Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
What better way to prepare for the fast-approaching weekend than by indulging in the some of the Internet’s most well-done web content? Take advantage of your lunch break and treat yourself to Afternoon Delight, Decider’s carefully curated picks of the best short-form content available on the world wide web. This week we’re spotlighting “Rip Van Winkle“, the first video from comedy troupe Stella (Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain) in almost 10 years, and a celebration of the 20-year anniversary of the trio’s formation.
If you need a refresher, Black, Showalter, and Wain formed Stella in 1997 and debuted on the MTV comedy series The State. They later had their own self-titled, short-lived series on Comedy Central, and the three have since developed their own successful comedy, film, and television careers (Wet Hot American Summer is probably their best-known collaboration). Stella became known for their surreal style of comedy and developed something of a cult following, but they had not released any new sketch videos since 2008 – until this week. In celebration of the 20-year anniversary of Stella, the trio reunited to record a new video.
In “Rip Van Winkle”, Michael, Michael, and David wake up in a hotel room and attempt to watch Oprah on a flat fixture that they can’t believe is a TV, turn on “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind on their “transistor radio”, and suddenly realize that they are not in 1997 anymore. The trio puts their heads together and counts forward, coming to the conclusion they they’ve been asleep for 20 (or 21???) years, depending on how you count. Once they embrace their 2017 existence, we’re gifted with a jump back to the group’s earliest clips while “Semi-Charmed Life” plays on.
Feeling nostalgic for more Stella? After you finish your Afternoon Delight, embrace a #ThrowbackThursday with some of the stuff that made us fall in love with them:
