From left to right: Ben, Raphael, David, Caleb and Adam.
Olde English Comedy is a website dedicated to the work of New York based comedy troupe Olde English. They have been performing since 2002, and in that time have made over one hundred and fifty short videos. Its line-up has changed over the years, but as of 2008, the core members of the group were Ben Popik, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, David Segal, Caleb Bark, and Adam Conover. It can be found here.
Their last big project together, a film called The Exquisite Corpse Project—which is a combination of a goodbye documentary and a movie written in exquisite corpse style—has been aired in select theaters, and info relating to it can be found on their blog and their Facebook page. As of December 2013, the movie is available on DVD and Blu-Ray, and as a paid download.
Tropes that appear in the works:
- Berserk Button: Steven the Vegan's is people asking annoying questions about what being a vegan means.
- Blatant Lies: "Ken Swizzle's Time Machine. It's a real time machine." Or were they?
- Call-Back: Several. "Jurassic Park" to "Adam Fever"—both are about mishearing something as a name of a co-star—and "Hidden Messages" to "Raizin and Adam Live Together"—the former is "analyzing" the latter—come to mind.
- Comically Missing the Point: In "Fight the Smears" the fact-giver responds to someone complaining "I hear Barack Obama has a gross mustache" with "Fact: Barack Obama's mustache is quite handsome, and he combs it with a golden brush," instead of something suggesting he didn't have a mustache.
- Compressed Vice: Positive example; in "It's Your Thing" everyone (except Ben) apparently has a trademark action that they have never been seen doing before or since. Ben lampshades it.
- Cluster F-Bomb: "Hello? Fuck!" is almost entirely composed of repetition of those two words.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil: "Brooklyn's Great"... except for all the crime (the criminal in question is a music pirate).
- Dissimile: From "Totally Crazy": "Somehow I ended up talking to two guys. One of the guys was a sexy lady. The other guy was... oh wait, it was just the lady."
- Double Entendre: A double-edged one in "Dishes Like To Be Dirty". "Do the dishes" plus "Let us sleep in our bed with you," inevitably leads to "Oh, you slept with the dishes instead of cleaning them. Great."
- Downer Ending: "Gorilla Warfare" ends with everyone being killed by the gorillas.
- Easily Forgiven: Danny in "Father Son Talk" is forgiven so easily that even after activating a grenade while his dad was right next to him, all he had to do was show he was carrying a family portrait not to get a punishment.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Hello? Fuck!" (those two words cover most of the dialogue) and the Door Store (the door store is a store that sells doors).
- Face Palm: At the end of "Totally Crazy", Rodney's coworkers give one because he got through with a long rambling story that had nothing to do with the question they asked him.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: The protagonists of "O'Douls" think they're the Spear Counterpart of this, until The Reveal (In-Universe) that their beer has no alcohol in it.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Parodied in "The Perfect Night", where such a relationship is sung about in the style of a sexy R&B song.
- Hurricane of Puns: What follows the example of Digital Piracy Is Evil in "Brooklyn's Great", which mentions The Police, Interpol, The Presidents of the United States of America and Bush (meaning both the bands and the government officials). Also, the tech support in "Computer Problems", whose name is pronounced like "Bread". "Don't get wry/rye, Bread!" "I'm not. You are getting me sour, though/sourdough." And then "You're talking bananas and nuts" and "quit buttering yourself up."
- Hypocritical Humor: The song "Don't Dance" is performed while dancing.
- Idea Bulb: In "Rock My World," this ends up being the eventual solution to a burned out lightbulb problem.
- Insistent Terminology: Caleb's character in "Cave Miners" insists on calling every orifice in existence a cave.
- It's All About Me: In "Queens Is Great."The Queen: The queeeen is great.Raphael: Except?The Queen: Except NOTHING!
- Let's See YOU Do Better!: After being told repeatedly by Microsoft Word that he had produced bad writing, the protagonist of "Computer Problems" tells it this. It does.
- Mind Screw: "I Was Thinking" has a relatively mundane story told through a person in a fairy costume with a Simpleton Voice, a person in a mime costume with a ridiculous falsetto, and a person in fighting gear with a random German accent. The comedy all comes from how weird the costumes and voices are.
- My Nayme Is: A character who apparently doesn't think it's special enough to be named "Bread", throws in two Ds. His name can't be listed accurately because he also throws a silent U in there but won't say what letter it is other than that it's not the fifth one.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: The father in "Father's Day" pretends to not notice that his kids are taking him for granted by always giving him homemade coupons, when in reality he is planning to pile them all on at once.
- Sarcasm-Blind: Inverted in "The Parks Department" where the protagonist thinks everyone is being sarcastic because of the typical tone and wording cues, but they really aren't.
- Shaped Like Itself: "Ken Swizzle's Time Machine. It's a real time machine."
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: The couple in "Love" to such an extent that they can't even go to the bathroom without horribly missing their partner.
- Strawman Political: In "Free NYC Rap", "People who hate independent filmmakers are calling these laws a triumph. Independent filmmakers on the other hand..."
- Teacher/Student Romance: "My College Sex Teacher" features a teacher who wants this. Her student is not taking.
- Unfortunate Implications: Conversed in-universe in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" about "Mickey Rooney's offensive portrayal of an Asian stereotype."
- Wangst: "Sad Drunk Fifteen-Year-Old" invoked this thrice with the three sad drunk fifteen-year olds whining about random stuff.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: "Decorating", which features hypothetical design plans coming to life (including such things as aquariums breaking because there were no imagined tables, and a literal elephant in the room) and "Finders Keepers", where everyone wishes to find something and then does. To a lesser extent, "Rock My World"; see Idea Bulb above.
