Absolutely Horrible!

Joss Whedon, one of the wonders of the sci-fi/fantasy world and modern day superhero, has done it again!  If you don’t know Whedon’s work …. well, yes you do.  Whedon is the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and (the best series ever) Firefly.  Firefly of course was the precursor for the movie Serenity (yeah, the show my daughter is named after). 

Joss’s latest project is called “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog” and is probably one of the most daring things being done in film entertainment right now.  Joss describes it best:

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

So, what is it?  It’s a freaking musical!  And a great one at that!  It’s very, very well done – a completely professional production that is a LOT of fun with catchy original tunes that stick in your head like silly string.  So what’s the point, what’s it all about?  Again from Joss:

We intend to make it available for download soon after it’s published. This would be for a nominal fee, which we’re hoping people will embrace instead of getting all piratey. We have big dreams, people, and one of them is paying our crew.

And somewhat later, we will put the complete short epic out on DVD – with the finest and bravest extras in all the land. We’ll go into greater detail about that at Comiccon, but we’re changing the face of Show Friendliness a second time with that crazy DVD.

Spread the word. Rock some banners, widgets, diggs… let people know who wouldn’t ordinarily know. It wouldn’t hurt if this really was an event. Good for the business, good for the community – communitIES: Hollywood, internet, artists around the world, comic-book fans, musical fans (and even the rather vocal community of people who hate both but will still dig on this). Proving we can turn Dr Horrible into a viable economic proposition as well as an awesome goof will only inspire more people to lay themselves out in the same way. It’s time for the dissemination of the artistic process. Create more for less. You are the ones that can make that happen.

So basically, Joss is working on changing the world – specifically the entertainment world. Changing the world is always a good idea, but the entertainment industry could really use a kick in the teeth and I think Joss will be the one to do it!

Right now there are two episodes released with the third one coming out on the 19th. They are only 10 minutes long – WAY too short! And I bet that you will totally enjoy them – go check them out!

… oh, did I mention that Neal Patrick Harris is Dr. Horrible and he can sing – REALLY well!

Let me know what you think!