Student-made comedy website shoots for web stardom, launches first short

Nick Bonadies
Spectrum Editor

A group of VCU students hoping to take the Internet by storm made their official debut this past Sunday, Feb. 19, with a string of less than flattering shots of Shafer Dining Court lasagna and pineapple chunks.

The video, titled “Welcome to Chafer Dining Hall,” goes on to feature sophomore journalism major Sam Roots in perhaps even less flattering extreme close-ups – stuffing his face, laughing with mouth agape and, later, both at once.

“Chafer Dining Hall,” the spoof-advertisement’s spokesman, played by cinema major Daniel Ardura, concludes: “If you’re here, you’re probably high,”

“Chafer” is the premiere production of Commonwealth Comedy, or “ComCom,” which makes its online home at CommonwealthComedy.com and which works in conjunction with the VCU Student Media Center. The group of VCU students that write, act and produce for Commonwealth Comedy include majors ranging from cinema, film and creative writing to journalism and public relations.

Junior print journalism major Trey McMillan, a Commonwealth Comedy member, said that the idea for their own online sketch-comedy series followed in the vein of such websites as CollegeHumor.com. Their creative process – working from a rough outline from which comedic material is improvised and “repackaged a hundred different ways,” according to McMillan – reflects some of the group’s cited influences, such as “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Arrested Development.”

“We really have so many ideas floating around (that) we really would hope to reach a bigger audience than just VCU,” McMillan said. “But they probably are our main demographic.”

“People are going to see things that are familiar to them,” he said, referring to locations and situations in future Commonwealth Comedy productions that reflect a Richmond/VCU backdrop.

As of Sunday’s release, Commonwealth Comedy’s only other publicly available video is a promotional short, which reimagines the group’s formation as a team-builder montage from an action movie. It concludes with an unflattering close-up of sophomore Roots engaging shirtless in intimate acts with himself.

McMillan said that at their outset, Commonwealth Comedy collectively preferred to advertise chiefly through word of mouth, as opposed to a more-involved Facebook or Twitter campaign, although the group maintains pages on both sites.

“The videos are going to tell us how people feel about us,” he said. “We don’t care if people come up to us and are like, Hey man, that was really funny.’ Like, if we have a million views, then … who cares, we have a million views. That’s how we judge our performance.”

As of press time Sunday night, the group’s two videos had nearly collected 400 views between them.

“Oh man, these guys are awesome!” one online comment read. “This made me so sad for all humans,” read another.

“We’re gonna be on Ellen by Monday,” McMillan predicted.

For more information and links to each of their videos, visit Commonwealth Comedy at CommonwealthComedy.com.