What started as a two-man operation almost 13 years ago, CollegeHumor has turned into quite the Internet institution. The site has already spawned a TV show (“The CollegeHumor Show” on MTV) so it was only a matter of time before it began dabbling in the world of film, like a newer, funnier version of National Lampoon’s movies that aren’t immediately sent straight to DVD.
The comedy site’s first effort will be Coffee Town, the story of a guy who spends all day in a coffee shop, working online, and I hope to Jesus that he’ll be wearing plaid shirts, styling his jewfro, measuring his thumb size and answering to Lance. Coffee Town will star Glenn Howerton (“Always Sunny…”), singer Josh Groban and Ben Schwartz, who plays TV’s greatest recurring character, Jean-Ralphio on “Parks & Rec”. It will be directed by former “Arrested Development” writer Brad Copeland.
Copeland describes the film as being “a little like Cheers,” in the way that the characters “go about their day, but they always end up in the same place,” and says he hopes to use Arrested Development-style absurdist humor to explore the coffeeshop culture of freelancers and the unemployed. “I think the deeper story is of people who, with all these offices shutting down, need places to go — even if the people [who work] in those places don’t always want them there,” he explained.
(Via Slash Film)
The plot is formulaic enough for me to get snooty, but that cast is just so damn likable that I’m gonna have to upgrade my current critical status from “Flaccid Fonzi” to “Slight Nerd Arousal”. This is mainly because I’ll watch just about anything with Howerton (his cameo in Crank is vastly underappreciated) and Schwartz (who has previously worked with CollegeHumor, video after the jump). That just leaves Groban as the wild card. He’s certainly no Michael Buble, whom my grandmother loves.
(Banner image via Warming Glow.)