I'm Ben Warheit (Three years ago I was working in a heroin research...)

Three years ago I was working in a heroin research facility at Columbia University. I was a lab technician, utilizing my neuroscience degree that I spent five years working towards at the University of Delaware. I was not passionate about this job, and I probably wasn’t the greatest employee, but I got along well enough. I was as bored as anyone with a desk job they didn’t love in a private office with no windows.

I started doodling pictures to amuse myself and my friends. I drew them on 4”x6” yellow post-it notes because my office had a lot of them and I could stick them up behind my computer monitor and laugh quietly to myself. One theme kept recurring - dinosaurs in places they didn’t belong; trying to act like humans, playing basketball, getting stood up at the alter, wearing fresh clothing. I got laid off from that job after about a year - they said the cuts were due to a lack of funding but I think they were just letting me down nice. They liked me, even though I didn’t serve much of a purpose there at that point.

I began interning with Brooklyn-based production company Landline TV after meeting Saj, one of the owners, in an improv class. I would pitch ideas and do some editing, but mostly I did a lot of PA work and learned the ropes of pre- and post-production and how things work on a film set. At this time, I was putting all of my post-its on a Tumblr website and it was getting somewhat popular. Landline asked me about collaborating on a project which would eventually become Waco Valley. After nearly 2 years, one pitch trip to LA, one “celebration” trip through the underbelly of Vegas and a COLD (not hot! what gives?!) night spent sleeping outside in Death Valley, several recordings, edits, meetings and rejections, we found ourselves in Lorne Michaels’ office pitching Waco Valley to Jen Danielson at Broadway Video. And you know what? The suckers bought it!

Today is the day that my first ever true labor of love comes to fruition. It is a silly cartoon, and I poured my heart into six short episodes alongside a few dozen incredibly talented, smart, kind people. The immense amount of support from friends and family and kind strangers that enabled this project to happen makes me feel so many things. I feel happy and relieved and proud and all sorts of other emotions you’ve probably never even heard of! Mostly, I just feel so grateful. I hope you’ll watch it and enjoy it and share it with friends! Thank you all from the very bottom of my cold black heart. New episodes every wednesday.

(Source: aboveaverage)

6 months ago / 154 notes

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Woo! Great story and a great series. Glad we turned this into something together!
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I love this show! I love Ben Warheit! I loved it all so much, I even helped make it! It blows my mind that Lorne...
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