Not A Blog™

My perverse fascination with recursive parodies continues. This is a combination of things, taking cues from Confused and Writer’s Block, as well as a parody of live action news broadcasts I wrote that hasn’t been posted here because I still plan on shooting it someday. (In, like, 853 years.)

Last summer I stumbled upon a group which did a spot-on satire of public radio which was completely genius. I thought it was hilarious, but more or less forgot about it and went on with my life. Fast forward up to about two months ago. I was endeavoring to do a podcast. My original idea was to read entries that I already had written, thereby producing something from something that already existed and saving me the trouble of making something new. I recorded it successfully enough but, much to my chagrin, I discovered that I sound boring. Like, really boring. Like… public radio boring. I dropped the podcast idea.

Fast forward again up to about two weeks ago. Someone was listening to public radio and it caught my ear, simultaneously reminding me of my failed foray into podcasting and the comedy troupe I had heard some months previously. (I don’t generally listen to public radio myself, although I will occasionally snag a clip online.) I put two and two together: I should just rip off those other guys and do a parody of public radio. Not original—but possible. But I needed a unique slant. It only took me another few hours to make the connection: adapting the self-referential shtick of which I’m so fond to a radio program format. And what better format than public radio? Arguably, it’s the sort of thing they’d try anyway, to the point where it’s almost not even a parody. Of course I found that when you’re just talking about talking, it gets old pretty fast, so I had to spice this one up with some faux headlines and deviate slightly from the meta format. Still, I like how it turned out.

Sans additional belaboring:



An exploration of the MPR format, today on MPR.

-Ted