The Horrifying Hilarity of Wham City Comedy

Sometimes you’ve got to laugh to keep from crying. Other times, you’ve got to laugh to keep from screaming yourself into a coma when confronted with the cold and absurd paradox of human existence in an inhuman world. The latter phenomenon is the best description of what occurs when you’re watching a video created by the enigmatic multimedia art collective Wham City Comedy.

The group, many of whom met while attending SUNY Purchase College, formed sometime in the mid-2000’s and began to make a name for themselves by regularly hosting live shows in the Baltimore area that served as a showcase for the various acts and projects the collective’s myriad members were working on. Their projects span across the mediums of television, music, web design, and live theater, with all of them unified by their examinations of alienation, confusion, and the absurd aspects of daily life that we have been programmed to look at as being completely normal.

The core members of the group are Alan Resnick, Robby Rackleff and Ben O’ Brien, Cricket Arrison, and Dina Kelberman, and the combination of their unique sensibilities has led to some truly crazy content. For this writer, the introduction to Wham City’s unique style of surrealist humor came in the form of one of Adult Swim’s infamous 4 AM infomercials. Hot off the heels of the viral behemoth that was TOO MANY COOKS, the good folks at [as] offered up another maddened take on popular culture—in this case, the ubiquitous presence of medication ads—gifted to us from the WCC crew under the unassuming title of UNEDITED FOOTAGE OF A BEAR (if you have yet to watch this sanity-rupturing short film, do so immediately).

I could write a novel’s worth of observations about the storytelling techniques, the symbolism, and the possible themes rampant in the film’s 10 minute runtime, and the additional internet-based content that deepened the story, but it is truly a work of art that has to be seen for one’s self. The most basic description I can give you is that it starts out as a video of a bear in the woods, then fades into a seemingly normal ad for an over-the-counter nasal spray. But the ad’s spokesman, a beleaguered mother who clearly has some issues with the stress of motherhood, gets in her car and drives away and the commercial…just keeps going. As we follow her down an eerie suburban street filled with near-identical houses, we are confronted with a startling creature that forces us to question everything about what’s going on in the tenuous reality the story of UNEDITED FOOTAGE gives us up to this point, and ponder the horrible implications of what this entity might have done.

Viewers who watched the video on YouTube were treated to an additional layer to the story; an embedded link to a website for Claridryl which contained some world-building Easter eggs for those willing to take a plunge down the rabbit hole. This kind ARG-styled digital content has become an increasingly larger portion of Wham City’s storytelling arsenal; their other shorts released by Adult Swim, LIVE FOREVER AS YOU ARE NOW WITH ALAN RESNICK and THIS HOUSE HAS PEOPLE IN IT both have corresponding websites that beg for curious clicks and even the occasional code breaking to uncover more video and/or text to give us a better understanding of the opaque characters the troupe presents us with.

This is particularly true of THIS HOUSE, which features a website for the mysterious AB Surveillance Solutions, whose surveillance cameras serve as the lens through which we see the fragmented story. Breaking into their site with the proper code unlocks a wealth of text, audio, and video files that will show just how deep the illnesses, both mental and physical, run in this peculiar family unit.

There’s something wholly unique about Wham City’s approach to horror. It is both surreal yet alarmingly close to our own troubled reality. There is no Grand Guignol stylization; there are no easily identified monsters or stock character tropes. Their brilliance lies in their ability to plunge the depths of our banal emotions and motivations—emotional obsessions, troubled familial relationships, the desperate need to find better living through chemistry—and filter them through various vessels such as Transhumanism, modern home protection methods, and even cult behavior. In their IFC.com  mini series THE MIRROR, we’re presented with the instructional videos of a cleanliness/hydration obsessed cult known as The Mirror, which is led by the disconcerting Curtis (Rackleff) who comes off like Marshall Applewhite by way of Mister Rodgers.  The videos feature interviews with other cult members, whom all live in sparse quarters and seem eager to extol the virtues not owning any possessions and yelling at friends who don’t understand Curtis’ truth.

And then in late 2017, the WCC crew broke their own mold with THE CRY OF MANN, a live call-in soap opera that aired on Adult Swim’s Livestreams. The story concerns the troubled Mann family, who have been waiting for years for the return of their patriarch, Tank Mann, a mysterious John Galt-type industrial titan who wandered off into the unknown some time ago.

While the family listens to audio tapes of Tank Mann cryptically describing his journeys, frustrated artist Jack Mann (Resnick), aloof war vet Jouglat Mann (O’ Brien), and overworked book keeper Berry Mann (Jessica Garrett) are besieged by all sorts of intrusions, from the sinister machinations of Tank Mann’s wife Courtney Mann (Arrison) and her vile henchman Frank (Rackleff) to the unorthodox detective methods of the curious Agent Martinez (Lorelei Ramirez). And gleefully observing it all is the Ghost Lady (Thu Tran), a supernatural entity clad all in orange (a visual motif for all thing supernatural in the story). Viewers who called in did everything from try to help give the characters important information to just sputter nonsense at the to see how the characters would react—and to the cast’s credit, they skillfully played off of any type of communication that came their way.

I myself managed to get through the tangled phone lines a few times—most notably to warn Agent Martinez that Frank was dangerous and not to be trusted. I believe I made some mention about him being the type that “snaps bodies”… I don’t know, I didn’t have anything prepared and I’m not good at improv, give me a break.

It was a thrilling experiment that felt both chaotic and tightly controlled, and some of the story development seemed entirely driven by the influx of calls, but who can truly say except those behind the scenes? I could go further, but the entire series, including its side show “Tanking Mann” (on the surface, a send-up of the trend of supplementary “discussion shows” like Talking Dead, Talking Bad, etc. that no doubt had some sort of sinister underpinning even I haven’t decoded yet) are still up on Adult Swim’s archives, and again, as with all of their work, I honestly feel that it’s best for you to experience the entire story for yourself. Hell, you’ll probably stumble upon something that me and countless other keyboard analysts no doubt missed.

Throughout their growing number of projects, there is a constant sense of dread and paranoia, but there’s also moments of dark humor sprinkled in. As you watch these videos, you’ll find yourself laughing at the inherent discomfort WCC’s characters feel, identifying with their nervous ticks and their awkward attempts at getting others to understand their warped world views; whether it’s Resnick’s uncomfortably candid accounts of his marital troubles and his…unique take on explaining the concept of the “uncanny valley” in LIVE FOREVER or Curtis’ coded messages about selflessness and discipline in THE MIRROR that are fronts a more sinister, self-serving agenda, we can see glimpses of our lesser selves and our darker impulses, and can laugh at them, if only to stave off the shudders.

For those with a taste surreal, challenging art that has you thinking about it long after you’ve watched it, I cannot recommend Wham City’s work highly enough. And rather than blabber on any further, I’ll let the crew speak for themselves, via this insightful documentary from filmmaker James Trevor. And if you find yourself wanting more, it’s worth noting that Wham City Comedy has just announced a live tour for Spring 2018, starting in April:

WHAM CITY COMEDY SPRING 2018 TOUR DATES:

4/29 – Philly – Philarmonica

4/30 – Toronto – Baby G

5/1 - Detroit – Marble Bar

5/2 – Chicago – The Hideout

5/4 – Atlanta – Drunken Unicorn

5/5 – Asheville, NC – Mothlight

5/6 – Richmond, VA – Gallery 5

5/8 – NYC – Mercury Lounge

5/9 – Baltimore – Metro Gallery