One of the first things we agreed on was that we wanted there to be some antagonism between the score and the interviewees—but also, sometimes, a great deal of compassion. Vitkus: It was post-9/11, but you could still fly in more places than you can now. Deputies say the victim sought medical treatment after being injured and was released. Later we moved to Elmira, New York to help start a church. It seemed mockable. The quotes in this piece have been edited for clarity and condensed. Errick was driving a zero-turn lawnmower at 8:42 a.m. down Strickler Road in the Town of Clarence when he almost struck Troopers patrolling the area, according to New York State Police. One of our agents said, “When are you guys going to stop fucking around and make a real show?” [Laughs.] Now we’ve gotta tell a kid about the Holocaust.”. When I speak at schools, I still get asked about it. According to the Sheriff’s Office, a social media video of the incident has been circulating online. And they screamed, “Just drive!”. Levy: I’d been a visual artist, so when John and Vernon were putting together the Kids’ Show pilot, I was like, “I’ll be the production designer.” A friend of mine and I got a book from the library on how they made the puppet sets for The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, with all these behind-the-scenes photos, and we figured it out. You can expect to bump into your friends, neighbors and the local kids after a game. We only had two flags, and I ruined both shots. They’d wear suits and carry tape recorders, and they would draw people out in these absurd conversations. I met John in the dorms. So I did everything—I was in charge of hair and makeup, wardrobe, and art. and last updated 2020-08-24 10:20:18-04. 14 years ago, on March 11, 2005, Wonder Showzen was gloriously birthed by PFFR, manifesting itself on MTV2, and forever burrowing itself into our minds and feasting on our subconscious. And of all the shows we’ve done, its fans are probably the most eccentric and the most nihilist. We didn’t want to be the squeaky wheel, because that way we’d get away with more. Tozzi: John and Vernon would find this obscure ‘60s and ‘70s animation and say, “We like this.” One of the early things I did for Wonder Showzen, was Pottymouth, this toilet-head-based character—he makes this giant rainbow of potty mouths that go on to infinity—and that was very ‘70s. Staff is friendly and the food is decent. Lee: Vernon and I started talking about pitching this tape as a show. But I would recommend one of my protégés, Nico Muhly.” He was an incredible musician. The Sheriff’s Office says “many of the injuries detailed in social media posts are greatly exaggerated or even false.”. I couldn’t handle what was about to happen. We were wary of it being too slick. I was a creative writing major, which is the ultimate scam, and John was a film major, which is the penultimate scam. Caleb, our second, married Kate. And we were starting from scratch with every segment, which—from a production standpoint—is almost not sustainable. But we were never part of the comedy scene—we were sort of a bubble unto ourselves. Clarence Saunders (9 August 1881 – 14 October 1953) was an American grocer who first developed the modern retail sales model of self service.His ideas have had a massive influence on the development of the modern supermarket.Saunders worked for most of his life trying to develop a truly automated store, developing Piggly Wiggly, Keedoozle, and Foodelectric store concepts. Wonder Showzen is an American adult sketch comedy television series that aired between 2005 and 2006 on MTV2.It was created by Vernon Chatman and John Lee of PFFR.. “When you first walk in here you're going to smell the nice flowers, even through your mask. Season 2 of Wonder Showzen arrived in March 2006, with sketches that included a “Beat Kids” trip to Ground Zero, a Southern slave-rape trial, and “Horse Apples,” a dark-hearted Hee Haw parody. You didn’t have to be a good actor—they just needed bodies. Later, he called and said that Barry Diller got a few minutes into the tape, pressed Stop, and said, “Not only are we not doing this show, we’re not doing comedy anymore.” [Chao has no recollection of saying this: “I doubt [Diller] saw or commented on Kids’ Show,” he says. We were still gonna throw the money, but the helicopter pilot was like, “You can’t throw shit out there.” So we ended up doing this thing where Clarence jumps out of the helicopter. And John and Vernon were pretty much goofy grown-ups. The 55-year-old mom was with her son at the Franklin Ave. station around 8 a.m. on Jan. 10 when the suspect suddenly started hitting her in the head and body, cops said. At one point, I went down there for the better part of a week and sat in a hotel and watched those movies for eight hours a day. 31 responses. Let’s floor it and see how big the smash can be.”, Philpot: I got kind of beat up on Season 2. So we were pretty happy with the numbers, but we weren’t doing Wonder Showzen necessarily for the ratings—we were doing it for the loudness of the show to drive eyeballs to MTV2. I went to the audition, and they asked me, “If you could rule New York for a day, what would you do?” And my response was, “I would go up to the Naked Cowboy in Times Square, pull down his pants, and say, ‘Ha-ha! : How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen. They came over and we watched segment by segment. … And the women working on the show had a real voice on Wonder Showzen. The next time I saw her, I was like, “Hi, how you doing?” It never came up. We paid him this full rate to write this incredibly lush, rich original score with a small orchestra. of students say kids at this school are friendly. Later, it inspired a meme on TikTok, where young viewers reacted to the song with shock and confusion, clearly unaware they were watching a decades-old satirical clip. A lot of them had to do with what the kids were saying on-screen. See more of his work here and follow him on Twitter. Poll. What is work, but to be that?”. They were done by Geppetto Studios in New York, who were weirdos in their own right. CLARENCE, N.Y. (WIVB) — The Erie County Sheriff’s Office is investigating an assault that authorities say took place this past Saturday. He goes into the bathroom and comes out as Hitler while people are sitting there, drinking their coffee. It was kind of a reciprocal relationship: “I’ll push you, you push me.”. I would always do the budget negotiations with MTV, and they were always pressuring our show: “It’s so expensive!” We kinda got the sense a third season wasn’t going to happen. He’s the redheaded Beat Kid. Donald Trump is who Trevor was going to be. Jon Philpot (editor): It was a tough time. And though Wonder Showzen’s on-air run was brief, the show’s giddily subversive sketches live on—often in unexpected, slightly discombobulated ways. But it was all supposed to sound dinky, so that actually helped. But we couldn’t find him, and then the helicopter appointment came up. And there were a lot of angry people. A crazed straphanger brutally beat a mother and her son in a Brooklyn subway station in an unprovoked attack, police said Tuesday. Calderone: Nowadays, the animation on Wonder Showzen would have several million hits on YouTube and TikTok. And if you’re going to really truly commit to parodying a style, you have to go all in: What kind of camera did they use? Having come together amid the contentious, calamitous George W. Bush administration, the Wonder Showzen team members were eager to mount their small-screen protest. In the years that followed, Chatman and Lee worked on such shows as MTV’s Doggy Fizzle Televizzle, while copies of their unaired Kids’ Show pilot circulated among comedy fans. Season 1 of Wonder Showzen debuted on MTV2 on March 11, 2005—though viewers would have to do a little work to find it. Nobody liked the idea. Chatman: After the show got picked up, we wanted a few more main puppets, so we could have more story lines and have a little team of characters. CLARENCE, N.Y. (WKBW) — A Snapchat video of a teenage boy beaten and thrown out of a window has circulated several social media platforms. Vesper had built Clarence into one of the best programs in Western New York. And people getting aggressive with a puppet was always the funniest. The flesh-and-blood stars of Wonder Showzen were the child actors brought in to cozy up with Clarence, mouth incendiary one-liners, or walk the streets as one of the “Beat Kids.”. We didn’t know better, and for the first season, we threw this incredible premiere party at an elementary school in the East Village. He [worked on] Cops, and is super-successful. The 10-minute video found and shared with media by his defenders at Public Verdict show repeated beating of Makarov on his head, behind and feet, … Because it’s hard to make something that’s genuinely a moral conundrum without actually physically hurting somebody. “Injustice and inequality never change,” says Lee. Right now, “Wash Your Hands” is having a moment. Lee: Eighty percent of the people under 30 did not know who Trevor was dressed up as: “So, who is he? So when people were like, “Fuck those guys,” I’d agree with them: “They’re awful, I know! Chatman: I had a few puppets I’d bought at a Salvation Army. Lee: Kids’ shows, as a genre, can have so many different things. It’s a town where, when we got a Burger King, we were like, “Yes! This is a burial at sea, and no one gives a shit.”. Work on the first season of the newly revived, newly rechristened Wonder Showzen began in the fall of 2004 in New York City. That was in the lead-up to Wonder Showzen. John and Vernon are a click older than I am, but a lot of that anarchic ’80s–’90s semireality information—remember the Jerky Boys?—and the beginnings of what would now be reality TV was deeply ingrained in me. For years afterward, people developing shows would reach out to us and say, “We have this crazy idea for a puppet show.” The last thing we would ever want to do is work on a puppet show! We repurposed some stuff, like Jackass. And we all sort of hated the puppets. Chris Milone (editor): I think John and Vernon were secretly happy about it. Vitkus: It was my job to have these amazing conversations with the standards and practices people. And I never went on the shoots with Clarence. And that’s what we were joking about, in that KLF way. Our line producers would say, “This is a $40,000 joke.” And we’d say, “No, no—we want the $500 version of this joke.”. Wonder Showzen was the opposite—it was radical for the time. And we loved Coyle & Sharpe, who were from the Bay Area. But in a weird way, that becomes motivation and inspiration: “We’re driving into a wall. And we had to make sure Wonder Showzen wasn’t in there between Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer. John and Vernon weren’t looking for your typical commercial or theater kids. … built the pyramids! If it’s a taboo topic, it’s even more interesting to John and Vernon. Troopers were dispatched to Brookhaven Drive when they located Cinquinio and initiated a traffic stop. We malaised into “Okay, let’s get into the political beta state we all need to get to to survive four more years.” And then we came up with the bit where the letter W would get shot. We made the pilot right after John and I got married in 2000, in an office in some building in west midtown. They were so offended that we were not professionally trained: “Who are going to be your puppeteers?” And we were like, “We’re going to do it ourselves. Doormen are easy, because they have their machismo, and their job is to protect the space. And whenever we’d talk about comedy, we both secretly admitted our favorite sketch show was Sesame Street. It was a mountainous task to get it all done. Brian Raftery is the author of Best. “I’m Jewish, John’s Chinese, and Vernon’s half-black. Alyson Levy (art director, Wonder Showzen; cofounder, PFFR): I moved to New York in 1994. Deborah Copaken (mother of “Beat Kids” star Jacob Kogan): I had no problems with the material. The Hitler sketch was supposed to be a purple dog. Errick was driving a zero-turn lawnmower at 8:42 a.m. down Strickler Road in the Town of Clarence when he almost struck Troopers patrolling the area, according to New York State … “Early on,” says Lee, 48, “one guy grabbed Clarence’s mouth and held it shut. The footage, taken on Snapchat on December 13 in Clarence, New York, shows a teenager being assaulted, stepped on, shoved around and then ultimately being pushed out of a window. We would be very open with the script: “These are the parts they’ll be saying, but they won’t see this part.” Once parents saw how we were coordinating everything, they trusted the process. Errick was driving a zero-turn lawnmower at 8:42 a.m. down Strickler Road in the Town of Clarence when he almost struck Troopers patrolling the area, according to New York State … They were looking for real kids. We discovered the world of puppet people is really weird. After graduating, Chatman would travel as a stand-up, later arriving in New York City in 1999 to take a job on The Chris Rock Show. No press were allowed to be invited. CLARENCE, N.Y. (WIVB) –The Spring Market is underway at The BFLO Store in Clarence. Saturday, Aug. 17 Deputies responded to the area of Shimerville Road for a complaint of a vehicle that was swerving. Levy: We premiered on “Sic ’Em Friday” with Wildboyz, the offshoot from Jackass. Anticapitalist behavior never goes out of style, and intrinsic racism hasn’t been stopped. I recorded “Slaves” in my apartment, and my next-door neighbor was this sweet old African American lady who I talked to occasionally. We got this arrogant mall cop and told him, “If we ask you a question, keep talking—even if we’ve gotta go do something.” We asked him about his inspiration, and about the dangers of the job. We would meet every week, record a song, and do all these drawings. Julie Smith Clem (casting director): We’d always send the scripts in advance, and that would filter out people before they even auditioned. We all left being like, “Oh, fuck.”. So we hired a male stripper named “The Hurricane”— because he “dances up a storm”—to hand-deliver the pilot and do a dance for Stephen Chao. They live in Clarence Center and have six kids. ... 0.1%. Reviews for Wonder Showzen were largely positive: The New York Times dubbed it “freaky and funny,” while the Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan noted the show “made me laugh out loud. Tip: Must pay in cash. 3 were here. Chatman: We’d met this homeless guy who was so funny and charming and forthcoming—he had this great personality. Lee: That was our best acting job: “Yeah, we’re exactly what you’re looking for.” But we made a pilot that was a little more elaborate. Let’s go invade their space—and let’s do it with a puppet.”. We got knives pulled on us twice in one day. Then we threw Clarence into the water and watched him drift away. And we all knew Wonder Showzen was going to fly at one point—we just didn’t know where. I drew the line: “Guys, this is not cool.”. Year. Lee: We didn’t experience any kind of burnout until halfway through Season 2. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The pilot was taking us all over New York City, and it was gorgeous. None of this was deeply scarring, but I’d get fired up about how stupid and silly they were. Not everyone was happy with a puppet in their face. We couldn’t give it a launch like The Osbournes. Like, why would you do that? Levy: If you’d asked me in seventh grade what I wanted to do, I’d have said, “I want to start a revolution.” [During the Bush years], there was a lot of stuff going on that was anticapitalism, anti–World Bank, anti-IMF. Lee: The day after Bush won reelection, I don’t think anyone did much work. There was one about the Kierkegaard notion of identity, and I was like, “Who the hell is this?” But you could pretty much say anything, and as a kid, I thought that was pretty cool. Levy: We never made any puppets at Wonder Showzen. We were the only show that could’ve done that: A letter of the alphabet got killed, and you gotta replace it. As a kid playing music in the Clarence schools, he developed a knack for quickly learning different instruments. And for a lot of people, it was their first-ever job. Levy: So many different bits from the show have gone viral over the years, which is always fun. I’d do designs, and then they would give those to Augenblick Studios, and they handled the bulk of the animation. New York State troopers out of Clarence arrested Olivia Cinquinio, of Amherst, for petit larceny. Kevin P. Dobson Way (Goodrich Road) Clarence, NY 14031 (Next to the Town Hall) 759-6832 (non-emegency) NYSEG - To Report a Street Light Out. Levy: We never became good puppeteers. That was exciting. I’ll do this.”. We had maybe six people working on it, and we shot some of it in a super-tiny storage closet. “It's a great time to be in Buffalo.". Clarence Pizza Company is the real name of this place. Lee: And that’s what happened. “That’s the tragedy of Wonder Showzen.” Here, in the creators’ own words, is the story of a show that was too controversial and too awesome for TV—and was gone too soon. The members of that scrappy Wonder Showzen team would eventually help shape the future of TV comedy: Lee, Chatman, and Levy went on to oversee such gonzo Adult Swim series as The Heart, She Holler, and Xavier: Renegade Angel; other staffers graduated to such late-night staples as The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. I’m positive they were tired and smelly from all of that puppet work. Lee: It was this sad little moment: “Oh, right—our show is just a shitty puppet floating in the green mire of New York City, in the snot-green sea of the Hudson. Chatman: It was one of those rare times that spending the day with Hitler was depressing. CLARENCE, N.Y. (WROC) – A 19-year-old woman from Erie County was arrested for stealing political signs from a lawn on Thursday. Sometimes he’d simply annoy them for a banana, or ask what democracy smells like; other times, he’d pose existential questions on the nature of television itself. Slaves! CLARENCE, N.Y. (WIVB)-- Jody D. Errick, 35 of Clarence Center was arrested Friday morning after riding a lawnmower down the road, almost hitting State Police Troopers on patrol. And they did it with puppets, little kids, and some deeply messed-up animation. It was a profound lack of support. A new credit union facility in Clarence; M&T workers begin return to offices: Clarence Community and Schools FCU was about to get the ball rolling on a new 4: New York State Police arrest two following underage drinking enforcement detail in Erie County: CLARENCE: Kalaupapa resident Clarence 'Boogie' Kahilihiwa sought to preserve the settlement For “D.O.G.O.B.Y.N.,” John and Vernon wanted it to look like a comic, like Spider-Man—though I don’t think it really turned out that way. I was talking to John, who said, “Yeah, we were trying to tell people about this in 2004.”, Lee: After Trump got elected, big comedians would say to us, “You’ve got to bring Wonder Showzen back! Ten teams from area high schools competed, with the following results: Longest Single Throw: 1st place Depew High School, 672 ft. 2nd place Clarence High School, 439 ft. 3rd place Hamburg High School, 393 ft. Augenblick: We were getting thrown curveballs every week: “Could you make this look like G.I. We’d ask, “Do you ever think about, like, smashing stuff?” “Yeah!” “Would you love to do that on camera?” “Yeah!” And we’d be like, “OK, keep him for later, keep her for later.” The special kids were the little anarchists, like Trevor. Levy: I have an old-timey scrapbook with all the Wonder Showzen press, and it was amazing—just endless, incredible press. Watching the accosted interviewees react to a goofy puppet—and they’d often do so angrily, sometimes yanking off Clarence’s eyeballs—revealed a lot about human nature. My parents owned a liquor store together. We’re a very diverse group of people.”. Tozzi: And after they’d get chased by people with knives, Lisa Schiller would have to go back and get releases [signed]. You guys are gonna make me go back to Rikers.”, Schiller: John and Vernon would usually warn me as they walked away whether the person was going to be agreeable or not. Chatman: We didn’t do prank calls or stuff like that. He had a big shock of white hair and this crazy workshop down in the Lower East Side, and he did really good work. When Wonder Showzen debuted 15 years ago, it was unlike anything that had been on TV before. Kid Friendly Vacation Rentals in Clarence: View Tripadvisor's 211 photos and great deals on Kid Friendly Vacation Rentals in Clarence, NY Lee: One guy [we videotaped] had this look in his eye and was standing in a way that made Vernon and I go, “Uh-oh.” He started coming toward us aggressively, and we started backing up with the puppet. What they did promote was the launch of MTV2. But within about four seconds, I realized it was a totally strange and brilliant thing. Calderone: One of the difficulties was that Wonder Showzen was TV-MA, so we couldn’t run it all day. New York State Police: 196 Tpr. It’s morally uncomfortable, which is interesting. Chatman: It was John holding the camera, me with the puppet, and both of us daring each other to not puss out. 19-year-old girl dies in Clarence car crash New York State Police responded to the car crash Saturday afternoon at the intersection of Heise Road and County Road. We had this whole staff of people concerned about this person and that we were going to do this kind of crazy, awful, fucked-up capitalist joke with him. We try to get some weird small town in, like, Ohio to elect him mayor, and start making lobbying groups.” If the movie had worked, we’d have kept doing it as a TV show where he keeps running. Chatman: During The Chris Rock Show, I’d meet John during my lunch hour, and we’d go shoot around the city. And I definitely did not want him doing commercials. They’re true variety shows. Chatman: We got kicked and punched a lot. Augenblick: Wonder Showzen has definitely had a major impact on television. Lee: We did a video called “Please don’t think we’re crazy, we’re just trying to meet the neighbors”—probably the most evil thing we’ve done. Body” cartoon on the internet, and it got a million views, which at that time was bonkers. In one skit, a scrolling tape reading “Catholic Church approves condom-flavored breath mints” runs across the screen during a mock newscast. Posted at 10:20 AM, Aug 24, 2020 . Chatman: One day, we were in the student union or wherever, and we had this idea for a prank of a show: It was called Kids’ Show, but you’d just sing “kids’ show” over and over again for 20 minutes, and then have the closing credits. Lisa Schiller (production assistant): I had to explain to people what had just happened. Last month, a truncated version of Wonder Showzen’s brutal stereotype sing-along “Celebrate Our Differences”—a parody, Chatman says, “of clueless honkies patting themselves on the back”—was unearthed by Twitter. “Most TV-show staffers are white guys,” notes art director Alyson Levy, a key Wonder Showzen creative figure. That was the moment the Kids’ Show idea opened up. Even if you’ve never seen an episode of the show, you’ve probably seen sketches like “Wash Your Hands” pop up online (and you’ve almost certainly seen the long-running “That’s Racist!” GIF, which was taken from the show). That was before I was even involved with the show. In the season’s eighth episode, Clarence questions random New Yorkers about the sad state of TV and challenges them on camera to do better. Trevor Heins (Beat Kid): I was in sixth grade, so I was 12 at the time. It was this long-term project—like Boyhood, but about the presidency. Clem: It was always better not to draw attention while filming the “Beat Kids” segments, so we tried to stay small and were always in a dash. I would do all these wacky wipes and effects—like, a picture might come out of a kid’s eyes or ear. Lee: We started hanging out and seeing comedy together. Wonder Showzen was a truly magical time period for all of us. A segment in which a little girl writes a letter to her dead grandmother includes mention of a priest feeling granny’s breasts while she was in the coffin. Until he’s at least 40.” Other viewers weren’t as enamored, with one Southern pastor devoting an entire sermon to condemning the show. Chatman: On the second season, we realized, “Oh, we know how to do this a little bit more.” And we realized you can only do so much—you’ve only got so many tricks. I remember laughing so hard. But it’s my first job, and I’m so nervous, and would you please do this for me?” Most people signed the release, so the little 25-year-old girl would keep her job. You can’t want Wonder Showzen back and also want to do a Burger King ad! We’re at a point now where people are seeing things that were influenced by Wonder Showzen—like Tim & Eric, or Eric Andre—and don’t even realize it. Our model for comedy was Errol Morris. Levy: A lot of comedians are ashamed of things they made in the past, but there are very few things on Wonder Showzen that don’t hold up. And the Bush administration had been a fucking disaster. These are just words. 31 responses. That’s real bravery. I was more worried about having my kid involved in some dumb Disney show with canned laughter and sexist jokes. So when you put it in the forefront, you can’t ignore it. All those protests were happening. On Wonder Showzen, characters played rock-paper-scissors with God (who kills himself after losing), while Middle America was represented by a dim-witted, over-reactionary puppet (named, of course, “Middle America”). 0%. “Every second,” notes cocreator Vernon Chatman, 48, “we were like, ‘They’re going to take this away, so let’s get in as much as we can.’”, Chatman and his Wonder Showzen partner, John Lee, first came up with the idea for a demented kids’ show in the early ’90s, when they were prank-pulling students at San Francisco State. We moved to Clarence in 1986 when the church asked me to come and work in student ministry. John had a camera, and we did a documentary about mall cops for an assignment. Ultimately deciding “there’s no such thing as compelling television,” he takes a fateful trip to the skies. “The political climate was not that favorable,” says Wonder Showzen character designer Jim Tozzi, 52. It was a full-time job trying to find this guy—we even hired a private detective. Copyright 2021 Nexstar Inc. All rights reserved. The first season DVDs did so well. 74%. They were like, “We’re doing a kids’ show, and we want you to help get John and Vernon up and running as a production.” I had no idea what that meant. Like, “We need to come up with another fucking Clarence idea?” “Jesus Christ—another ‘Beat Kids’?” We needed time off in a way we probably didn’t understand. Clarence Arnold Elkins Sr. (born January 19, 1963) is an American man who was convicted wrongfully of the 1998 rape and murder of his mother-in-law, Judith Johnson, and the rape and assault of his wife's niece, Brooke.He was convicted solely on the basis of the testimony of his wife's six-year-old niece who testified that Elkins was the perpetrator. … built the Parthenon!” We put blankets over the doors to deaden the sound. It was another way to have our voice come through something cute and tolerable. My goal was to make it as confusing as possible but still have transparency. Chris Tartaro (assistant camera): I was super-young—just 22 years old—and I’d interned and worked as a PA at MTV. The ’90s were especially carefree—we had no expectations of success. He got mad about a shade of color we wanted for a puppet and threw us out of the studio. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Lee: The Wonder Showzen budget was around $400,000 an episode, and we were smart enough to be on time and on budget. A … We found this guy who’d made puppets for Sesame Street. Tartaro: In 2016, it became very fashionable to become a political comedian. I would use my best skills of sophistry to defend their work. My strategy changed from person to person—I had to be able to read them. We were trying to deconstruct the looks of these cartoons in a way that had never been done before. Content ©2020 The Ringer All Rights Reserved, Smash Your TV and Have Adventures: An Oral History of ‘Wonder Showzen’, got a lot more pleasure out of fucking with people, was anticapitalism, anti–World Bank, anti-IMF. We wanted the show to look really homemade—like early-’70s Sesame Street. Then we started fucking with people. of students say kids are hardworking. Tom Calderone (executive vice president for music programming and talent for MTV and MTV2): MTV had gotten into music-reality shows like The Osbournes, so the concept of MTV2 was to protect the network’s music image: “If you still love 24-hour music videos, it’s on MTV2.” [Eventually], we decided to go more male. Most people were cool, but there was one person they had to back away, because he started yelling—I guess he got triggered by my outfit. Looking back, I don’t think it was sustainable. Police in upstate New York have launched an investigation into a viral video that shows a teenager being beaten and thrown out a window, according to police and reports. And some of them were about the racial humor, like when they were calling out stereotypes. Chatman: We met at Starbucks to fit Trevor into this little costume. But that guy came after us so fast, I didn’t even have time to react before Vernon was steering me into a cab with the two of them.