The main gang note
Wham City (also known as AB Video Solutions or Wham City Comedy) is an art/comedy collective based in Baltimore. Members include Alan Resnick, Dan Deacon, Ben O'Brien, Cricket Arrison, Robby Rackleff, Dina Kelberman, and Jimmy Joe Roche.
Their works typically feature a blend of comedy, horror and mystery, ranging from complicated Alternate Reality Game-type videos, to comedic, audience-interaction-heavy live-shows, to everything in-between.
Works by Wham City or their members:
- alantutorial
- Become Your Body with Cricket Arrison
- The Cry of Mann
- The Call of Warr
- Electronic Game Information
- Fan Fiction Showdown
- Live Forever As You Are Now with Alan Resnick
- May I Please Enter?
- The Mirror
- The "Technology" episode of Off the Air
- Pervert Everything (in collaboration with PFFR)
- Reverse Transmission
- This House Has People in It
- Speechoclock
- Unedited Footage of a Bear
- The Weather
Tropes exhibited by Wham City include:
- Author Appeal: Robby Rackleff seems to be a fan of H. P. Lovecraft, as the two projects he wrote, The Mirror and The Cry of Mann, have plenty of references to Lovecraft's works.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Colors show up quite a bit for symbolic reasons. In Alantutorial, blue was used to portray childhood and sadness, while red was used as a symbol of Alan giving up or selling out. In Cry Of Mann, the color orange was used to represent the supernatural and misunderstood.
- Company Cross References: They have a tendency to reference previous works in subtle ways, such as having a Claridryl bottle, from Unedited Footage of a Bear, show up in the background of This House Has People In It.
- Kubrick Stare: Alan Resnick is fond of doing this during his roles; especially noteworthy when he plays the sculptor in This House Has People in It or the cowboy in May I Please Enter?
- Self-Deprecation: From their website:We are doing very, very badly. We thought comedy would save us, but oh god we fucked up so so bad. We suck and we hate ourselves.
- Surreal Horror: They're very fond of this, from The Mirror tackling sci-fi Lovecraftian cult horror, to Unedited Footage of a Bear's surreal and terrifying take on drug abuse, to everything in-between.
- Typecasting: While everyone else has a diverse variety of roles, Alan always seems to play the crazy, quirky, artsy or otherwise weird characters, such as the severely autistic alantutorial, the Eccentric Artist Jack Mann, or the bubbly odd-ball Wesley. His role as the violent and aggressive Prince in Call Of Warr was a change of pace for him, and even then, Prince was still as hyperactive and quirky as any other Alan Resnick character.
