Stand Up and Pitch spotlight: “Myrtle and Willoughby”

Today is the final deadline to submit your short-form and long-form series ideas to Just For Laughs for festival’s annual “Stand Up & Pitch” contests in Montreal.

So let’s take a look at one of last year’s winners: Myrtle & Willoughby.

Brittany Tomkin and Jorja Hudson’s comedy mini-series about two, young female detectives on Brooklyn’s Millennial Crimes Unit won the Stand Up & Pitch “Beyond The Box: Playing It Short” honors. It’s that weird spin-off of Brooklyn 99 you didn’t know you needed.

Tomkin and Hudson have worked on several projects together as Brit & Brit; Hudson gets her “Brit” due to her adorable British accent that drops r’s all over the place.

In Myrtle & Willoughby, Tomkin plays hard-nosed cop Myrtle to Hudson’s Willoughby, and together, they just want to solve real crimes, and not millennial crimes such as misplaced iPads, mislabeled milk or missing money that turns out to be a victimless crime since the victim doesn’t understand how capitalism works. Will Hines plays their boss, Capt. Kipperary.

There’s a bearded intern everyone piles on named Phil Collins (hints of Office Space‘s Michael Bolton here).

Episode 4 is my favorite, as it splits up our partners so we can get a better idea of their Odd Couple lives.

I’m not a fan of Vimeo’s idea to auto-play the episodes in reverse order. But if you can get past that, you can see why Myrtle & Willoughby won funding support from Montreal’s JFL, as well as awards and honors from the Orlando Film Festival, Stareable Fest, Everybody Digital Film Festival, and Official Selection at ITVFest, Austin Film Festival, Hollyshorts Film Festival, Miami Web Fest, and more.

Here’s episode one to get you started on Myrtle & Willoughby:

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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