TV Times Travel
One of the descriptions I came up with for Curios and Conundrums was "National Geographic meets Mad magazine by way of McSweeny's and H.P. Lovecraft." This posting features some silliness worthy of Mad.
As editor of Curios and Conundrums, I was always looking for ways to clearly but subtly segregate the factual essays from the fictional elements (such as the alternative reality in which the mag and its contributors existed). My thinking was: the less we messed with facts, the more unsettling our fictional elements would be. It was a way to increase the verisimilitude of the made-up weirdness without undermining the true weirdness of the essays.
With that in mind, in the second year, I was happy to stumble upon satirical TV listings. We could slip in all sorts of made-up "facts" without detracting from the essays. And we got to show off some comedy chops. This example is from the time-travel issue, and was written by myself and Ryan Creighton, a mad puzzle genius, game designer and comic — a multi-lane car crash of talents.
So set your PVR to DV8 and check out this batch of listings. There's comedy gold in there... well, maybe fool's gold.
One of the descriptions I came up with for Curios and Conundrums was "National Geographic meets Mad magazine by way of McSweeny's and H.P. Lovecraft." This posting features some silliness worthy of Mad.
As editor of Curios and Conundrums, I was always looking for ways to clearly but subtly segregate the factual essays from the fictional elements (such as the alternative reality in which the mag and its contributors existed). My thinking was: the less we messed with facts, the more unsettling our fictional elements would be. It was a way to increase the verisimilitude of the made-up weirdness without undermining the true weirdness of the essays.
With that in mind, in the second year, I was happy to stumble upon satirical TV listings. We could slip in all sorts of made-up "facts" without detracting from the essays. And we got to show off some comedy chops. This example is from the time-travel issue, and was written by myself and Ryan Creighton, a mad puzzle genius, game designer and comic — a multi-lane car crash of talents.
So set your PVR to DV8 and check out this batch of listings. There's comedy gold in there... well, maybe fool's gold.
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