The BBS

As part of our totally self-indulgent, it's-only-funny-if-you-know-them, retrospective series "Revisionist History", my collaborator Jon "Kitty" Katz has just updated the Bill Benz Show YouTube site.

A little background: The Bill Benz Show was a video project founded by Jon Katz, Mike Chen, and myself. We started in 2001 and the show was dead a mere two years later (like other creative projects I have taken part in). It was before viral videos or non-music file sharing really took off, and obviously before YouTube and flash streaming video.

The first part of our retrospective series (found here) gave people a brief glimpse into the conception of the series and some of the main ideas behind it. The second part will be out in a couple weeks, featuring interviews with regular cast and crew members. The most curious thing about the Bill Benz Show is that -- in retrospect -- it seems like a great warm up to a truely funny and entertaining show that had potential, but we just stopped. As soon as we started writing sketches and skits and actual scripts, the show was finished.

Anyway, before having this post become any more convoluted, the following are five original Bill Benz Show segments with commentary below each by Jon himself. Enjoy!



"Ho Hunting": Perhaps the most classic Bill Benz Show segment, this video features a young Jon "Kitty" Katz in desperate pursuit of some girls.

Interesting fact: The Santa Claus appearing in this video recently met George W. Bush at the White House for a Christmas photo op.



"Experimental German Film": Brendan Barrett and Peter Shadzik are rival gang members in this project created for someone's German class.



"Ninjas Med Stokker": Jon Battista and Erick Geiger engage in an epic ninja battle. Subtitled in Norwegian.



LaSalle College Highschool's finest student, Paul "Fresh" Gormisky, tries to pawn his Religion class's textbook Bible for a low, low price. Operators are standing by...

Edit: "Break Stuff" was removed to avoid potential employers seeing certain parties doing certain things.