Call it one of those great-minds-think-alike coincidences that two-year old “Fun Employed” webisodes and MTV’s “UnderEmployed” upcoming pilot are mirror images of each other.
But “Fun Employed” fans ain’t buyin’.
They charge the MTV show is an unequivocal rip-off of “Fun Employed,” in an uncommon number of BackTalk comments to a recent Reel story about the comedy pilot’s May 5 shoot in Chicago.
The MTV storyline is about five Chicago 20something college grads and best friends, who go through a series of odd jobs and low-paying gigs as they attempt to start their careers.
Ditto “Fun Employed.”
Playwright Craig Wright created and is penning “UnderEmployed.”. Troy Miller (“Parks and Recreation”) is the director; L.A.-based former Chicagoan Wileen Dragovon is producing and local Rich Lederer is UPM.
“It’s very possible that MTV picked up on what we’ve been doing,” says Michael Lippert, “Fun Employed’s” writer/actor/producer/director.
“We haven’t contacted the MTV people because we just heard about their show.”
The show wasn’t copyrighted at the outset, Lippert acknowledges, but he appears unworried about infringement issues as YouTube time dates its content to show ownership. Nonetheless, they are looking for legal assistance.
Each “Fun Employed” episode runs between 5-7 minutes. Last season the Chicago Five put up seven episodes and plan to produce more, “as long as we have the time and the people to produce them,” says Lippert.
New shows are posted the second Monday of every month, making May 9 the date of the next episode. “The new show is about the guys moving into a new apartment after being homeless for a couple of months. They discover their new neighbors happen to be their Doppelgangers,” describes Lippert.
“Fun Employed’s” troupe has film and theatre backgrounds
The Chicago Five of “Fun Employed” are friends who met while attending the Savannah College of Art & Design – Lippert’s wife, actress/writer Kate Carson-Groner, actor/writers Ted Evans and Alex Harris and actress Alix Klingenberg – who collaborate in the writing and act in the series.
All of them have film and theatre backgrounds, says Lippert, a Cincinnati native. He and his wife, Kate Carson-Groner, who hails from Elkin, N.C., moved here after living in L.A. having decided, correctly as it’s turning out, that Chicago would be the best city for a visual media career.
Lippert’s day job for the past three years has been an assistant editor at Cutters and Carson-Groner works consistently as a voiceover and theatre actress.
The Chicago Five started floating ideas around in 2007 for a TV web series based on their wry post-graduate inconsistent, low-paying job experiences. They got serious about writing the show in 2008. The following year they connected with a friend who owned his own cameras and gear and they began shooting monthly episodes.
