YBMW: So, where are you hoping this is going to go?
PD: We have no idea… and that’s the thing. You know, somebody on the website panicked when they saw this most recent one when they saw the two Heineken bottles on the table. They thought “Oh! It’s going to be a commercial now…it’s a commercial project for Heineken!” and it’s not.
We just happened to have those Heineken bottles in the fridge when we filmed the thing. So we’re trying to not make it go anywhere yet, to see if there’s someplace it should go… and we don’t know.
Obviously it could be commercial endorsement at some point but, I think that’s a little quick to capitalize on something that my son and his wife did just out of pure silliness. They’re both writer/producers, and they just got this idea because we happened to have this piece of mechanical thing hanging around from my other son’s work. Then they got this brainstorm and they did it. So, we don’t know where it’s going to go… that’s the longest winded answer to your question.
YBMW: What do we have to look forward to in the other three episodes that are already done?
PD: The first three that we did, the concept was us just sitting on a sofa watching television and commenting on it in the way that everybody does when you watch a show. So we watched three separate television shows theoretically. The first one, of course, was the doctor show, Grey’s Anatomy, then we watch American Idol, and then we watched America’s Top Model. And the same way, you know, when I’m sitting with my wife, sit and watching television and making little comments about what we’re watching, that’s what they wrote for Sheldon The Crab. So they just wrote texts for Sheldon and myself, based on what we’re watching. The first one, of course with Grey’s Anatomy, was the fact that I don’t know anything about anything as just like I don’t know about computers. He teaches me about Facebook then he challenges me to eat a dime, I’m sort of always “behind the curve a little bit.”
And then the threesome, with the one that we just did now, American Idol, and then the other one is um, Top Model. Then we did one that is going to be the last one if, indeed we air it we might just make some more episodes and keep this one because we actually mention a product. We play a game of “Celebrity Foods” and we start mentioning products and it really smacks of a promotion, and we’re definitely trying not to impose that on our public yet.
YBMW: Yeah. I’m surprised they don’t have one with you and the crab watching “Deadliest Catch.”
PD: You see that’s the other thing, we don’t even make reference to the fact that he’s a crab. I pitched a couple ideas about the uncomfortable nature of it and if you think of Sheldon as a person then, you know it’s normal to write anything you want. You don’t have to categorize it based on what species he is, he’s just my friend.
Because I’m an old fart…I go the shortest distance. I’m making crab jokes and they’re going “No dad, you don’t make crab jokes…It’s not about that. It’s you and your friend.”
And I kind of now am starting to get it and I love playing the game. A lot of my friends, when they watched the threesome one, were just like “Whoa!”
YBMW: They’re great!
PD: Yeah! I just think they’re wonderful and it is so educational for me as a sixty year-old, previous era television person, to be involved now in these “webisodes” where you actually get complete little storyline vignettes in one to two and a half minutes. And now this company called Generate, picked it up, and they’re the ones that actually placed it on YouTube and they’re guiding it now. But I’m learning a whole new venue of possibilities in my chosen profession, so I’m having a great time.
YBMW: More and more celebrities are doing short form webisodes like this. Henry Winkler just did one about feeding your pets to predators so they could die with dignity.