User blog:Colorband/The Inside Men

Now, you may have heard of a comedy troupe called The Inside Men in my prior blogpost. "But Colorband," you screech at me as I yet again fail to make more logos, "What exactly is a The Inside Men?"

Well, that's a very good question! The Inside Men are a Rivlandian comedy troupe that got their start in 1983 when they made a show for RNT Two called... well, The Inside Men. It was absurdist and silly - kind of like Anglosaw's The Young Ones without the musical interludes. Back then, there were only 3 Inside Men - Curt Middleton, Tony Hill, and Russ Alvarez. It was rather popular, but only ran for 2 seasons. In 1990, TVM - then only recently having started national broadcasts - flaunted their newspaper backing and commissioned a sketch show by the troupe. This show, which would be named Let's Talk About..., would go on to be a hit, lasting for 5 absurdly long (in Euredecian standards) seasons from 1990 to 1995. This show would be where Curt, Tony, and Russ would meet the last 3 members of The Inside Men - Jimmy Perkins, Matt Stevens, and Debbie Beck (although she wouldn't officially be named a member until later).

After the success of Let's Talk About..., The Inside Men went back to the RNT and made a comedic travelogue series called Our Inside Men In..., which is basically known now for being a flop, despite the rather good reviews. Probably genre-shock more than anything, to be honest. The negative public reception caused both the RNT and The Inside Men to not produce any more episodes, while The Inside Men (who owned the copyright to the show, having made it through Hambone, their production company) have never had the series reissued on home video. Well, except for the "Hokusei" episode, in which the troupe did a mime routine on the Shibuya Crossing and appeared on the show Gaki No Tsukai.

After this, The Inside Men went into a bit of a brief hiatus, and returned in 1998 with High Altitude, an actual movie, produced by Hambone and distributed by Projection. Basically, it was about some stoners who were also astronauts. It basically went the opposite way that "Our Inside Men In..." did - audiences loved it, critics didn't. And so, as it turned out, did The Inside Men. This would wind up being their last work.

After High Altitude, the group went their separate ways. Curt was the first to strike back, starting the topical sketch show FastNews TV in 2004 on Network Six. The show, the only one made by Hambone after the breakup, lasted 4 seasons and ended in 2011. In 2006, Tony Hill came back onto the scene with... a crime drama? Who Killed Johnny Taggart?, produced and distributed by Neptunic, starred a few Inside Men collaborators, but was otherwise as far removed from their previous work as you could get. It was actually fairly reasonably successful at the box office - especially abroad. The next 2 years saw the last 3 members of The Inside Men finally reintegrate into the media landscape - Russ Alvarez started Hafaffia in 2007 for PointTwo, and ended up making 4 seasons and a movie out of it, while Jimmy and Matt teamed up for the Rivlandian version of Wipeout in 2008.

In 2013, The Inside Men came out of the woodwork to announce 2 things - they were going on a reunion tour, and Debbie Beck was an actual member of the troupe now. The Unneeded 30th Anniversary Cash Grab, as they called their tour, was actually a massive success. But a TV show wasn't on the cards... until it was. In 2020, the RNT announced that The Inside Men would be back on RNT Two with a sketch comedy series, titled Let's Talk Some More About.... Filming was later delayed, and the title changed to The Inside Men Save The World, until finally becoming The Inside Men's Guide to.... The show aired in 2021, was produced by Hambone, and - in a first for an Inside Men production - not only co-starred, but was co-written by a featured cast of newly-established voices in the Rivlandian comedy scene. In July 2022, the series was renewed for a second & final season. The season, which began airing bi-weekly from April 13th, 2023, has been hinted as being the troupe's final piece of work in interviews and promotional materials.

So there it is, everything you didn't ask about The Inside Men and certainly didn't want to actually find out.