The Legend of Neil: Half-Way Through Season 2

We are about halfway through the second "season" of The Legend of Neil, and while it is still hilarious, it seems to me to be somewhat different than last year. Most of the humor is still based on The Legend of Zelda, but to me, the episodes are less about pointing out the cliches and foibles of Hyrule, but to applying Zelda to the real world, other webseries cliches, and pop culture. The third episode was a musical and the fourth episode both referenced Cheers and made fun of American drinking culture. Both of these episodes were absolutely hilarious, and I am in no way upset about the humor of the series, but it just seems different.

I think the episode that was closest in spirit to the first season was the second episode, which made fun of the strange gambling games in the Zelda games (sadly, that was also my least favorite episode). The episode saw Link/Neil attempting to earn money by playing a shady game with little skill involved. Many of such games within the Zelda series involve some skill, but are also based on blind luck. The episode also brought real-world cliches (crooked street gambling) into the world and gave a Hylian spin on them. The episode was certainly funny, but it was not as good as the other stuff this year.

I still love this series, but it seems like most of the super-Zelda-specific material was used up in Season 1. The series still uses Zelda as a backdrop and source of humor, but it has greatly expanded its scope. This is probably a good thing because how long could they keep having Link/Neil going through Levels before it got repetitive?

Remember, you can check out The Legend of Neil here every other Monday (with 9/21 being the next release date).

Up next: Free flow...

The Legend of Neil: Back and Forth

The first three episodes of the "first season" of The Legend of Neil are incredibly hilarious. The next three were also amazing, but, in my opinion, weren't as great as the front half. However, I still waited for the next "season" expecting more greatness. The first episode of "Season 2", which can be found below, was just released and it looks like we are in for another season of laughs.

Legend of Neil, Episode 7

I'm happy to see Felicia Day back as the fairy, though I hope they are able to keep her fresh (she was pretty one-note when introduced, and I'm not sure if they ever meant to bring her back). It also looks like they have a bigger budget. The one thing I wasn't so enthusiastic about was the scene of Neil's day before getting sucked into Hyrule. I feel that the theme song did an adequate enough job explaining things, and unless Neil has to fight the demons of his life (which would add a new dimension to the web series, which, until now, has mainly been about bizarre humor), the scene seems superfluous.

Up next (barring any other updates while I'm in Prague): Back to the galaxy far, far away...

The Legend of Neil: Link to the Game

I wish that I could say that my love for The Legend of Zelda game series is what brought me to this web series. But it wasn't. I learned that Felicia Day had a role in it, and I watched the third episode first, since that is the one where she is most prominently featured (so far). You may have noticed that I've been talking a lot about her lately; there seems to be a kind of web series community out there, and she is one of the focal points (The Legend of Neil was created by Sandeep Parikh, who worked with Day on The Guild, as well as working with her and Jeff Lewis AKA Vork in an LA improv troupe). I even went back and added her name as a tag on posts about media containing her (except for Buffy, since she had such a minor role in the final season). As I said in the last post, she should be more famous than she is, since it is clear that she can write and act (and is a definite cutie). But she was the initial draw to this. What I found was more than I could have ever imagined.

The Legend of Neil is a parody done right; it knows its source material backwards and forwards because, in spite of ample material that can be made fun of, the creators of the parody love the source (leading to my coining of the term parotribute in a recent post). It is clear that Parikh and Tony Janning have played a little too much Zelda (if such a thing exists), and they know Hyrule and its foibles like the back of their left hands (Link is left-handed for those of you who aren't Zelda players). This strategy is what makes the works of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright so incredible, as well as the flash videos by Matt Gardner:



Gardner has obviously read the comics that contain the stories he satirizes, and he also has knowledge of overall comic book cliches, such as the "comic book death". But this post is about The Legend of Neil, so let's get back to that. The story is about Neil, a Zelda fanatic who made the drunken choice to asphyxiate himself with a Nintendo controller while masturbating to a fairy in the original NES game. He lost consciousness and woke up in Hyrule, where everyone believes him to be Link. He is forced to don the green clothes of the Hylian hero if he hopes to return home to our world. But along the way, he has to fight enemies, save Princess Zelda and deal with crotchety old men.

So far, the series has poked fun at the fact that Link uses hearts dropped from enemies to heal himself (they used to be in a dead monster's body!), weird old men seem to have answers to questions Link hasn't asked yet, master works of swordsmanship tend to be free, there are few ethnicities in the game (I think in recent years, we meet the occasional black person, but for the most part, there are white people and Arabic-esque people, who tend to be villains) and the fact that Link is nearly genetically predisposed to use a sword (unfortunately, Neil is not).

This is by far the most mature series of the three that I am writing about. And by mature, I mean intended for mature audiences. There is a lot of profanity (which is another way it pokes fun at Zelda; no one in Hyrule, not even the insanely evil Ganon, or the surly ranch hand in Ocarina of Time, has a foul mouth), sexual references (just look at the origin story) and violence. Of course, these references to anatomy and sex are priceless coming from the mouths of elves, bearded old wise men and a sex-obsessed fairy (Felicia Day's role, which certainly a departure from pretty much every other role I've seen her in).

Once again, I will put up the website (I'm not sure which of these is the actual website, so I will list its location on Effinfunny and Atom, though I'm beginning to think that the Effinfunny site may be its home). I am also posting the first episode so that you can get your first taste of it if you have yet to check it out:

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

Just a heads up; as I am writing this post, the videos seem to be down, so if the embeded video isn't working when you click on it, try it again in a few hours or so.

Up next: Two breakout series...

The Guild: Real Life Quests

I honestly don't know why Felicia Day isn't a bigger star than she is; I kind of see her as an American Simon Pegg (Simone Pegg?), and if all were right with the world, she'd have her own Spaced-type show by now (this is more of an Arrested Development reference than a dig at the McG-produced American version of Spaced). The Guild certainly has some similarities with the incredible British show; both are about the mundane aspects of real life and follow twentysomething underachievers as they try to use fantasy to "improve" reality.

The Guild was the brainchild of Day after she became a bit of a World of Warcraft junkie. It was originally going to be a sitcom, but it ended up as a webseries since it could target the niche audience it was intended for and not be concerned with ratings (the show is financed by donations, and as soon as the donation link is reestablished on the site, found here, I will be making sure that there will be episodes beyond the upcoming Season 2). Day incorporated some of herself into lead character Cyd Sherman, such as the fact that both Day and Cyd were child prodigy violinists, and one of the main ideas behind the series is that, contrary to popular belief, not all gamers are overweight dudes who live in their mothers' basements. In fact, there is no overweight male to be found on The Guild (there is a plus-sized woman, but she is the mother).

The first season takes place over the course of three or four days. We are introduced to the Knights of Good, a World of Warcraft guild composed of a bunch of unemployed internet and video game addicts. Day's Cyd (avatar name of Codex) is a somewhat depressed young woman who was recently "dumped" by her therapist and lost her most recent boyfriend when she caught him cheating on her (she lost another one when he, along with Cyd's father, "turned gay"). Her craving for a real social support system is what causes the guild to meet in person for the first time. Zaboo is a weird and obsessive "Hinjew" who tracks down Codex after her accidental use of too many ;) emoticons leads him to believe that his romantic feelings for Codex, whom he had never met, are mutual (this just goes to prove that the internet just can't convey emotion properly ;)). Vork is the fearless leader of the Knights of Good fearlessly while in the World, but is a timid, middle-aged, unemployed, penny-pinching man in the world. Clara (both the real name and avatar name) is an inattentive mother who spends more time online than with her kids (some of the best visual humor in The Guild comes from seeing how her kids deal with the neglect). Tinkerballa (avatar name and real name... as far as we know) is the group's hot Asian who is cynical and in constant need of virtual stimulation (she rarely is seen without her DS). And Bladezz is the guild's "retarded cousin" (in the words of Clara) who embarrasses the group by yelling profanity on the server's message board, but is retained due to his great skills as a rogue.

Though there are a fair number of scenes showing the Knights of Good engaging in raids and quests, we never actually see any in-game footage. This series is about the real lives of these characters, which are full of video game references. They apply World of Warcraft ideas and slang to everyday situations; this is most evident in the "boss fight" finale, but there are other examples, such as when Zaboo gives Codex a bouquet of blue flowers that he made because he bought her character blue flowers in the game, or Bladezz referring to everyone as n00bs. When Codex tries to arrange the guild's first real-world meeting, Tinkerballa refuses to go until Codex bribes her... with game gold. And Codex, who begins each episode with a monologue into her video blog (these segments further prove that Day has great comic timing), at one point mentions that life is so much easier to measure in experience points than in real life lessons.

I have never touched World of Warcraft myself, or any other MMORPG (though if the Firefly one is ever released, I may have to give that one a whirl; however, I am a fan of games, like Zelda, Chrono Trigger and a few of the Final Fantasy games), and I failed Internet Slang 101, so a few of the jokes are lost on me. Still, this is an incredibly funny series that will be enjoyable to anyone who has even a basic knowledge of the internet and video games. In fact, it has been so successful that Day has been commissioned to write a new Warcraft-based series that will serve, in her words, as the reverse of The Guild. This one will take place completely in-game, and will have fantasy characters dealing with mundane situations. I can already see Kreggenmoor the Destroyer worrying about his upcoming date ($100 in internet money to anyone who knows what that's a reference to... and another $10 in internet money to the person who knows what internet money is a reference to).

If you've never seen the show, here is the first episode to get you started:



Also, here is an interesting interview with Day and Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo) talking about the show:



Up next: Legen - wait for it - dary...