For those who don’t know, Human Giant are Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer and the non-performing, all-directing Jason Woliner. I first came across them via their Shutterbugs series they had on Channel 102. Well they now have an MTV show called, unsurprisingly, Human Giant. And it is awesome.
Now as it is a Viacom show and I’m in the UK their website makes it hard to watch/embed their online videos without the use of proxies. Luckily as a number of their sketches existed before the MTV show there are some versions on Youtube…
What makes the show great is the quality of the direction, the fact the sketches are often willing to slowly draw out the punchline rather than go for fast gags, and, above all, a general avoidance of recurring characters and catchphrases.
There’s one trick they do that makes for a neat twist on the pull away reveal gag wherein a sketch will play out, and play out well as a sketch in and of itself, but then the last shot will change the entire meaning of what went before.
For my money it’s shaping up to be the best sketch show since Big Train and Mr Show. Well worth catching on MTV, iTunes or, if you aren’t American, via the evil powers of the internet.
Human Giant Blog
Aziz Ansari Is Bored
Paul Scheer.com
Human Giant Interview on TSOYA