March 12, 2002
A Boston artist hopes his cyber sitcom catches viewers in its Web

By Raphael Lewis
Globe Staff

Back in the good old days of irrational exuberance, when we viewed the Internet as the savior of modern society, the future of Web-based sitcoms, soap operas and dramas looked bright indeed.
Like the postwar fantasies of 21st century America that foretold a nation of floating cars, pill-size meals and daily shuttle trips to Mars, predictions for Web programming envisioned families gathered around the computer monitor, pointing and clicking their way to must-see shows enveloped by banner ads and hyperlinks to sponsors' Web sites.
Then the bubble burst, seed capital disappeared, and original online programming by pioneers such as HBO, Icebox.com and others all but disappeared.
But if investors and the networks fled the scene, some artists and writers continued to tinker and a few still hold out hope that the Internet could serve as a viable medium for filmed or animated programs -- and perhaps could be the last, best hope for the tired laugh-delivery system we call the sitcom.
On the ground floor of this virtual resurrection is Ravi Jain, a 31-year- old Boston performance artist who Tuesday launched “Three Abreast,” a semiautobiographical Web sitcom that documents the lives of three Jamaica Plain housemates who have a series of "madcap" adventures, complete with spit takes and pratfalls.
Big on goofy laugh tracks and formulaic story lines inspired by “Scooby- Doo” and “Three's Company” and small on acting, editing and production quality, “Three Abreast” still manages to pull off what most TV sitcoms can't: inspiring a few good laughs.
But the real reason to click on “Three Abreast” is the medium, not the message. The seven “Three Abreast” episodes, which will appear at www.three-abreast.com every other week, have been tailored to the Internet, unlike so many Web-based shows of the late 1990s that seemed to appear on the Internet simply because the Net was there.
Each show runs just eight minutes, which means the average cubicle dweller could easily sneak in a show during a coffee or lunch break. But more significantly, Jain has created what he calls the “Comedy Extender,” a cyber version of VH1's "Pop-Up Video" that runs onscreen beside the show to give viewers a chance to digest obscure pop-culture references, click on other related sites, learn more about the actors and even view storyboards and scripts.
Taken together, the show and the extensions really do make for a different, more interactive viewing experience.
“There had to be a reason it was on the Web,” says Jain, sipping coffee in the Jamaica Plain home where he filmed, produced and edited the series. “The Comedy Extender allows it to be dynamic.”
Not that Web programming is a new concept. Throughout the dot-com hysteria of the late '90s, veteran television professionals and amateurs alike attracted millions of dollars in seed money from venture capital firms hoping Internet entertainment would take off. Icebox.com featured several writers and producers from “The Simpsons,” “King of the Hill” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and it actually succeeded in selling a couple of its short animated programs to Showtime and Fox. At its peak, Icebox.com had 106 employees and 5 million visitors a month visited its Web site, says co-founder Tal Vigderson.
But when the hype died down, most original, professional programming on the Web died along with it. Icebox.com went belly up in 2000, and when the company revived itself last spring, only five staffers were left -- with no promotional budget. The site has yet to create a new episode, Vigderson says. “Right now, there's no money in this stuff,” he says. “But we absolutely believe it's a viable medium.”
Many of the networks that toyed with the notion of putting original “content” on their Web sites have abandoned the idea of separate shows that appear only on the Web. HBO, which in the late 1990s had a popular Web show called “3 a.m.,” now uses its site solely to enhance already popular television shows such as “The Sopranos” and “Oz,” says HBO Senior Vice President Sarah Cotsen. “We tie content in all cases to HBO's linear programming,” she says.
Occasionally, though, HBO will introduce a new character or continue a scene on HBO.com using the now popular “Webisode” device, fueling the desire of fanatical viewers to delve as deeply as possible into a plotline.
David Card, a senior analyst for Jupiter Media Metrix, an Internet market-research firm, says Jain's venture may succeed because Jain recognized the inherent limits and benefits of broadcasting on the Web. Aside from the Comedy Extender, which Card calls ingenious, the “Three Abreast” shows are short, acknowledging the fact that the downloading process, even with the best connection, can be a bummer. But because Jain will pull episodes after two weeks, he will create “the kind of momentum and buzz that the networks exploit,” Card says.
“There's a kind of community building that occurs when a lot of people are waiting for an episode of 'Friends' that a lot of Web programming didn't take into account,” Card says. “If it's always there, there's no momentum, there's no need to hurry up and see it.”
For now, Jain says he has no interest in making money, reviving a lost cyber-art or making it big -- not that he'd turn down any of that. Tall and lanky, with a serious mien that belies his comic's heart, Jain says his chief interest is to get people to see “Three Abreast,” attract a following and keep making new episodes.
“This is a labor of love,” says Jain, who has already gained some notoriety in Boston as a “Transportation Pioneer,” showing up in a variety of costumes to the ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new train lines, bridges and tunnels. “The goal is to have eyeballs on this thing. I'm putting my identity out there for people to see. It's basically a form of artistic expression. There's a future, I think, for content like this, now that people have the access.”

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