“Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous” Review
by Emily Nagle
[usr 3]
With the release of his first feature-length film “Eighth Grade” in 2018, followed by his Emmy-winning special “Inside” on Netflix last summer, comedian Bo Burnham‘s fanbase has only been growing over the years. Even still, the comedian-turned-writer/director’s first go at creating a television series is much lesser known.
“Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous” aired briefly on MTV in summer 2013, getting cancelled after a single season. After such a short run, episodes of the show were difficult to find online – luckily, Netflix added all 12 episodes of the series to their platform just in time for the holidays, allowing the previously unpopular show to find a whole new audience nearly a decade after its television debut. Twitter users have written that the show makes them laugh out loud, and have even expressed that they would love to see a second season!
The show focuses on Zach Stone (Bo Burnham), a new high school graduate who dreams of becoming famous. Zach is so dedicated to making this dream a reality that instead of attending college like his peers, he has saved up money from his grocery store job to hire a camera crew to follow him around everywhere to document his rise to stardom, much to the annoyance of his brother Andy (Cameron Palatas), mother (Kari Coleman), and father Andrew (Tom Wilson). But here’s the thing…Zach doesn’t exactly know what he’s going to become famous for. “Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous” takes viewers on a wild ride as the idealistic teen tries various activities to rise to stardom. Zach’s stunts include recording ringtones, pretending to go missing, and even filming his first date with Christy (Shelley Hennig), the hottest girl from his high school.
I found the format of this show to be creative and fun! Long before he got into television, Bo posted musical comedy videos to YouTube in the early 2000s, and “Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous” isn’t short of catchy songs. Each episode has a unique, super goofy opening sequence featuring Zach singing about his latest plan to get noticed. As someone who has several of Bo’s albums saved on Spotify, I wholeheartedly approve. As for the visual style, this series is shot as a mockumentary, like “The Office”. The difference is that the crew members actually show up in the episodes, as they’re dragged along for Zach’s shenanigans – for example, when he attends his first college party, he initially makes them remain in the car for a few hours.
“Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous” isn’t my favorite show of all time, but it’s not totally awful. Burnham wrote this show to serve as a criticism of young people at the time, specifically how they idealize fame. Still, at times it felt a little too in-your-face. Zach is kind of an ass towards his friends Greg (Armen Weitzman) and Amy (Caitlin Gerard) at times, and it took me a while to figure out that it’s supposed to be riffing on young people’s preoccupation with getting famous. Maybe the reason why I didn’t fall in love with it was because as much as I love Bo Burnham, I’m not much of a reality TV watcher. Upon finding this out, though, I liked the idea that the show was spoofing most of the content that aired on MTV at the time. The only other show I can think of that pokes fun at reality shows in a similar way is “Total Drama Island”.
Because there aren’t that many episodes, and they’re all fairly short – each is about 20 minutes long – it’s good for binge-watching. Personally, I watched this entire show over a weekend after getting my COVID booster shot, because my whole body ached for days and I didn’t feel up to doing much. I recommend “Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous” to anyone who likes to watch reality TV shows to poke fun at them, and/or is a fan of Bo Burnham!