The Van Gogh-Goghs sketch humor on Web

  www.vgg.com

By Suneal Kolluri
Daily Bruin Contributor

Nineteenth century artist Vincent Van Gogh displayed his
brilliance in the beauty of his artwork, though demonstrating to
the world he was unstable by cutting his ear off.

The Van Gogh-Goghs, a sketch comedy group based in Westwood,
live up to the brilliance and craziness of their namesake, with the
intelligent, yet zany, humor of their Web site, www.vgg.com.

The group is made up of six young men from North Carolina who
relocated their comedy group to Westwood in 1997 and now run their
popular corresponding Web site, which gets around a million hits a
month.

These six, self-acclaimed “dorky hooligans” ““
Galen Black, T. Mike Childs, Charles Rempel, Rob Terrell, Alan
Benson and Jason Torchinsky ““ divide their time between
performing their live sketch comedy routines and running their
award-winning site.

Much to the surprise of its creators, the Web site has become an
immensely popular location on the Web. It has won numerous awards
for its interesting brand of humor, including a “Best of the
Web 1999″ recognition in the U.S. News and World Report
magazine.

It all started when Van Gogh Gogh member, Jason Torchinsky, was
doing stand up comedy at North Carolina University, Chapel Hill.
Staff from the dorms at the university asked Torchinsky if he could
do a show on Easter, and Torchinsky lied on the spot, saying he
actually had a sketch comedy group.

“After he lied, he had to make it real,” Childs said
about the incident in a recent interview.

Jason then called up his friends from North Carolina and formed
the present day sketch comedy group, which was originally called
“Jason and Friends.” Their name was later changed to
the Van Gogh-Goghs due to complaints from members of the group that
are not named Jason.

“We like to say that we’re not named after Vincent
(Van Gogh), we’re named after his much, much more successful
brother, Theo “¦ he was a successful art dealer, had a stable
family and kids and he didn’t go crazy and cut his ear
off,” Childs said.

The group does various shows in the L.A area and recently
traveled to the “Seattle Sketch-fest 2000.” A typical
Van Gogh-Goghs show consists of numerous sketches ranging in time
from two to 15 minutes.

“We mix it up,” Childs said. “We do physical
comedy and we do stuff that’s more wordy and
talky.”

In 1994, the group began their popular Web site with the hopes
of promoting their shows. At first the Web site was simple and used
only as a promotional tool, but then, in 1997, the Van Gogh-Goghs
used their computer skills to make their site as elaborate and
high-tech as it is today.

The group is very knowledgeable when it comes to putting
together a Web site. Torchinsky now works as a graphic designer and
Terrel as a computer programmer for the site. They update it
themselves every weekday.

The site’s clever displays include political commentary,
surveys, porn site spoofs. As one scrolls through the list of
options displayed on the creative opening page, a “furniture
porn” option seems worthy of a click. The link takes users to
what seems to be a porn site.

Users can then only enter if they agree (among other things) not
to “share any materials on this site with minors or allow
minors to view any portion of this site, or mix paper and plastic
recyclables or allow minors to mix paper and plastic
recyclables.” With a whole section devoted to photos of horny
home furnishings in compromising positions, the Van Gogh-Goghs
prove over and over again that animate objects aren’t the
only ones with hormones.

The Van Gogh-Goghs also display sophistication with historical
and political comedy. The section “Kremlin Fried
Chicken,” for instance, makes numerous historical references
to the Soviet Union as the comedians write numerous commentaries on
the recent election fiasco.

Was the recent presidential election just? Is there a better way
to elect our president? On the Web site, Terrell claims that he has
the answers to these questions: “Let ’em fight! If I
was king, I’d arm both of them in an alley with a baseball
bat studded with nails and a garbage can lid and tell ’em
whoever walks out gets the job.”

Even Los Angeles, current home to the Van Gogh-Goghs, is unable
to escape the troupe’s harsh attacks. For instance, according
to the site, the sun is supposedly “trying to kill you”
and “black boogers” result from the thick L.A smog.

“L.A. has maybe five
protected-turn-signal-green-arrow-things for the entire city. If
you are at a light and want to make a left hand turn “¦ I pity
you “¦ and if you can’t parallel park, then don’t
move here,” Childs writes on the Web site.

As for the future of the Van Gogh-Goghs, Childs predicts a not
so promising future.

“I think Jason is going to become famous as a stand up
comedian, and dump us,” he said. “Bitter, we’ll
be forced to move back to North Carolina and then take up real
menial jobs. And then when E! Entertainment comes around in 10
years to do a spread on Jason in his early days, we’ll all be
bitter vindictive old guys with hats.

“No, I think our plans are to keep doing the live shows,
keep filming stuff “¦ at some point we may even try to shoot
our own feature length movie “¦ nothing stands in the way of
what we’re going to do,” Childs added in
seriousness.

WEB: The Van Gogh-Goghs perform Jan. 20 at the
Comedy Store, 8433 Sunset Blvd. For information or reservations
call (323) 650-6268. Visit the the group online at www.vgg.com.