FUQUAY-VARINA -- Rhett and Link, the small-town comedy duo who found more than a million fans online with their quirky local commercials, will make a pilot TV program for the Independent Film Channel and get a chance at their own weekly show.
The pair - Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal - have built a nationwide fan base from a small brick studio in Fuquay-Varina, mostly by posting their homemade skits on www.youtube.com.
But a cable TV show would bring larger audiences and greater celebrity to the pair of performers who are still folksy and small-time enough to carry their own equipment and to find actors for their videos in downtown Fuquay-Varina businesses.
"When we're done with this thing, you can start hand-writing letters, tear-stained letters, maybe blood-stained letters, to IFC telling them, 'Come on, you guys have got to make this into a television show,' " McLaughlin said in making the announcement on rhettandlink.com. "Maybe you can drool on them."
Rhett and Link grew up in Buies Creek and became best friends when they were both disciplined in the first grade for writing curse words on their desks. Held in class during recess, they bonded while drawing pictures of supernatural animals.
As teens, already experimenting with hand-held cameras and goofball scripts, they took a blood oath to live their lives making fantastic films, and to do it together. Both finished engineering degrees at N.C. State University; both felt unfulfilled.
Their first break came as hosts of a TV show on CW, a sort of hipper "America's Funniest Home Videos," which lasted four episodes. But real success came via YouTube, where their local commercials first appeared. Their low-budget ads made Internet sensations out of everyman car dealers, mobile home salesmen and pharmacists. Most famously, the employees of Red House Furniture in High Point made this pitch for racial harmony and low-cost sofas: "Can't we all get along? ... Look at this sofa. It's perfect for a black person. Or a white person."
Those ads got them guest spots on George Lopez's "Lopez Tonight" and drew millions of viewers to their YouTube channel. But even with one spoof song on YouTube topping 7 million hits, success on IFC is hardly guaranteed.
According to Variety, television networks choose about 20 pilots a year and turn half of them into premiere episodes. The also-rans never see daylight. IFC has no set percentage and views pilots on a case-by-case basis.
'Sharp, cool, twisted'
IFC has announced what McLaughlin described as a big season of shows for 2011, including the spoof show "Onion News Network," and "Portlandia," starring "Saturday Night Live" performer Fred Armisen. Also, IFC has acquired old episodes of offbeat favorites "Arrested Development" and "Freaks and Geeks."
"We could be part of a wave and getting into people's homes," McLaughlin said.
Rhett and Link's show, which is untitled, is part of a development slate featuring eight original series, both scripted and nonfiction, according to an IFC news release. Among the others: "Whisker Wars," a nonfiction series set in the world of competitive facial hair growing that follows a group of men from the National Beard and Mustache Championship in Bend, Ore., to the World Competition in Norway.
"This development slate represents our long-term commitment to comedy programming that is sharp, cool and twisted," said Debbie DeMontreux, IFC's senior vice president of original programming.
Travel, but no move
Rhett and Link already have filmed their pilot in Asheville and are putting on finishing touches. A spokesman said IFC likely will decide which projects to green-light, if any, by the end of the year.
It would be a 30-minute program if picked up, spotlighting one or two businesses per episode. McLaughlin said the show felt different from their CW experience, which was limited to them reading someone else's scripts.
"This is a Rhett and Link brainchild," he said, "which is exactly what we want."
The show would involve a lot of travel, but the pair would not have to move out of Fuquay-Varina. So expect still to see them at Cooleys Restaurant and Pub.
"The show is essentially taking [us] to the next level," McLaughlin said on his site. "Us going to small towns all across America and making local commercials and just, you know, just getting ... what are we getting? I was going to say 'jiggy with it,' and then I realized that would be a horrible thing to say."
Staff researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this report.
