Rob Schrab may very well epitomize the 21st-century artist. In an entertainment industry that fights to keep apace with new media, he has made himself a dominant presence in print, television and the internet: he is wrapping up the final chapter of his comic book Scud: The Disposable Assassin, he is in pre-production for the second half of the second season of The Sarah Silverman Program, and he still has a hand in Channel 101, the internet “TV network” he co-created with long-time writing partner Dan Harmon. In this installment of The Origins of Our Communication, Schrab shares with us his first online breakthrough and how he and Harmon helped to usher in the dawn of the internet celebrity:

For me, it was with a little thing called Summoner Geeks (originally known as Dungeons & Dragons). Dan Harmon wrote the script back in 1995 when we recorded it with our comedy troupe Dead Alewives. It was a shockingly accurate depiction of what it’s like playing Dungeons & Dragons where we had guys in a room playing an intense battle and then you hear a guy off in the kitchen yelling “Where’s the Mountain Dew? Where’re the Cheetos?” Really nerdy and funny. It got a lot of airplay on the Dr. Demento Show, which, for me, you know, I grew up listening to Dr. Demento. When Dr. Demento released the sketch on a “best of” compilation that year, that was my first “Now we’ve made it!” moment.

Summoner was a first person shooter, and our sketch was later released as an easter egg on the game. It was animated with characters from the video game acting out our sketch with our voices. It got leaked to ifilms.com (now known as spike.com) and that was our first internet success, our first viral thing. Since then you can find it on YouTube. The interesting thing about it today is that there are a huge amount of people reenacting that sketch. Type in “summoner geeks” and you’ll find video after video after video. I watched them as they were posted but I gave up after awhile, there were just so many videos related to it. Its kind of funny because we did that thing back in ’95 and it still resonates.

In 1998, we were selling Scud books through a website, that was back toward the end of the run. After that we did Heat Vision & Jack (right after Summoner Geeks went viral; once it became easy for people to upload stuff online and pass videos around). Then I did this short called Robot Bastard!, which turned into another viral video. It was this sci-fi space opera where everything is made out of cardboard, painted bright colors, with robots shooting zombies. Silly and stupid. Aintitcool.com reviewed it and it blew out of the water from there. Around that time, right after Heat Vision & Jack (starring Jack Black and the voice of Owen Wilson) went nowhere, Dan and I were writing screenplays, trying to get TV shows off the ground and we were really frustrated with the business. We were creating property, coming up with scripts and doing a pretty good job. We had some good ideas, you know? But whoever you’re working for, jobs shift, all of a sudden the person up top who was championing for you is replaced with someone new and your idea that you worked and slaved for goes on the shelf. This happened again and again and again, ideas that never got shown.

This is when Final Cut and DV cameras became affordable and Dan and I started shooting these little movies just to make each other laugh. And we’d have challenges: “Don’t spend time or money and we watch them tonight!” And everyone would run around all over town and make cardboard space helmets and wrap up in tin foil and then we’d meet up and show it to each other. It started as five people in my living room, then expanded to thirty people in my living room, then we rented space and a projector for a hundred people, then we started showing it at Cinespace, where we get sometimes 400 people on a Sunday night to watch these shows. It was Harmon’s idea that if we’re going to do this, we should get serious and have a website. Our idea was that everybody’s doing DV film festivals, you know, these little “Show your video! Show your sketch!” but we wanted to do something different. Instead of this being a film festival, lets run it like a network. We don’t want shorts; we want series…we want properties with series potential. So you pitch it to the audience and the audience votes if they want to see more. That was basically the idea and it really kind of took off: audience participation with control, the excitement of competition with friends, everyone trying to outdo one another (not only in terms of craftsmanship but in comedy, in storytelling, in editing). When living in LA, and its really hard to get anywhere with your idea, come to us! Yeah, its not big and expensive looking, but at least it exists somewhere. There’s no money involved, you’re doing it for the joy of doing it. A lot of careers have started because of Channel101.

It’s all about creating your own luck because people are very narrow-viewed in this industry. If you’re a writer, it’s impossible to be a director. If you’re an actor, then the assumption is you can’t be a writer. You have to show them what you can do. And that’s what was great for me because I was a screenwriter for ten years constantly wanting to direct but all of a sudden it was like “Screw it! I’ll grab a camera and let them come to me.” That’s why I’m directing on The Sarah Silverman Program, it’s because of what I did on Channel 101. Channel 101 was the best film school I could ever have because I learned from doing. It was probably the most important thing I did for my career. (And it got a lot of my friends active. They started showing themselves on camera, proving they can…and now they’ve got agents and deals and they’re getting shows.)

In the beginning, though, the only thing I was seeing the internet for was emails. I was so technophobic at the time. The idea of actually putting together a website was so daunting for me, I just figured that’s never going to be in my world. Now posting a video is so easy, its on the internet and anyone in the world can look at it.

I go to the Channel 101 screenings every month, I star in a couple episodes, but as far as shooting and writing, I haven’t been able to in a while. I’m directing on Sarah’s show, doing the comic book and trying to get a feature career moving…its sad because with Channel 101 you just do whatever you want. You find out whether it’s working or not by doing it, instead of having so many people saying “No” to you. To me, I’m just like, “Just let me do it. Let me grab the camera and let me do it.” But because of this industry and all the money involved, there are still people that need to know without a shadow of a doubt exactly what you’re doing. With Channel 101 you pick up the camera and simply say “Let’s shoot something today.”
I’ve merged what I learned from the internet with how I work on television. I just got out of a meeting for The Sarah Silverman Program and there’re certain things I’m doing on the show going “Look, I’m just going to do it on the weekend, I’ll grab a camera and do it myself.” I don’t want it on the schedule because its just going to screw everything up. I need to be able to be in that Channel 101 mode and I say that, that’s my word: Channel 101 mode. It simply means just grabbing the camera and doing it. Its got to have that look and if we get everybody else involved it’ll look too slick. Sometimes it needs to be a little rough. Though it is a blurred line. As far as what I prefer, of course I prefer not being told what to do but at the same time when you get boundaries it forces you to not necessarily use your first idea. Sometimes when first ideas are shot down you think harder and then you think even harder and come up with a better idea. Though it can be the same way with low budget: we can’t afford the scope of what you’re thinking and you have to be more creative.

I don’t think we’re at a point where internet shows can compete with TV. Right now, the reason Channel 101 exists is to showcase people who are not getting a platform to show off what they can do. We’ve got some people from Wisconsin who did Chad Vader. Its big, the first short got something like five million hits. Its probably the biggest thing that’s come out of Channel 101. And these guys live in Madison, they shoot videos, send them our way to show at the screenings, they get put up on the net and they go viral. And people are asking if they’re going to move out here, to LA. But these guys ask “Why? We live at home. Its cheaper here, we live here and do what we want.” and that’s totally possible in today’s world. I think that’s great, that’s really cool. The only downside I see is you’re working super hard to get noticed and you’re not getting paid. But you can parlay that exposure into something else. Justin Roiland, who did House of Cosbys, he got two network deals with Fox and Cartoon Network. Now he’s a hot guy in town. Andy Samberg is from the group Lonely Island. They were making The‘Bu, one of our longest running shows, and had to stop because [Samberg] got picked by Saturday Night Live. And J.D. Ryznar (creator of Yacht Rock) is working on a film with Jason Lee. In a lot of ways we’re like the new Groundlings, the new Second City. Come to us for the new hot talent: actors, directors, screenwriters, you name it.

Eventually your desktop will be in the living room and you’ll be watching stuff like YouTube and Channel 101 as easily as anything on cable. I would love it if Channel 101 could become the anti-viral video clip site. There’s a lot of viral stuff but its pretty much one-joke premises: a cat sounds like its speaking or a guy with nunchucks hitting himself in the head. What we offer is stories and characters and little mini shows that hopefully can one day compete with storytelling in TV networks and cable. That’s the hope, the dream.

Visit Channel 101: watch new episodes, catch up on old favorites, or submit your own.

Previously in the Origins of Our Communication series