I can still remember five years back going through the entries of our Escapist Films Festival and happening upon the first episode of Unskippable. Fast forward to today, the Loading Ready Run crew has done a number of shows for The Escapist, but they announced at PAX this year that weekly sketches would be coming to an end – though not without going out with a bang. We asked Graham Stark to answer a few questions about their Kickstarter campaign for the final season, which recently hit its funding goal.
You can find more information at the LRR’s Last Season of Sketches Kickstarter page.
The big question, for anyone who hasn’t read up on the Kickstarter, is why are you stopping weekly sketches?
We love doing the sketches, it’s how we started making online videos. But we’ve grown a lot over the years, from Paul and myself, into a sketch troupe, and now a video production house. We want to keep growing and doing other new, cool projects, and we can’t do that AND the sketches. The simple fact is, they take the most time, planning, and effort of anything we produce, with the smallest return.
Will this impact other shows, like Unskippable and Friday Nights?
Our other shows are NOT going away. WE aren’t going away. LoadingReadyRun are going to keep making funny/awesome stuff, just… not a sketch every week.
How hard is it to give up something you’ve been working at continuously for 10 years?
It is. We love doing the sketches, but we decided a while ago to end them on our terms, and not go the way of The Simpsons where we just keep going through the motions year after year. We wanted to be able to say, “This, is the defined final season, because WE say so.”
So a hundred grand and change would buy a lot of magic cards, who doesn’t need a few spare play sets of [mtg_card=Wasteland]? Any plans to make off with the cash? We promise we won’t tell.
Depending on how successful our funding is, we might be able to do the sketches AND blow an unreasonable amount on Magic cards. But no, we’ve been very open about where the money is going, we kind of need all of it.
What will you miss most about doing a weekly sketch?
I’ll miss the creative outlet of doing something different every week. We plan to do a bunch more stuff, and the new things we do will be different creative outlets, but I’ll miss the “something new every week” thing.
What won’t you miss about doing a weekly sketch?
Having to come up with a new idea every week, and then find the props and locations for it. On the upside, every sketch brought us new challenges. On the downside, challenges are challenging.
Will Commodore Hustle have a conclusion or finale in this last season?
We’ve said that we will do more sketches, just not weekly. We’ll do them “from time to time”, as we get a REALLY good idea, if we feel like doing it. We love Hustle, and just because the sketches are ending, doesn’t mean those characters won’t have things to do. I don’t Hustle will be gone forever.
Have you being saving or sitting on any special scripts for this last season?
Not intentionally, but kind of. There are several scripts we have ready, that we WOULD do now but can’t because they take more planning for locations and costumes etc. Now that it looks like we will fund, I think we’ve subconsciously earmarked those for Season 11, but we never said, “We’ll save this one!”
What kind of backer rewards are you offering on the Kickstarter?
Many rewards! Since we’re not just funding the last season of sketches, we’re also funding the LoadingReadyLive game streams, we have some that involve streaming video games. Such as a tier forcing Alex and Kathleen to play a horror game, or deciding on a Let’s Play for Paul and I to do. We also have tiers where you can shoot tennis balls at the crew, or make us drink horrible smoothies. Or more traditional stuff like exclusive t-shirts, pins, and posters.
On a scale of 1 to creepy, how creepy is Creepy Doll?
Super creepy. But in an adorable way.
You can find more information at the LRR’s Last Season of Sketches Kickstarter page.
