Shiny Objects Videos
Shiny Objects Videos is an amateur video production company which releases its videos on YouTube. The videos tend to be short, quirky, and absurd.
Shiny Objects was founded by Matthew "Curly" Jeffers, who is also responsible for writing No Black Plume. He aspired to be a television sketch comedy writer, and just so happened to have friends who aspired to be actors, editors, or cinematographers. Thus, Shiny Objects started as a venture for them to practice and hone their talents.
The core group currently consists of Curly Jeffers, Daniel Androski, and Nathan Scheekluth. Previous members have included Wesley Williams, Erik Klingenberg and Evan Guido, and other people have contributed in small roles.
Because of the nature of the videos, pretty much every trope can be assumed to be Played for Laughs.
There have been eight videos so far. Every video can be watched here.
Shiny Objects Videos provides examples of the following tropes:
- Acceptable Targets: Invoked by Curly, who makes fun of Mormons in "On The Couch".
- Adult Child: Daniel, Curly, and Guido in "On The Couch".
- Art Evolution: A rare live-action example. Later videos are less amateurish, especially in their cinematography, as the creators learned more about film. "Psychic Powers" offered an even greater leap.
- Beat: A favorite
- Berserk Button: See Disproportionate Retribution below.
- Big No
- Non Sequitur Scene: Invoked by the videos' erratic format.
- Big "What?"
- Calvin Ball: A board game of many board games
- The Cast Showoff: Daniel and Guido are actually really good singers. Curly likes to show off his knowledge of trivia.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Everyone has shades of this. Mostly Curly.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Erik, Wesley, and Guido eventually disappeared; enforced in Wesley's and Guido's case when they moved away.
- Demonic Possession: Of a toaster.
- Depending on the Writer: Though technically the writer has been the same for every sketch, the director has a pretty big impact on the ultimate style. (e.g. Daniel works in more improv, Nathan focuses more on non-verbal humor, Curly works off scripts)
- Development Hell: Where a lot of videos have been lost.
- Disproportionate Retribution: DO NOT sit in Daniel's spot.
- Does Not Like Shoes: Curly, especially in earlier videos. A case of Real Life Writes the Plot.
- Dress Code: Played for Laughs in "Magiconomy", where even a flowing wizard robe requires a tie.
- Ermine Cape Effect: Daniel is always impeccably dressed, even as a mage. Real Life Makes The Costumes.
- Fake Brit: Curly in "Fishsticks". Justified, but it's... kind of hard to explain.
- Flat No
- Functional Magic: Given a low-level deconstruction in "Magiconomy".
- Funny Character, Boring Actor: A partial inversion; Curly, who writes the scripts, is still pretty funny off-screen, but his humor tends to be quite a bit darker and more cynical than his over-the-top screen persona.
- Hammerspace: Lampshaded. It seems odd that Daniel hides weapons in Curly's house.
- Harpo Does Something Funny
- Hat Shop: Averted. Though frequently worn, the presence and style of hats is rather arbitrary.
- Heroic Sociopath: Either that or Villain Protagonist. YMMV.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: "Magiconomy"'s title.
- Knife Nut: Daniel
- Large Ham: Everyone, from time to time. Taken Up to Eleven in "Fishsticks".
- Mundane Utility: Curly gains psychic powers unmatched by anyone in the world. He uses it to correct Nathan's grammar.
- My Friends and Zoidberg: Up to Eleven in "On The Couch".
- Oh Crap
- Only Sane Man: Nathan usually fills this role.
- Overly Long Gag: Dice rolls take a long time in "Nerd Fight".
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Literally, since it's made of corrugated cardboard. Part of a Shout-Out to Metal Gear Solid.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: Perfectly willing to banish an employee to the nether realms.
- Psychic Powers: In a video appropriately called "Psychic Powers".
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The most common pairing is Curly as Red Oni and Daniel as Blue. Of course, neither of them is exactly grounded.
- Robe and Wizard Hat: Both averted and played straight in the same video, "Magiconomy".
- Rule of Funny: Reality has no place here.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Daniel in every video in which he appears. Curly in "Psychic Powers".
- Shout-Out: Several of them.
- Shown Their Work: The film debate Curly and Daniel have in "An Earnest Debate" is, in fact, legitimate, among other things.
- Slice of Life: Word of God: "It's sort of like taking plain, ordinary, unremarkable scenes from a world that's utterly unfounded in reality as we know it."
- Sesquipedalian Locquatiousness
- So Bad It's Good: Early camerawork, acting, and editing was done with virtually no training or know-how.
- Space Whale: The reason for "On The Couch".
- The Stinger
- Stop Edit
- This Is My Chair: Lampshaded. See Berserk Button for more.
- Vocal Evolution: Pretty much a given, since it's being made by teenage boys.
- What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: The point of "Fishsticks".
- Widget Series: A Western example. It's hard to make sense of any of it unless you're trying not to make sense of any of it.
- World of Ham: "Fishsticks" again.