[For anyone reading this who may not be familiar with the Terrible Travesty Team. You can get some sense of what we were about by visiting the website. In a nutshell: we were a group of teenagers who made comedic short films and sketches between 1997 and 2004. I don’t know how interesting this might be to anyone who doesn’t know me personally. It’s a bit of reminiscence.]

I probably shouldn’t be allowed to write this article yet. After all, it has “only” been ten years since we started. I don’t really have enough distance between the goings-on with the TTT and present day to provide the sort of objective look back that I’d like. On the other hand, tenth anniversaries demand attention, and the fact that I missed the TTT’s entirely must be some sort of sign. The role of “TTT historian and archivist” fell to me just because I started doing it. For me—the keeper of records, of all people—to miss this date entirely, speaks to the fact that we’ve all moved on.

“The story of the TTT is the real life embodiment of the monomyth, played out, as it was, in technological metaphor.”

The decade from 1997 to 2007, falling as it did mostly over my teenage years, represents a huge change in all aspects of my life. I suspect this was the case for everyone involved with the TTT, though I can only speak for myself. Being in my early twenties, I have not had any “eras” or “periods” of my life with which to compare the TTT. I like to think that in another few decades, I can look back (again and again), and see even more parallels than I can now. In that respect, the progression of the TTT is something fractal-based. The stages apply both to small, individual video projects, to the rise and fall of entire empires. The story of the TTT is the real life embodiment of the monomyth, played out, as it was, in technological metaphor.

Foreshadowing

Some people may not know this, but the first video projects I did were not related to the TTT in any way. I believe I was in sixth grade when I made my very first video. It was a visualization of Green Chri$tma$ by Stan Freberg. Green Chri$tma$ was itself a parody of A Christmas Carol, but set in the “modern day” business world with Scrooge acting as the head of an ad agency with business owners brainstorming ways to get more dollars out of the holiday. Bob Cratchit was the only person present not interested in trying to make a buck off Christmas. It’s a great little radio play which has gotten more relevant than when it was recorded in the 50’s.

What is interesting is, thus far, the path my life has taken puts me firmly in the advertising world. Working in a combination of video production and graphic design capacities, plus studying graphic design in college and doing video production work for TV studios and churches, I’ve spent a great deal of my time telling other people that various causes are worthy of their consideration. In other words, how more perfectly ironic could it have been that my very first production ever was a visualization of this particular radio play, Green Chri$tma$, which itself is a satire on the very thing I would later come to produce with a straight face? If this had been written into a book, it would be derided by critics as too hokey and obvious to be effective foreshadowing.

A friend of mine (from a private school I attended up to third grade) had a video camera, and I begged and pleaded with him and his mom to let us borrow it to shoot something. I don’t remember whose idea it was to do Green Chri$tma$, except that we were listening to a Dr. Demento tape and it was on there and we both thought it was hilarious. The video probably turned out worse than I remember it, but I thought it was great. The adults must have thought it was at least decent, since we were allowed to continue using the video camera.

The second production I did was a fairly straightforward parody of Star Trek (TOS). I believe the time-frame was the summer between sixth and seventh grade, although it could have been later. Nothing terribly creative or even redeeming in this, and again, I’d be willing to bet that if I saw the video today, I’d have to agree that it was terrible. I’m not sure that any of this very early stuff survives, which is unfortunate, but not unexpected.

So all that makes Got Mac? the third video production I did.

Let me back up for a second, however. My interest in video production goes back even earlier than that. I don’t know how long I was actually thinking about it because I can’t remember back that far. The first definite thoughts I can recall were in—I believe—forth grade when Dave told me he wanted to shoot something for a cinematography merit badge for the Boy Scouts. I could be all wrong on the time frame here, but I’m fairly certain it was somewhere around then. Either way, we didn’t have a video camera and so we were never able to shoot the idea that we did have, which was a parody of Star Trek. (This is a reoccurring theme, you’ll see.) I do believe this eventually turned into the other parody of Star Trek a few years later, which I’m not sure I ever told Dave about.

Anyway, when Dave mentioned to me that he wanted to shoot something, I told him that I had wanted to do something like that, also, and I’d definitely help out. Nothing ever came of that in particular, but the interest in video production was out there on the table—a mutual call to action—waiting for the right time.

The Trio: Through the Portal

It was at the lunch table in middle school where a bunch of us came up with the idea for Purple Stuff. The Got Milk? campaign was also going on about this time, giving rise to the non-parody Not Milk?, and Got Mac?. I seem to remember the original batch of ideas being kicked around for the better part of a school year: starting in the fall with plans to try and shoot over Christmas break which didn’t work out. We finally pulled it together for the spring. I don’t remember the original date. I don’t even remember the original month. I think it was March. I just tell people it started in the spring of 1997. I was thirteen.

[Edit: Dave and Graham both informed me (see the comments) that the shoot was organized around Graham’s birthday as a sort of birthday/filming party. Thinking back, I do believe that’s correct. The Saturday after Graham’s birthday would have been Saturday, March 29, 1997.]

The original trio—myself, Dave and Graham—actually utilitzed the talents of no less than six people: us, plus Graham’s brother, Evan, Graham’s mom, and Sean, who had the camera. It would be at least another year until we started to call ourselves a “team”.

The first trio of sketches set the stage for many of the TTT sketches to follow. Got Mac? represents the frustration of not being able to do what’s in my head. This has been a reoccurring theme with me, personally, and it’s fitting in that Got Mac? was totally, 100%, my project. I had the idea, I directed it, I’m in it, and I tried to do in-camera cutting and failed miserably. In essence, the TTT could not have started off more on the wrong foot. Not Milk? heralds what the majority of the TTT sketches would end up being: non-parodies. These are things that, for all intents and purposes, are not parodies at all, but simply a retelling of someone else’s story. This would eventually come to include Pringles: The New Musical Food, Godzilla, The Metallica Sketch, The X-Files: An Official TTT Parody, and to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania Chainsaw Massacre. Finally, Purple Stuff represents the occasional success: a sketch that people can enjoy without knowing us personally; a sketch which shines through the bad video production to where people can actually appreciate what the joke is supposed to be. Videos in this category would include When Inanimate Objects Attack and WIOA: Special Edition, The TTT Presents: One Minute, and Mincemeat!.

Our supernatural aid was Sean’s video camera: a piece of technology that, at the time, was both expensive and rare. (Well, okay, just expensive.) The digital video standard was only introduced in 1996—probably making me one of the few people in my generation who has been shooting video since before DV was even available on the market (not that I could have afforded it, anyway). Over the years we’ve used many video cameras: Sean’s was Hi8. Dave got one that shot on VHS-C, before that started acting up and we moved to a more professional full sized VHS model that he got used. I bought a tiny, scrappy miniDV model in 2004 when I was in college, spending the last $350 to my name. Through all those, plus many more professional ones in the various production jobs I’ve had, I still feel video cameras still have an air of magic about them.

With our camera, our questing group, and having answered the call to action, stepping through the portal of getting our ideas on tape, we began the journey. Following the initial trio of sketches (which was bracketed by an introduction and a close—so it could be considered as three or just a single piece), there was no doubt in my mind that it would continue. I expected to create a bunch of 30 second to one minute long commercial parodies throughout the end of high school. Although I didn’t expect to quit, I never thought we’d take on much more than this. By the end of eighth grade, I figured I had a hobby which I would revisit periodically. I did not expect to do anything even remotely approaching feature length.

But before we could accomplish that, we had to pass through the belly of the whale.

[To be continued on Wednesday…]