1 Joke From The Vault - Inland Empire

I’m off on vacation, so instead of sending five topical jokes each day, I’m sending one joke, episode, comic strip, or sketch, with some explanation of the process that led to its creation. If you notice any spelling errors, I’M ON VACATION, DAMN IT! AIN’T NOTHIN’ I CAN DO ABOUT THAT! WHY ARE YOU BRINGING THIS UP, NOW?

- Tim

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In 2021, after a long journey, myself and Ian Abramson finally released a short film that we co-wrote and co-started in titled Inland Empire.

Ian grew up in the Inland Empire, and I kinda did too, with my family having moved there from Los Angeles during my final year of middle school. We met in an Honors English, freshman year of high school and over a decade of comedic pursuits developed as a result. We moved to Chicago together in 2012 to focus on comedy and never really stopped.

There was some influence from David Lynch, which I describe here:

A small slice of the strange and enduring impact of David Lynch

Inland Empire is more than a short. It was developed as TV pitch.

I don’t know how, but soon after Ian and I started Toyo g around d with an idea centering around the Inland Empire, Ian got the production company JASH interested, and we began developing the concept with them.

The resulting video is what people in the biz call a “proof of concept” for it, and we wrote it so that it could also function as a short film.

The proof of concept, was directed by Zane Rubin in 2019, after which we went through various edit stages, pitched to networks to no avail in 2020, and eventually released on our own in 2021.

A bit more about Inland Empire below this paywall, but for more projects I’ve been a part of, click here!

You can also check out my You Are The Genre interview with Ian here:

[Ian Abramson] Is The Genre