Highlighting Hard Left

My new blog on BostonNOW! Go to the entertainment page and check it out WITH video.
Thanks Robert and Taylor!


Hard Left Production’s big break came when they were able to make it look as though a Nintendo Wii controller was lodged in Taylor’s eye. Hard Left, comprised of Robert Woo and Taylor Newhall, was capitalizing on the Wii safety backlash wherein folks began reporting that the console’s controllers could fly out of hands and cause damage to person and property. Hard Left posted their sketch on Youtube.com under the simple title “Wii Accident”, and started a sensation. Before long they’d received over a million hits, and an endless string of comments debating whether the accident was real.

“The very thought that people think that it could be real is ridiculous to me,”says Woo, but adds, “It has 1.6 million views, has been linked on CNN.com, and was even played in the background of an official Nintendo video they played at a game expo,”…I guess a little controversy can go a long way.

Taylor Newhall and Robert Woo are truly members of Generation Y… Y as in “Youtube”, that is. Ever since Saturday Night Live’s Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg started rapping about The Chronicles of Narnia in 2005, something amazing has happened in the world of comedy – it’s gone viral. Hard Left Productions has been able to ride this wave skillfully with their hilariously unique concepts and humor that runs from the super-witty (their “Writer’s Strike” sketch features writers with blank picket signs) to the totally absurd.

Since the fall of 2006, Newhall and Woo have tried to shoot one sketch every month and credit most of their ideas to “beer…and improv”. Both work at Improv Boston and met while doing a two person improv show with the now defunct Tribe Theater. When asked how they came up with the name Hard Left, Woo says, “We noticed that our ideas always ended with an abrupt left turn at the end of each sketch, so we wanted Left Turn Productions. That was already taken, so we chose Hard Left.”

With mounting momentum and an ever growing online fan base, Hard Left Productions is definitely one to watch. And as for the Wii controller lodged in Taylor’s eye…Robert explains, “Taylor was a trooper. He has a glass eye due to a childhood fishing accident. So he removed it and we placed the Wiimote gingerly into the eye socket. We added some fake blood and there you have it.” I guess some tricks of the trade are meant to stay secret.

You can find all their work at http://www.youtube.com/user/HardLeftProd