by VRV has made a name for itself as a streaming service built on anime, partnerships with niche networks such as Rooster Teeth and Shudder, and outcasts from the late, great Seeso.
Now comes Live from WZRD, a webseries that manages to offer a little something for each of VRV’s fan groups.
The first eight episodes, out now, establish the main focus as a talk show (“Live from WZRD”) broadcast from East Gatewood, a community college for wizards in the Southern California town of La Crescenta. East Gatewood might not be Hogwarts, but it does have goblins and talking trees and magical orbs, and a dean who’s also a dog.
Open Mike Eagle and Dani Fernandez host the talk show as fictionalized versions of themselves. In this part of the multiverse, Eagle has stuck around East Gatewood for seven years due to a credit dispute with the robot registrar, while Fernandez is a plucky frosh brand-new to magic and super psyched about it. Jessica McKenna (from Party Over Here) plays their show’s producer, a daughter of wizard types who displays no magical skills herself, except for her ability to keep the show running.
Each episode includes a guest they “summon up, summon up” via spell seeking the nearest possible non-magical celebrity — which, this being near Los Angeles, usually means some combination of YouTuber/comedian.
So far, their guests have included SungWon Cho, Brandon Rogers, Yedoye Travis, Baron Vaughn (who co-hosts The New Negroes on Comedy Central with Eagle!), Freddie Wong, Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart, and Rhea Butcher. Chris Gethard, Travis Willingham and Paul F. Tompkins all make cameos as East Gatewood alums offering advice to students such as not wearing wizard robes. “We’re not trying to do cosplay here,” Gethard warns.
It’s part talk show, part sketch comedy, part narrative, with each 20-minute episode also including fake ads, news around campus, and a thru-line plot involving an orb that Fernandez finds that tempts its holder to pursue all-encompassing power. So, you know, the usual.
Full episodes drop on YouTube on Saturdays, and later, you can also check out extended interviews with each Live from WZRD guest.
Check it out!
Full episodes:
Extended interviews:
