The
Webventures of Justin and Alden Webseries Review
While
the webseries medium has experienced steady growth and numerous success
stories in recent years, it is still relatively young enough to be plagued
by misconceptions and more than its fair share of mediocre content.
For every original and fresh idea, there are even more amateurish and
derivative works. And although no one has yet discovered a sure-fire
way for a webseries to find financial success, there is the misleading
belief that instant fame and fortune awaits anyone with a video camera
and film editing software regardless of whether they can write or act.
Instead
of hiding from these inherent flaws of a medium still in its infant
stages, The
Webventures of Justin and Alden
relishes in them instead by taking such growing pains and creating a
hilarious spoof of both mainstream road-trip movies and the webseries
genre as well. Professionally produced by CJP Digital Media’s
Wilson Cleveland, sponsored by Trident Layers, written by medium veterans
Tony Janning and Sandeep Parikh (Legend of Neil) and directed
by Sean Becker of The Guild, this is not some independent satirization
but a good-natured finger-poke by true industry insiders.
Taking
a cue from such comedies as Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, The Webventures
of Justin and Alden is a buddy road trip webseries of ridiculous
proportions. After spending an hour writing a script, the two title
characters embark on a four-mile journey to attend the 2010 Streamy
Awards—the webseries version of the Emmy’s—in order
to meet online actress Felicia Day and convince her to star in their
creation. Along the way they encounter a psychotic hitchhiker pretending
to be Illeana Douglas of the IKEA-sponsored webseries Easy to Assemble
(and portrayed by the actual Douglas), a gang of “modern day vampires”
and even a time-traveling George Washington.
All in
the course of the first three episodes, which average approximately
six-minutes in length each.
Despite
such a limited run time—the entire series consists of only five
episodes—writers Tony Janning and Sandeep Parikh have packed enough
jokes into The Webventures of Justin and Alden to make even
the Zucker brothers of Airplane! fame jealous. Not all of the
jokes work, as the webseries is more along the lines of the “throw
everything we’ve got against the wall and see what sticks”
comedy variety, but most of it does. Besides, not every Zucker joke
was a masterpiece, either.
The
Webventures of Justin and Alden is more than a road-trip spoof,
however, but a spoof of the webseries industry as well. As previously
stated, the script that Justin and Alden wrote took them only one hour,
and this was after brainstorming rip-off versions of such popular real-life
webseries as Legend of Neil, The Guild and Dr.
Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Even the premise that a webseries
brings instant fame and fortune is a satirization of the medium. And
once the two arrive at the Streamys, they pose as media representatives
of the made-up Schmepic Fu and interview such webseries notables as
Mark Gantt (The Bannen Way), the Sklar Brothers (Back on
Topps) and David Wain (Wainy Days) to hilarious effect.
Then there’s
Felicia Day. The professional actress turned webseries star has been
portrayed by many in the media as the “Queen of the Internet”
because of her success with both the self-created The Guild
as well as Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,
and is as close to webseries royalty as one can get. Yet in The
Webventures of Justin and Alden she allows herself to likewise
be spoofed in the same fashion as the industry itself. This Felicia
is not above chopping off the heads of Justin and Alden with her broadsword
because they interrupted her speech—“nobody messes with
the Streamys… this is my night,” she tells them—but
also turns out to be a time-traveling Highlander who had an affair with
George Washington and who’s face now appears on the one-dollar
bill.
Even the
sponsor of the webseries, Trident Layers, is not above being a part
of the zaniness. Instead of finding subtle ways of placing the product,
the creators of The Webventures of Justin and Alden made the
gum an integral part of the action, from using it to plug a leak in
the car engine to forming a stake to ward off vampires to creating balloons
with it in order to float to the Streamy Awards.
“Justin
and Alden had made a hilarious video for Trident a few months back in
which they played themselves as two actors who decide they can become
famous by getting their favorite gum into the hands of celebrities,”
producer Wilson Cleveland told Pink
Raygun in June 2010 regarding
the origination of the webseries. “In December of last year we
were asked to start proposing ideas around Justin and Alden’s
original concept. Then in mid-March, Trident gave it the green light
and two weeks later we were on set.”
Fame may
not await everyone who attempts to film their own webseries, but having
such current masters of the medium involved in the way that The
Webventures of Justin and Alden does certainly improves one chances.
Anthony
Letizia (June 28, 2010)
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