Do you ever wish Mad Men would never end? Today’s your lucky day.

We’ve unleashed our latest sketch, 1980s Mad Men! The skit follows Mad Men 20 seasons into the future, where it would eventually hit the 1980s. Let’s face it, the premise doesn’t matter — we just needed an excuse to see Joan Harris with huge hair/horrible makeup. Watch as Peggy tries coke for the first time, Don gets another new secretary, and Pete remains ageless! Not to mention celebrity cameos! Mary Lou Retton flips her shit and Dave Thomas gets a double stack of awkwardness.

We got to collaborate with a BUNCH of people on this one, and it was a thrill the whole way. Chris Campbell was behind the lens and Raymond Carr made sure our walls weren’t bare (for once!). Seriously, these guys were the best and kept me from going crazy. Keith Huff mixed our sound, Ken Uzquiano provided effects work, and Aaron Keuter did effects and the stunning title sequence featured at the end.

And we couldn’t done it without Matt Rasnick, Eve Krueger, Hilary Staff, and Max Fischer, who played Don, Peggy, Joan, and Pete, respectively. It was an absolute pleasure working with them. And thanks to Barbara, Johnny, Alissa, James, Amber, and all the ex-wives who helped make this shoot f’ing hilarious!

Love,

J&J

A few months ago, our friends at Twinhead Theatre asked us to participate in the release party for their new web series Bad Manor (coming soon!). We said, “Sure!” Always in need of a challenge, we waited until 10 days before the event to realize that we hadn’t done a new sketch yet. But then we said to ourselves, “Pish posh! We can do it.”

Lo and behold our new sketch — “The M-Word.” Borne of a fear of misspeaking, the sketch probes the awkward depths as friends tip-toe around a social powder keg. You’ll have to watch it for yourself! (look to the left)

The sound is beautifully mixed by Keith Huff, and that second camera that saved my ass countless times in editing was handled by Chris Sailor (Soldier Spy). Thanks to Rory for pointing that microphone where appropriate, and of course to Eli Banks, Krista Carothers, Stephanie Rucker, and Diana Brown for being the funniest goddamned people around. It was a blast to film it.

The event in question, IT CAME FROM THE WEB!, was a fun, unpredictable night. Bad Manor was hilarious and soap operatastic, and Eddie Ray’s Satanic Panic: Band Out of Hell made two people switch gender, exorcized a demon from a baby, and delighted the rest of us. And people surprisingly did not storm out of The M-Word, so the whole night was a success!

As for our upcoming sketches, they are more elaborate and are going to take more then ten days to film. The next one is period piece that involves costumes, props, and mannered acting — all the call signs of a Bland Hack sketch! I’d hate to spoil the surprise, just tune back in March 19th. We can’t wait to show you.

-JHG

Lisa’s got a secret that her friends absolutely cannot stop talking about.

After a long, hard fight, there’s nothing more disappointing than being unable to perform. This is one pill that’s guaranteed to get the blood spurting.

The ladies of Mortal Kombat go out and paint the town red. With blood.

Turns out spelling in Outworld is inkredibly diffikult.

Thinking back, we got to work with so many great friends and so many new people, and everyone was incredibly supportive, generous, and positive the entire way. I kept saying that we were running out of miracles, because every time something would go what seemed irreparably wrong, we would get completely bailed out at the last second by some great person. Everything always worked out, and it’s a complete testament to how cool and awesome people were despite asking a lot of them and not paying them.

I suddenly feel compelled to challenge myself and list EVERY single person who helped us along the way, even in the tiniest ways. Here we go.

THANK YOU: Katie Hawkins-Gaar, Eli Banks, Molly Shepherd, Geoff Bartlett, Max Fisher, Stephanie Rucker, Heaven Beatbox, Beat Bunchies, Ken Uzquiano, Keith Huff, James Yates, Eve Krueger, Tom Rittenhouse, Philip Dido, Eddie Ray, Rob Bullard, Jeremiah Timmons, Gabe Arniella, Ben Cohen, Rafiq Batcha, Ryan Littmann, Germain Perez, Nancy Thanki, Bobby Andrews, Laura Krueger, Twinhead Theatre, Mike and Pete and Johnny at Elliott St. Pub, Erica Jamison and MINT, Matt Davis and Condesa Coffee, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, Bobb Lovett, John Grubb, Craig Vogel, Krista Carothers, Aaron Keuter, Cynthia Modugno, Tera Buerkle, Danny Davis, Mark Basehore, Seth Williams-Welch, Louis Corrigan, and Anne Dennington. And Julian, doi.

That’s 42 people plus a bunch of groups and organizations. That’s crazy.

Anyway, we will be uploading the videos over the course of October, so for those of you who couldn’t make it, get ready to have an awesome month.

Looking forward to the next one.

-JHG

But we have some REAL NEWS. Bland Hack was recently tapped to participate in this year’s FLUX on September 30! For those unaware, FLUX is a big, one-night art crawl through the I-wish-all-of-Atlanta-looked-this-cool urban labyrinth that is Castleberry Hill. It features live music, live dancing, Live (the band), and lots of other artistic interpretations of things. Last year, there was an arm-wrestling contest. This year, there’s us.

We are producing another beatboxing extravaganza like back in April, but this one will be much different. For starters, the event incorporates the beatboxing competitions into a live theatrical show, which would be Bland Hack’s FIRST EVER live performance. Secondly, we’re producing not just one but THREE brand new videos to premiere during the event, and to make up for the lack of videos lately (and because we love you). And finally, the whole event is set in the Mortal Kombat universe. MKOMG.

Also, it’s going to be performed at Elliott St. Pub, arguably the coolest joint in Castleberry. We we we so excited.

This event will be mind-blowing, and, as I always say, the most ambitious thing we’ve ever done. But this time, it’s more like if you took all the ambitious things we’ve done in the past, added them altogether, and then gave us only two months to do it all in. Pretty nuts.

See you all September 30th!

-Jamie

“WHY THE HELL DOESN’T THIS VIDEO HAVE MORE VIEWS?”

“this could use another million views”

“Going viral in 3… 2… 1.”

“This is probably one of the funniest parodies on youtube. I don’t get why the video isn’t  more popular.”

“How can a video with the line, “I gestated in a butt.” not have more views?”

We get these comments quite a bit — two back-to-back last night, in fact — and they remain the most coherent, sober, and intelligent responses we get from YouTube commenters (although “that is so stupid but so so funny hahahahahaha LOL” from ThisBitchGotSwag2012 remains a cerebral highlight, and let’s not forget “stupid man stupid thats copying that other video stupid man” from user 21emmak for its rich insights into the human condition).

I too wonder why we haven’t reach a larger audience, gentle YouTubers. It can be frustrating to think about, but mostly I think it’s a time-will-tell sort of situation. I’m certainly not complaining — for the love of Pete (r Faulk, RIP), we make these videos to make our friends and ourselves laugh, and that’s about it. Although, maybe they will feature less people in costumes and more people in regular clothes standing in regular rooms (costumes are ‘spensive).

But even if we’re only getting views from your grandma who accidentally typed “history of beatboxing” instead of “Nobama care,” we’ll keep making videos. We’re just like Madonna going to New York with only $50 in her pocket, except instead of New York, we’re on the Internet, and instead of $50 in her pocket, we have a bunch of fart jokes.

-JHG