User:Bbdm

Bbdm
Created by	Elaine Carroll
Directed by	Sam Reich
Starring	Elaine Carroll
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	45
Production
Running time	90 seconds
Original release
Network	CollegeHumor YouTube Vimeo
Release	January 10, 2010 – present

Very Mary-Kate is a web series written by Elaine Carroll and directed by Sam Reich. The series, consisting of 45 episodes of approximately 90 seconds each, features writer and comedienne Elaine Carroll as Mary-Kate Olsen. The series was originally produced out-of-pocket, but was picked up for its second season by CollegeHumor allowing Carroll to “pay for lunch for people.”

The series premiered January 10, 2011 on Vimeo. In interviews, Carroll states that she had been doing the Olsen twin impression for about two years before making a short video called “The Olsen Twin Minute” that “featured Mary-Kate and Ashley in a talk show.” The experience led Carroll to realize she wanted to do more with the twin impression and “started trying to visualize what life is like for them. They’re rich and famous, but also kind of mysterious and private, which leaves a ton of room for the imagination.” Taking facts she already knew, such as Olsen’s use of a bodyguard and taking classes at NYU, Carroll crafted a web series that “started filling in the blanks.”

Utilizing various social media tools, “Very Mary-Kate” has maintained a steady internet presence since its inception. The web series has a Facebook page, with information and videos, as well as a Facebook application that users can allow to post videos and information about the show on their personal profiles. VMK characters can also be found tweeting regularly on Twitter. The @VeryMaryKate Twitter account has been running since April 2009 and “provides no shortage of great one-liners and increases the show’s social networking component.” The show also maintains a YouTube profile, but all videos and information premiere first on CollegeHumor, along with site exclusives and videos that cannot be shown on YouTube.

Plot

“Very Mary-Kate” is the “unofficial biography of everyone’s favorite Olsen twin,” Mary-Kate Olsen. Carroll’s portrayal of Olsen takes several well-known facts of Mary-Kate Olsen’s life (such as attending NYU and picking up occasional acting jobs) and “expands on them, creating a character who’s a weak-yet-demanding kitten obsessed with calories, abusing her bodyguard and getting her hands on the good drugs.” The series follows the adventures of Carroll’s Mary-Kate Olsen including daily routines, classes at NYU, religious experiences, major life decisions (moving out from an apartment shared with twin sister Ashley Olsen, deciding to have a baby, and more) and general troublesome situations in which Mary-Kate seems to find herself (for instance, Trip to Las Vegas: Parts 1-4).

Main characters

• Mary-Kate Olsen – one-half of the famous Olsen twin duo who has a Bodyguard-turned-personal-assistant-and-caretaker, occasionally takes classes at NYU; is obsessed with calories and loves prescription medication cocktails (heavy on the prescription). Currently Mary-Kate splits her time between New York City and Los Angeles, but may not be exactly sure where she is most of the time.
• Ashley Olsen – Mary-Kate’s twin sister; similar in mind and body to Mary-Kate and the source of an off-and-on sibling rivalry (especially when it comes to Bodyguard)
• Bodyguard – Mary-Kate’s bodyguard who becomes more like a personal assistant/caretaker/nanny, who is supposed to be available at any and all times; he works for Ashley when MK fires him before re-hiring him
• Phil Lansford aka "Fat Professor" – Professor of Literature at NYU; hobbies include mapmaking and bicycling
• Philip Seymour Hoffman – actor; begins as Mary-Kate’s acting coach, but begins appearing at her apartment unannounced and making perverse phone calls to Mary-Kate
• Woody Allen – director, actor, screenwriter, author, playwright; the twins’ godfather and butt of "old" jokes

Cast

• Elaine Carroll – Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
• Luke Sholl - Bodyguard
• Will Hines – Fat Professor
• Josh Ruben – Philip Seymour Hoffman
• Amir Blumenfeld – Woody Allen

Reception & Reviews

Very Mary-Kate currently has over 3,800,000 upload views on YouTube as of April 2011, along with over 36,000 channel subscribers. The series has also amassed a following on Facebook, with over 16,000 "likes." The @VeryMaryKate Twitter account has just over 21,000 followers as of April 2011. Very Mary-Kate has inspired a variety of fan tributes, including Halloween costumes and a variety of images portraying fans posing in the limp-wristed, hunched posture of Carroll's Mary-Kate Olsen, making the signature facial expression, posted to the Very Mary-Kate Facebook page.

The @rcade states that, "Elaine has brought one of the funniest and best web-series to the internet. Her performance as the rich teen princess and her rich teen princess twin sister is flawless, (flawless in the sense that we've never met the Olsen twins but we've always assumed that they acted just as Elaine portrays them). Less than two minutes in length, each episode is guaranteed to have you laughing within the first 12 seconds (how exact!) and you will no doubt be hooked as we were and will certainly need to check out more of her stuff."

Liz Shannon Miller of GigaOM writes, "Suffice it to say that the Valley-girl-transplanted-to-SoHo portrayal is thus incredibly harsh, but unless you’re actually Mary-Kate Olsen, I defy you not to laugh. Production values are low and the sound quality is less than impressive, but the informal nature of the videos work, and the tightly-paced episodes fit a whole lot of painfully funny jokes into just one minute. The exchanges between her and her bodyguard are especially funny thanks to his defeated nature — the pair make for a truly engaging odd couple."

External links

• Very Mary-Kate - official site
• Very Mary-Kate on CollegeHumor
• Very Mary-Kate on YouTube
• The Unofficial Twitter of Mary-Kate Olsen on Twitter
• The Unofficial Twitter of Ashley Olsen on Twitter
• The Unofficial Twitter of Mary-Kate’s Bodyguard on Twitter
• Phil Lansford (Fat Professor) on Twitter
• The Unofficial Twitter of Philip Seymour Hoffman on Twitter
• Very Mary-Kate at IMDb

Bbdm (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC)