Categories: COVID-19

A Coronavirus Variety Show: ‘Vulgar Fantastico’

It’s all about a man stuck in his apartment on coronavirus lockdown. And who is definitely not slowly going crazy.

Vulgar Fantastico is the work of Larry Longstreth, who stars as the inward-focused “Larry” in this bizarre variety show where the COVID-19 situation presents endless opportunity for gallows humor. Using a combination of puppetry, live action and animation, Longstreth’s disturbing sendup of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood is unrelentingly funny. With his bizarre horror movie puppet Drac, he somehow manages to get through each day of isolation. His experiences become more and more weird with each episode.

He’s been producing these episodes at the rate of one every couple of weeks or so, and has been since the beginning of March when the lockdown started. Here are the first three of them.

The first episode includes an extended animated sequence including Longstreth’s animated character creations Mitch and Tanner.

Pause the SCIFI.radio stream while you watch this.

In episode 2, Larry runs a fever, hallucinates, and believes his fate is coming for him.

Episode 3 includes a cheesy sci-fi adventure movie sequence in which the hero is assaulted by alien bear-like shapeshifter creatures – in various senses of the word ‘assault’.

In this new reality we find ourselves in, big creators are stripped of their studios and large production crews, finding themselves competing on a leveled playing field with small creators who have been working this way the entire time. Vulgar Fantastico shows some of the potential of these smaller creators, and makes us wonder what other wonderful independent creators may be out there waiting to be discovered.

The series is shot on a shoestring, with the help of Longstreth’s friends and fellow entertainment industry professionals who yearn for creative outlet. Make sure you subscribe to his YouTube channel – we can’t wait for the next episode!

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