Shark Bytes
I would count YWIYWI as one of those rare shows that was ahead of its time. It certainly lends itself to those with absurd senses of humor, but in the Internet age, there would be ample opportunity for better stories to be submitted and aired. One of the things that someone at MTV should be particularly proud of. I'm convinced that this type of low-budget, yet viewer-driven original programming could only get bigger given youtube's popularity.
I definitely don't think this show jumped the shark, mainly because it wasn't even on for very long. Along with this and The State, which came later with the same actors, were my favorite shows when I was growing up. I especially like when someone wrote in about feeling like they were being followed by that guy in the B52's. Hilarious!!
I like the concept; Ordinary people who have nothing to do with a Hollywood board room get to write their own TV shows. This could be either a path to success or a one-time shot at brief fame But unfortunately, I never got a chance to see it on MTV, because at the time, I didn't have Cable TV. The original version of the show was made during the beginning of the television era(and lasted just as long), and I didn't get a chance to see that either, because I wasn't born yet. Ugh, the burden of being a creative writer.
Never jumped! I loved the skit about the Coke and Pop Rocks legend. "Every year 10,000 children die from mixing Coke and Pop Rocks, and that's more than twice as many as we can afford to lose."
One of the most brilliant programs. Jon Stewart was in his prime, Thomas Lennon from "The State" (among others from that show) acted in many of the skits and was totally hilarious every time..Love his "Fred Schneider stalker" sketch.
One of several low budget shows that MTV had come up with in the early 90's while it expanded its programming. This one was so low budget it relied on viewers to help write the show by sending in funny real life anecdotes. The YWIYWI show wrote wildly embellished reenactments of the stories, all with that fast cut style that MTV helped popularize. It sounds corny but they somehow found excellent writers and actors and the fast cut guerilla editing made up for a lot of the budget that wasn't there. The segments were hosted by Jon Stewart who added his own stories to the mix. The funniest one was when he was moving out of his apartment and was playing some really really loud music. The guy who lived below him pounded on his door and then made it very clear that if he didn't turn down the music, Stewart was going to die. This threat freaked Stewart out so much that he called the police who talked to the man in his apartment while he was calmly cleaning his gun. The police told Stewart that if he wanted to move out of his apartment alive, he should strongly consider turning the music down.
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