HBO launches unlikely comedy experiment

By Andrew Wallenstein

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Inside the Santa Monica office building that HBO calls home, Woody Tondorf is ready to shoot his new series.

In a hallway, he stares into the camera, a Panasonic Handycam set on a tripod. His producer, Danila Koverman, stands inside an office, but her hands are visible on screen as she hands Tondorf a glass bowl filled with scraps of paper.

A handsome 23-year-old wearing jeans and a T-shirt bearing the legend "As Seen on Al-Jazeera," Tondorf fishes out a scrap and reads it to the camera.

"Want to hear two short jokes and a long joke?" he asks as his co-star in the scene, Paul Gulyas, pedals past him on a tricycle that he's about 20 years too old for.

"Joke," Tondorf says. "Joke. Jooooooooke."

Welcome to the set of HBO's newest series effort, "Runaway Joke of the Day." Only don't expect the episode to actually run on the network; it is meant strictly for the Internet. And it may be a stretch to call "Joke" an episode, given that it's over in about 30 seconds.

Absurd riffs like "Joke" are a staple of HBOlab, an unlikely off-the-radar experiment under way for nearly a year now at Time Warner's prize programmer. With an 11-member unit willing to try just about anything online, the TV industry's prime mover is finding its footing in the amorphous world of digital media. And if you mistake any of them for the rabble on YouTube, you're excused -- that's where some of the HBOlab staffers were recruited.

Michael Lombardo, president of programming and West Coast operations at HBO, envisions HBOlab tapping a creative sensibility foreign to Hollywood. "There is a whole different group of artists who work in the digital space," he said. "They're not performers in clubs, they're not pitching scripts and they're not channeled into the mainstream with agents."

The anonymity of this endeavor is intentional. HBO believes it can't learn how to make its mark online by trading on its esteemed brand. Which isn't to say HBOlab's online home, Runawaybox.com, is entirely disconnected: The URL is a subtle allusion to the full name behind the HBO acronym, Home Box Office.

"We're trying to 'run away' from the traditional Home Box Office brand," said Koverman, who manages HBOlab. "We don't want to raise false expectations that you'll see the next 'Sex and the City' or 'Sopranos' from us."

Which underlines what's most remarkable about HBOlab: It seems to be the antithesis of everything we've come to know about HBO. The network that built its reputation crafting lavish art-house dramas that attract A-list talent and Emmy Awards is churning out cheap comedy most critics would dismiss.

While every programming move HBO makes continues to generate scrutiny, HBOlab toils in obscurity, although toil doesn't feel like the right word to a visitor to the unit's headquarters in a far corner of HBO's sprawling operation. Comprised mostly of twentysomething male cut-ups, HBOlab seems more like a fraternity that's rented office space in lieu of on-campus housing. Scrawled side by side on one white board are ping-pong win tallies opposite Web site traffic statistics.

Launchdd in May, runawaybox.com is home base for a rotating corps of serialized shortform programming like "Elevator," a daily sketch indicative of HBOlab's modest budget. Each sketch is set within the confines of an elevator, which is not only not shot on a soundstage -- HBOlab has none -- it's not even shot in an actual elevator. The scenes are captured within three wood panels affixed together to resemble an elevator, complete with a metal rail that Tondorf disclosed was not in the budget.

"We stole stuff from the construction people working on a remodeled hallway," he said.

"More like borrowed," corrected Koverman, a former producer for "Good Morning America" and "Extra" who doubles as something of a den mother to her young charges.