Larry Longstreth has made a funny commentary on both yesterday’s and today’s media with his 20-minute film short, Dolly Oxem’s Traveling Video Circus.  An aging comedian who is more of a hack than he is funny creates a late-night comedy sketch show as a last gasp before disappearing from the comedy scene.  What we get to see is his sketch show as the comedian plays the character Dolly Oxem and bumbles his way through the show.

Poking fun at everything from Night of the Living Dead to the Tour de France, Mr. Oxem may not be funny, but he inadvertently produces some funny clips that happen to comment on the state of American media today.  Along the way we get to see the deadly serious up-and-coming reporter doing a story about a mime trapped in a box because he lost his invisible key.  While this is, of course, patently absurd, Longstreth has created an hilarious sketch where a cop tries to blast the mime out with his gun (tragically, it doesn’t work), and all the while the reporter is recording her commentary as if it is a natural disaster on par with Hurricane Katrina.

We also see a sketch of a Bob Saget-like television host doing his best to interview the winners of the latest funny video contest.  As we have seen, the reality of interviewing regular people on TV can lead to some painfully bad interviews.  This time around, the host is trying to award the couple with fabulous cash and prizes only to have the couple tell him that they can’t go on the winning vacation because of a death in the family.

We also have a sketch about an inept sexual predator (who hasn’t seen MSNBC’s way overdone “To Catch a Predator” TV show?) that looks for all the world like Jeffrey Dahmer.  He is going door-to-door to notify the neighbors of just who he is.  But while he is following the letter of the law, he is also scoping out kids for his new youth baseball league.  This particular skit could have been disastrous, but in Longstreth’s hands, it is funny and not offensive at all.

There is a funny sketch that pokes fun at dream sequences and plot twists as well as some genuinely hilarious commercial breaks.  We all hate those locally-produced commercials with the cheesy effects and the business owner hawking his own merchandise as well as those corny infomercials.  Both are well-represented here.

This is a high-quality production, written and directed with a sharp, ironic wit that deserves to be seen.  If you would like to view this short, please click here.