The existence of Channel 101 led to a show on VH-1 called Acceptable.TV. Director/Actor Drew Hancock wrote a mini-show for Acceptable.TV about the dangers of swords, but VH-1 hated it so it was never produced. Now, in the post-ATV era, Hancock has brought the show to the Channel 101 audience to great success. Sit back and enjoy as Trip Fisk warns you of the dangers of owning swords, and always remember: Don't Fucking Touch Swords.
An award-winning series from Channel 101's short film contest in the early 2000s. It mocks the soap opera television genre and satirized life in Malibu, California. There were seven episodes filmed, with an eighth episode "apology" also submitted after the creators decided to end the series. The original run was created by The Lonely Island; and starred Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Sarah Chalke.
"Fishbowls" creators Alex Kavutskiy and Ariel Gardner returned to primetime in a first-place debut with "Kill the Baby," a darkly comic tale about a dude who wanted to, well, kill his baby.
Over the years, Channel 101 has grown into an elaborate community of talented people who work together on pilots, developing fruitful and interesting collaborations. To contrast, Mike McCafferty has thrown all notions of camaraderie and teamwork out the window for the one-man-band production, Quest. On the surface, the show is a journey for raisins, but at it's core it is an experiment in form: demonstrating that you don't need an ensemble of actors and elaborate locations to tell a good story. You don't even need a crew. You just need a McCafferty and a Camcorder.
Before anyone can forget their names, Yonda and Sloan of Wisconsin jump back into prime time with Fun Rangers. It isn't as high concept as "McCourt's" or "Chad Vader," but it's a testament to their ability to create great characters that carry a show to success.
In Raptor, Tony Janning, Rich Kuras, and Sandeep Parikh remind us of something we may have forgotten: Dinosaurs are scary. Dead scary. They also teach us something new about their abilities as storytellers, creating an exciting show about cut-throat inter-office politics.
Ryan Nagata, while overcome with separation anxiety for the elegant magician Shuzuki Thornburg (Your Magic Touched Me), wowed August 2006 audiences with an energetic and crisp spin-off focusing on Sex Crime Investigation. Gaining momentum in 2007, the spin-off eclipsed the original and began to reinvent itself with every episode. From the Japanese Mafia, to ghosts, to clones, to outer space, Your Magic Touched Me: Nights kept the energy fresh and exciting enough to last nine months of competitive screenings.
"Intriguing, engaging, mystifying," those are words that describe Stripey. "Hilarious," that's another one. In an era of action-packed pilots and dynamic at-home effects, only Falconer & Tam could make a show about a bunch of guys sitting on a couch so entertaining. But with its second episode, Stripey walked out of all of our lives forever.
Dohar strutted into 2nd place in July of 2006, a powerful effort from Willy Roberts, Mike Manasewitsch, and resident 101 composer Ryan Elder. Loincloths, Taxidermy, and Dragonforce may not sound like a recipe for success, but the clever writing and intense action sequences made the live audience wild.
Blood Oath marked the arrival of some cool new young dudes that we hope stick around and make more shit. If their show suffered from anything, it was an intimidating and unrelenting sharpness. Like about half of all prime time shows, Blood Oath was exaguinated one month after it got voted back.
I don't have any time right now to write a long goodbye for Lunatic. I feel bad about that fact because it was a very good show. The performances were stellar and the writing was fresh and funny. It got cancelled on its second episode. Why? How can we ever be sure. Let's all have a moment of inner torture for Lunatic. There, I kind of pulled off a long goodbye anyway.
Roots of Justice was the first show in 101 history to achieve prime time status through the disqualification of another pilot that otherwise would have been #5. The second episode provided its fans with more of what they wanted, but, as with the first episode, there weren't enough fans to keep this tree cop from being chopped down.