Harmon hosts the show and leads its small ensemble in the sketches, with Black and Schrab staying behind the scenes. The show debuted in March to mostly tepid reviews, but has since produced its own hits: the Apprentice parody "Operation Kitten Calendar," and "Mr. Sprinkles," a darkly humorous look at the fall of a Cat In The Hat-esque character. Harmon and Black recently recently told The A.V. Club why they confuse their audience, why individuals are idiots, and why we aren't all vomit-eating baby birds any more.
The A.V. Club: You're halfway through your eight-episode run right now. How is it going?
Dan Harmon: It's going good. Everything I do, in the middle of it, I lose all objectivity. The business of comedy is kind of ridiculous in that respect. Your job is to have a lot of fun in a jar, then sell it. There's something inherently illogical and impossible about that, but that being said, this is as good as it gets. I'm creating little tiny TV shows with a lot of friends of mine that enjoy doing it. I'm not a schoolteacher, and I'm not a registered nurse, and I'm not eating my own foot in a bomb crater in Lebanon somewhere. I'm probably one of the top .01 percent of the population in terms of self-satisfaction right now.
AVC: The first reviews weren't terribly positive. Did you anticipate that?
Jack Black: I didn't. I anticipated great reviews, because I think it's really creative, original shit, but at the end of the day, if you think it's great, that's the most important thing. Maybe it's because it's ahead of its time.
DH: The best review you could hope to get if you're doing something new from an established reviewer, I would think, would be pretty much what we've been getting, which is kind of a resounding "Ehhhhhhhhhhhh. I'm confused." Well, good, because we're trying to do something confusing. We'll find our way and find our audience. Even the worst reviews, they always praise one or two of our sketches and say the other things are just shit. Well, that's what you're supposed to think. You're supposed to vote for what you like.
AVC: Everyone's still trying to figure it out.
DH: There are a million forces at work in what you see, and I don't blame other people. I myself sit and go, "Maybe I should host the show sitting on a couch." And then I go, "This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life." And then I go, "Yeah, let's make it more like The Muppet Show and have these crazy characters that we interact with behind the scenes." And then I go, "That also is the dumbest thing I've ever seen." When you combine that with getting notes from the network, and feedback on the website, and just reading the facial expressions of loved ones when you show them the episode, and you combine that with the fact that you've watched what you're showing them a thousand times in an edit bay, you lose your mind. You just have to surrender and hope that the good stuff bubbles up.
AVC: It's never been easier to get someone's opinion, thanks to the Internet.