Ooooooh boy.

There is currently a casting notice going around various comedian e-mails in Toronto seeking “Funny Non-Union People!!!”… this always ends well.

I won’t name names or specify specifics, but it’s for a show that’s described as “Video On Trial for [Picnics]” (well… not ACTUALLY picnics, but for all intents and purposes, something as generally well-intentioned if not innocuous as picnics will do)… 

This is far from the first time something described as “Video On Trial/Best Week Ever for [___something SOOOO fucking lame!!!!!!!!___]” has been pitched… and it’s always the same story - “we (think) we want some really off-the-cuff, irreverent, snarky commentary on [whatever], but oh, wait, this is harder-edged that we imagined, and, uh, oh, the talent pool doesn’t look like what we imagined, and uh, oh, what about that Debra Di-Gio-something girl - can we get her? No. She won’t do it for the no-money we’re paying? Oh. Okay… … … This won’t work”.

My advice to any enterprising young producer’s thinking that this sounds like a viable stencil and holding a cattle calll: DON’T. Non-union, urbanite comics these days are uniformly un-slick - VERGING ON INTENTIONALLY CASUAL - who are going to do self-serving material unto their own voice because you’re paying them shit, and alternately, actors and actresses that look the part you’d get won’t know how to write their own name… 

Bottom line: you’ll get what you pay for.

Also - TRY HARDER AT YOUR JOB.

Also also - I’ll do the pilot for $500 flat. I’m available between the 22-24 of this month.

—- Aj