Matthew Foster

We’ve all heard the tale of the Wright Brothers: how Orville and Wilbur, two bicycle repairmen, attained sustained motorized flight for the first time. But some of their other accomplishments are less well known. How much has been written about their work aiding President Teddy Roosevelt? Not nearly enough. Or their efforts to stop the diabolical plans of the foul Spanish using their iconic airplane? Again, that information just isn’t readily available, until now. Thanks to writer/directors Ford Austin and Scott Ingalls, these little known aspects of U.S. history are at last brought to light in the short, The Wright Stuff. If you are a trivia buff, you can gain even more information in the three follow-up segments (Chinese Takeout; Zombies from the Bermuda Triangle, and Revenge of Mr. Wright) where the brothers’ exploits with Dr. Fu Manchu, Amelia Earhart, and blood-crazed zombies are detailed.

Austin and Ingalls created their epic for Channel101, a weird hybrid of film festival, non-broadcast TV network, and drunk guys throwing popcorn at a screen. Each month, through their website and at a live screening in LA, ten films are shown and then subjected to the uncertain opinions of the audience. The five that receive the most votes become (or continue to be) prime time series, and the filmmakers have to come up with another segment quick. The Wright Stuff survived four weeks of this high pressure format. I’d have been happy if it had lasted ten times that number.

Filmed in black and white with only minimal concern for what looks real (yet with some surprisingly good effects), The Wright Stuff turns the clock back a hundred years. It’s vaudeville shtick on video and you couldn’t ask for better. The jokes are broad, the innuendo outlandish yet somehow innocent, and the stories are just coherent enough to support the gags, and there are a lot to support. It’s rapid fire. Almost every one hit my funny bone, but if a few don’t work for you, no problem as there will be twenty more in the next minute.

The writer/directors take on the lead roles of the overbearing white bread Wilbur and his milquetoast brother Orville. They lend the proper touch of absurdity to their characterizations, playing always to the audience. The rest of the cast keeps the wacky tone going, particularly Ethan Phillips (Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager) as an unstable President Teddy Roosevelt.

There’s no grand point being made. Austin and Ingalls have no agenda beyond making their audience laugh, and in that they succeed. This is pure entertainment.