All the time we’re saving on stuff like, say, going outside for any other reason than basic necessity or hanging out with friends in person has allowed room for the internet to do what the internet does best: Expend a whole lot of energy creating elaborate versions of simple jokes. The latest example of this—a guy who recreated the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV show’s intro with stock art—sums up exactly what we’re talking about by taking what could have been a throwaway idea and devoting what must have been a shit-ton of time into making it a reality.
The clip, which replaces Sarah Michelle Gellar with stock art clips of nondescript blond women or a crawling baby and the show’s vampires with CGI gremlins, comes from comedian and filmmaker Matthew Highton. According to Mashable, Highton got the idea from watching the NCIS intro, which he says looks “a lot like stock footage” already. After taking a first stab at creating this brand new medium with an O.C. recreation, Highton started working on the Buffy intro.
The result is beautifully stupid—a well-known TV intro turned into a parade of bland images and amateur models so forgettable-looking that they seem to disappear from the viewer’s memory just as soon as they’re seen. In the couple of days since it was posted, the clip has spread far enough that the show’s creator, Joss Whedon, tweeted it out, calling it “HIGH art.”
Highton says the acknowledgement delighted his “inner teenage nerd” and told Mashable he’s considering moving onto Happy Days for his next project, which is a good choice since it only took us a few seconds to find this really great Fonzie stand-in.
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