I think viral marketing is a bit silly, but I give Funny People’s marketing people 20,000 points for their hilarious promos for fake TV show “Yo, Teach…!” The premise is that Jason Schwartzman’s character stars in a new NBC television sitcom detailing the life of an inner-city high school English teacher.
Things I love about this:
1.) The combination of Mr. Feeny, Robin Williams in Dead Poets’ Society, and Brian in Family Guy, as played by Jason Schwartzman.
2.) The proper and altogether canonical use of sitcom devices — laugh track, the mean principal, the kid who thinks he’s stupid, the sappy inspirational moment.
3.) The fact that this is probably better than 95% of NBC’s new shows.
4.) The punctuation “…!” at the end of “Yo, Teach…!” I don’t even know what that means.
5.) As an English teacher, I find these to be fair assessments of difficulties teachers face in the classroom. Sure, it’s a gross caricature meant to inspire derision/laughter, but there is within all well-done satire a kernel of truth.
You can watch the rest of them here, and I highly encourage it.
