Wrestling Team (Andy Beckerman, Mark Charles Bisi Jr., Comedy Duo)

Wrestling Team is the four-year-old absurd comedy project of Mark Bisi and Andrew Beckerman. Predicated on the idea that comedy should be like a well-crafted pop song, in the sense that not a moment is wasted, the duo has produced live sketches, short films and two episodes of their eponymous, independent television show, all marked by fast-paced dialogues and visual gags that constantly keep the viewer on her toes. While influences such as The Kids in the Hall, Mr. Show, Upright Citizens Brigade and Stella are obvious, Beckerman and Bisi also draw upon the silly cleverness of The Marx Brothers, the surreality of Luis Buñuel, the neurotic humor of Woody Allen and the character moments of writers like Joss Whedon and Rob Thomas. In fact, their diverse influences speak quite well to their approach to comedy: the creation of humor through intense incongruity - verbal, physical and referential. It is not uncommon to see a reference to Freud or Foucault followed immediately by one to Buffy or Battlestar Galactica, or to follow a pratfall or vaudevillian gag with a joke about dialectical materialism. The two also enjoy employing strange non sequiturs, but unlike many others who use this strategy, do not simply use randomness to mask lazy writing, but try to weave them all together to create a puzzling but coherent whole, as if there was something just out of the viewer's grasp, tantalizingly close.

In 2003, Beckerman, having recently graduated from Pitt with a degree in philosophy and not knowing what to do with his life, was working a dead-end job at a Pitt library. As he fell deeper and deeper into an existential morass of despair, one bright spot appeared out of the fog of life-anxiety: The Art of News. An odd mixture of The Daily Show, The Day Today, and other things I don't know about because I never bothered to ask them what influenced them, The Art of News ran local happenings through a surreal filter, squeezing out ridiculousness like so much play-doh through a Fun Factory. Beckerman quickly grew to be friends with the crowd and influenced by their DIY TV making ethic and encouraged by their goading whispers, thought that starting a comedy show would be a good idea.

Beckerman and Bisi had met earlier through some mutual friends and although both were introverted and self-conscious, they quickly grew to have short conversations and would often shake hands when they met. Later, when Beckerman was allowed to hire a student helper at his dead-end library job, Bisi's name came up and the deal was sealed. The close proximity of working together allowed their cordiality to develop into a tentative friendship based on a love of pop music and weird comedy, and when the idea of starting a comedy project became an imminent possibility, Beckerman thought that the only other person that might be into it would be Bisi. And so after rejecting some hideous names - for example, Beans and Wieners (which Bisi still laments) - Wrestling Team was born.

The early days of Wrestling Team were based around the duo trying to find their legs both in terms of the live show and their independent sketch show. After many mishaps, though, the two found their voice - a hodgepodge of cerebral and stupid remarks crushed into dust and sealed in a comedy shell. The two aim to create a feeling of surreality in their audience and through that, laughs. While the live performances of Wrestling Team sometimes feature sketches, Bisi and Beckerman mostly perform surreal dialogues that find the two playing odd versions of themselves. They've explained why crickets can always be heard when a joke fails (it dates back to the ages-old war between comedians and the insects in question), what would happen if Karl Rove and Machiavelli met (they would try to figure out how Rove managed to travel through time), and the political implications of Beckerman's abduction by the grand vizier of an alien race who then replaced him in Wrestling Team and used the comedy duo as a tax shelter. Although the two often tackle political themes and enjoy making critiques in their writing, they never overtly drive the message into their audience with heavy hands and prefer to rather let the viewers figure things out for themselves. Each show is recounted through the eyes of both Bisi and Beckerman in the live show section of their webpage.

Beyond the live show, though, the duo is embroiled in a number of ventures, but their paramount project is Wrestling Team, the independent television show which is the culmination of their comedic strategy. They have already produced two episodes, mostly on no budget, and are currently attempting to secure funding for their third episode. Although the two have enjoyed the programs they have already produced and think them to be worthwhile, they believe that they suffer from low production values and wish to create an episode that is visually appealing in addition to being comedically satisfying. The third episode aims to combine the aesthetic of Lars von Trier's Dogville with the small town charm of Gilmore Girls to tell the tale of New Boonesville, a small town under the grip of a terrible, Lovecraftian being, and the attempts of a small few to overthrow the eldritch dictator. In addition to the live performances and independent program, Wrestling Team also produces a biweekly video podcast, maintains a website with new content being added on a weekly basis, is working on a comic with well-known Pittsburgh artist Beano, writes scripts - both original and spec, and produces DVDs containing Wrestling Team episodes, shorts, commentaries and featurettes.