A&E

Move over, Jenna Marbles — two Communication seniors are putting their hilarious friendship on screen in the YouTube web series “Black Friday.”

Janice Theard and Khari Shelton both appeared in “The Laramie Project” in Fall Quarter 2014 and worked together, outside of the theater, to help promote another show on campus.

They created a promotional video for Arts Alliance’s production of “Good People” and joked around about the title.

“A friend of ours later on joked that the video was so popular that we should have our own TV show,” Theard said. “That also started out as a joke and then all of a sudden we were in (Shelton’s) apartment and we called up our friend Emma to come over, and interviewed her.”

The first episode was called “Black Friday,” as a joke between the two, and the title stuck for the whole series.

“We got back from Thanksgiving break and I was like, ‘Khari, how was your Black Friday? Did you go shopping?’ and he was like, ‘I mean, it was just Friday for me because I’m black,’” Theard said.

The episodes showcase the friendship and silly behavior between Shelton and Theard, as they do improv conversations on different topics and interview friends.

“Khari’s really good at editing so we just sit in iMovie after we’re done filming everything and we just edit it all together,” Theard said. “A lot of the humor comes from the ridiculous editing, I think.”

The duo has heard of friends showing “Black Friday” episodes to their families and were surprised to learn that Communication Prof. Rives Collins had seen the show online.

“Rives came up to me when I was in T.I. one day and he was like, ‘When’s the next episode of ‘Black Friday’ coming out?’” Theard said. “It was really surprising to know that he was keeping up with ‘Black Friday.'”

Filming the show has become a pastime for Theard and Shelton, though their schedules dictate when they can film.

“It’s cool to have a thing that we do together that seems to make our friends laugh,” Theard said. “If we manage to keep doing it the rest of the year, that would be a huge success on our part.”

After its somewhat accidental start, the show has become a way for the friends to share their humor with their friends and family, Theard said.

“My favorite part is bringing all of our friends on to it,” Shelton said. “It’s literally so informal. It’s all one take and then it’s done. We’re just playing with our friends and then we put it online.”

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @razdav5678