Oscar Sunday

Last Oscar Party III post. I promise.

Ambition is a funny thing. Three years ago, we thought it would be fun to have some local friends over to watch the Oscars. Throw some chips on the table, come up with some trivia questions, allow people to pick the winners. The next year we introduced the Song Bee, the populus expanded to 25, and we outdid Chris Rock as hosts. At the same time, both hosts (Condon and Spud) have seen their lives get more complex and hectic. Graduate schools, career searches, marriage, and the blog backdating race have made things busier that usual. And yet, for this year, we wanted to do something more.

Billy Crystal is widely-regarded as the Best Oscar host of the last 15 years. He ad-libs well, has a solid monologue, and any prepared sketches are often very successful. But what he does best is his opening. Very often a musical montage highlighting all the movies in the running for Best Picture. It’s clever, musically sound, and does an excellent job of taking the pulse of pop culture. As we met in early February to plan OPIII, this was our inspiration for ambition.

In December 2005, Saturday Night Live showed a sketch featuring Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg called Lazy Sunday. I hope you’ve seen it. If you haven’t, we’ll send over some nice curtains to spruce up that rock you’ve been living under. A Run-DMC/Beastie Boys-style rap telling the tale of two white guys and their quest to go see the Chronicles of Narnia hit the airwaves, with a level of freshness typically reserved for the produce aisle at Wegman’s. Shortly thereafter, it popped up on the internet, and was seen nearly 7 million times before NBC called for a cease and desist at www.YouTube.com and other fine media outlets. (NBC isn’t completely stupid, and has re-posted the video on their own site.)

Soon thereafter, lyrics from this monumental piece showed up everywhere. SportsCenter guys were calling Kobe Bryant “crazy delicious.” Mr. Pibb walked out of the shadow of his more successful brother Dr. Pepper. And a slew of imitators showed up on the Internet.

Parody is a funny thing. With every new Lazy Sunday video that showed up, the SNL guys get a masterful compliment. Two guys created a shot-by-shot remake in NYC. A couple of 11 year olds lip synched the thing with surprising accuracy. And two out-of-work actors on the West Coast put together an impressive reply to the East Coasters in Rockefeller Plaza.

“Oscar Sunday” was our turn.

We did the best we could to make this thing as funny and as professional as possible. We held writing sessions to bring our own comedy to the stage. Since no karaoke instrumental version exists on the planet, we were forced to sample the original and play with freeware keyboards to turn a 5 second sample into a 2:21 hip hop track. Then there was the recording studio. 1) Find a walk-in closet with little ventilation. 2) Sound proof it my draping towels over all of the close. 3) Put your laptop with the cheap internal microphone against the wall. 4) Spend 2 hours with iPod headphones on listening to the track while yelling at the wall. 5) Hope your wife doesn’t come home to realize how insane that all looks.

Yes, we have an mp3. E-mail me at condon@gwu.edu if you want a copy of that for your iPod.

But we’ve down audio parody in the past. It was time to mimic the true genius of the original Lazy Sunday – the video.

On three different days, Spud and I did our best “tough white kids” impression around the DC area, lip synching into a digital camcorder mounted on the steady hand of my incredibly patient wife. We were everywhere. Two different movie theaters, in a theater-like classroom at an un-named local university, lifeguard chairs, bathtubs, and in the privacy of our own homes. When it was all said and done, we had an hour of footage to cut down to that magic 2:21 of comedy.

Editing was new for me. But we had a plan and a storyboard, and a goldmine of funny film. Someday soon, I’ll return to that stock and cut a gag reel together. Then you’ll see we had as much fun making it as you will watching it.

Without any more verbosity, Lyric Intensive would like you all to see what opened and closed Oscar Party III.

Our SNC Digital Short, Oscar Sunday.