Sometimes weird can be good.
Weird can be funny too, as demonstrated on the popular YTV show That’s So Weird. The Canadian television show is a sketch comedy program about a group of teenagers working at a fictional television station called So Weird TV.
That’s So Weird has been running for two seasons. The episodes are made up of silly commercials and even sillier television shows. Skits include spoofs of real-life TV programs like Degrassi: The Next Generation, This Is Daniel Cook and the UFC. They have even poked fun at the Twilight movies and Glee.
In the show, the station is owned by a fake company called Jamco, which gives the teens strange products to promote. They must come up with ways to advertise them in commercials. For example, one of the items the teens had to advertise was a giant block of chocolate called Chock Lick. Selling chocolate might not sound weird, but this product requires a group of people to lick the block all at the same time!
One of the newest commercials involves Lady Gaga teaming up with Jamco Fashions to sell prom dresses, because “clothes that are comfortable and look good are so last year!”
In between the fake commercials are skits that are meant to be like television shows. Each That’s So Weird episode has multiple skits. One skit is Raptoritus, a show about a boy who is afflicted with a disease that makes him act like a velociraptor every time he hears a loud noise. Another skit is a parody of eTalk called PopTrendz, a celebrity gossip show that interviews celebrities like Taylor Swift – except the “Taylor” they are interviewing is really just an actress pretending to be the real singer.
There are seven main actors in the cast. Each actor plays multiple roles throughout the episode – anything from a zombie to a cafeteria lady. In real life, most of the actors have experience in improvisation and theatre acting. That’s So Weird is so popular because new skits come out every week and entire families can sit down and watch it together to share some laughs.
Related Links
The official website for That’s So Weird!
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
Writing/Discussion Prompt
A parody is an over-the-top comedy skit that makes fun of something or someone in the real world. Who or what would you like to see made into a parody? Why do you think it would be funny?
Reading Prompt
When we read, a lot of the words that are written are words we see all the time. For example, words like “the,” “and,” “it,” and “but” are really common. Being able to read high frequency words quickly and without having to sound them out makes understanding what we read much easier. Make a list of 12 high frequency words. Rank them in order from the most common to the least.
Primary
Automatically read and understand most high-frequency words, many regularly used words, and words of personal interest or significance, in a variety of reading contexts (OME, Reading: 3.1).
Junior
Automatically read and understand most words in common use (OME, Reading: 3.1).
Grammar Feature: Long Dash (em dash)
The long dash is a punctuation mark that can be used to separate information from an explanation in a single sentence. For example, in the sentence below, the long dash is used to separate the information about the the Taylor Swift comedy skit from the explanation that Taylor Swift is played by an actor.
“Another skit is a parody of eTalk called PopTrendz, a celebrity gossip show that interviews celebrities like Taylor Swift – except the “Taylor” they are interviewing is really just an actress pretending to be the real singer.”
So now that you know all about long dashes, why do you think the author of today’s article included a long dash in the following sentence?
“Each actor plays multiple roles throughout the episode – anything from a zombie to a cafeteria lady.”
