Online Video

Your Dysfunctional Family

12 Comments

I often do videos I don’t love, and they get lots of views for reasons I can’t explain. And then occasionally I do a video that I personally like, and the masses feel otherwise. This holiday video fits the latter category. I’ve watched it a dozen times, and it cracks me up. The stereotypical dysfunctions of a family gathering… and the cool music played by my father-in-law. 

Naturally everyone was aware this was a parody, and few of the family members actually resemble their characters. For instance, my brother-in-law Greg doesn’t drink. But he played a sneaking boozer pretty well… without the “over the top” drunk moves that many would have chosen. And our sweet niece Ali played the whining teen pretty darned well. 

Through careful editing, most of it appears candid style- and I deliberately shot across the room to give it that feel. Enjoy your holiday weekend, and all the dysfunction we call family. 🙂


 

12 thoughts on “Your Dysfunctional Family”

  1. Hey Nalts, it’s good to know that you, too, have dysfunctional family stereotypes. Mine would probably include Aunt “Crazy hypochondriac Janice lady who is completely nuts without a cause, and always gets tipsy and tries to get me to dance like an Ogre with her to the tune of The Nutcracker”, Uncle “married to crazy Janice lady because he knocked her up, but deserves better because he is awesome”, aunt “also awesome, and works at a zoo”, “Crazy janice’s best friend Kath, who is a gossipy bitch and shouldn’t be there because she isn’t part of our family”, “mentally challenged 29 year old guy who I have never seen before in my entire life”, and most of all, I also have a drunken jerkoff. We call him “carside”, for no reason at all.

    Don’t even get me started on the family Christmas. Then I’d have to tell you about fat uncle “waste of skin who ruins everything always, and if he died it wouldn’t give a single living person an ounce of sadness, and would probably be cause of celebrating because he is literally the worst person I have ever seen in my entire life, and I honestly don’t hate anybody more, even if he is my uncle”.

    Happy Holidays everybody!

  2. This was a fun video to watch. Even if it doesn’t go mainstream like all of the “poop and fart” jokes to get everyone to laugh, it’ll make you think of all the crazies in your own family. Its good now and then to take an outsider’s perspective and just enjoy the people you are around and have a little bit of fun, even if the stories are all made up.

  3. Well, here’s my take on why this isn’t going to thrill the masses (hey how do you know that anyway? it just went up yesterday).

    There are a lot of rather good, feature-length studio films on dysfunctional family get-togethers at the holidays. It’s a genre richly mined. In a full-length film you have the opportunity to develop a strong feeling about someone and then have your mind opened when their character is more fully elaborated through plot development. This usually involves a somewhat cathartic climax and denouement.

    The lighting and sound in your movie made it hard to fully hear/see what was going on. Plus, we really needed more closeups to get inside the neurotics’ heads. Finally, I don’t care how she tries, WoN is never going to come across as a neurotic so-and-so; she doesn’t have the decades of worry lines that it requires. (She’s too pretty, is the problem.)

    I think the character missing from this video was Kevin, who plays neurotic pretty well. You need a camera, lighting and sound team so you can be in your own videos (unless they involve pratfalls, and then you need a stunt double).

    BTW, my favorite dysfunctional family movie of all time had to be The Royal Tenenbaums. I felt like I died and went to – the family of my teenage years. Or Hell. Either designation applies.

  4. My whole family is the drunk uncle. Actually my mom is the one that never shuts up about the latest diet fad as she stuffs her face with pumpkin pie.

  6. Believe it or not I have a buddy who hates You Tube, (I know, imagine?!)
    To make a long story short, I was watching this video while he was standing behind me talking to someone else and to my surprise when I turned around he was totally engaged in watching this video. At the end he said, “That was pretty good,” and he rarely says anything like that, so this video made quite an impression on one of the staunchest critics I know.

    I think you found your new forte, the Mokumentary

  7. 3- OMG Dahlia comes out with some serious analysis. Yeah- Jo can’t pull that off because she’s too smiley. And because we kinda know her already. That’s why i didn’t put myself in… I wanted it to feel more like candid camera.

    6- but did he subscribe!? Mean Kitty is breathing down my neck!

  8. Yeah, Dahlia was right about a lot of things. I enjoyed it, but perhaps not as much as I would have had I not already known that Jo was so NOT like her character.

    I no longer have parents, so we always go to my in-laws for Thanksgiving. I have the drunk, facist, hunting father-in-law who can’t stop talking about how great Bush is and who really would rather be hunting, the tireless mother-in-law who still manages to spend her whole life in the kitchen (at 86!), even though all she makes anymore in the cranberry sauce.

    My brother-in-law and his wife do Thanksgiving in Florida with her dad, so we don’t have to listen to her go on ad nauseum about how great it is that they have 2 six-figure jobs and no kids and travel everywhere and hate my dog.

    Then there is the bright spot in all of this; my husband’s 2nd cousin who does 90% of the work to get dinner on the table, and she is a great cook and a great hostess and I find it hard to believe she shares any blood with the rest of them.

Comments are closed.