Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

News of Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog has been sweeping across the internet at an alarming pace this week, featuring on the front page of websites like the LA Times, Google Entertainment, MSN.com and TIME. Within 24 hours of the launch of Act 1 on Tuesday the musical had climbed to the number one spot on iTunes video downloads proving that it may have what it takes to change entertainment as we know it. In fact it was so popular that it crashed their server when a thousand people attempted to watch the video in the same instant .

I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat with two of the creative minds behind Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog earlier today. Jed Whedon and fiancé Maurissa Tancharoen took some time out during a very busy week to talk about the musical.

Dr Blog Bot: Let me start by saying Happy Birthday

Jed Whedon: Oh, thank you very much, thank you very very much, it’s been a wonderful one so far.

DBB: That’s great, was it planned to launch this on your birthday so when it went really well it was a great birthday present?

JW: It wasn’t, but it worked out that way so I’m happy. I will be actually launching Act III instead of having a little shindig but then I’m gonna go out and play a gig with my brother Sam in downtown Los Angeles so that’ll be fun to have some drinks.

DBB: Good way to spend a birthday… Now Dr Horrible has obviously been pretty successful, you were obviously expecting a lot of traffic and made preparations to account for that but the servers crashed because there was so much and you had all sorts of problems, did you expect this kind of reaction from people?

JW: Not exactly, I mean we knew that Joss’ fans are very loyal and very web savvy and they’re very educated about what’s coming up so we did expect some people to sign on, we definitely approached it from a grass roots point of view, we didn’t think that it was going to go crazy and we were just hoping it would build over time, people would start to spread the world and people would enjoy it. We didn’t expect everybody to try and see it at once. So, that’s where the error occurred but now that’s fixed so there are no more worries in that department and it’s going as well as we could have hoped. It’s hard to get the word out on something like this but it seems like everyone’s doing a good a job as anyone could hope for.

DBB: I heard that at one point something like 1000 people tried to access the server within one second, is that right?

JW: Yeah well they take a picture, a kind of snapshot when there’s a huge problem and I got a call from the hosting company in a kind of panicky shaky voice call that basically said within that snapshot a thousand people had tried to log on in that instant which, you know I don’t know what that means but it’s thrilling… and so, you know, we couldn’t just upgrade, we had to move to a bigger server and that’s why we were down for so long which was a frustrating, long day for me but now it’s up and I have no more worries about that kind of stuff. We were averaging about 200,000 hits an hour which I think also had to do with the fact that it wasn’t initially available overseas so once that was opened up we sort of had a swell.

DBB: There was a bit of a panic from people round the world who couldn’t access it and a lot of people were being a bit critical but you had intended for it to be available internationally from the start, is that right?

JW: We don’t like people who aren’t American [Joking] we were trying to think of everything and that was the one question we didn’t ask when we were talking to Hulu about the actual hosting of the video, we didn’t even think to ask it but as soon as we launched and the first blogs were “why can’t I see it” and we went into panic mode and the people of Hulu were up that night re-writing the code and getting it in order and it opened up some time in the night but no it definitely wasn’t planned and we were extremely sad that the launch was tainted by sadness and disappointment… so you couldn’t see it right away, I’m guessing from your accent..

DBB: No, I was one of the ones that was going “what??” but you did an amazing job getting it fixed so quickly, so on behalf of international viewers, thank you.

JW: We also apologise that there was any delay, we also know for all of the overseas people that getting access to content from over here is a long process and so it was an exciting idea that it was going to be available so it must have been disappointing.

MT: We were very very very sorry about that.

DBB: Speaking of the international issues, a lot of people are wanting to buy it on iTunes and that’s currently not available outside the US and Canada I believe, is that something that’s going to be changed at some point or is there something that’s preventing that from being available?

JW: Well, you know the one thing about iTunes is that each market is a whole different process to get it available, the easiest one I guess is Canada, I don’t’ know why, that one was easy to pull off quickly

MT: We’re working on that

JW: Yes, definitely our goal to have it available in as many places as quickly as possible because that’s sort of the point of the whole thing is “why not”.

DBB: Is it frustrating from your perspective to have people in Australia and the UK and all over the world saying “We want to give you money”, and not being able to just do it instantly?

JW: Well, yeah, we’re always frustrated when people aren’t allowed to give us money

MT: [Joking] Yeah, we spend a lot of time on the streets asking for money and it doesn’t really work in our favour

JW: So we were like lets try it on the internet… I mean at this point, we really want everybody to see it and get excited about it you know a lot of Joss’ shows, Firefly I guess is the one I’m talking about, after being cancelled kind of grew on the internet and lives on in fans who want to see it still and that’s entirely based on this word of mouth and this spread of the enjoyment of the content and so that’s our plan with this, we think it will eventually be available everywhere and we certainly want people to be excited about it when it is, or still excited about it.

DBB: Speaking of iTunes, a lot of people are wanting to know if there’s going to be a sound track available.

MT: Oh yes, and we’re currently working on that as well, soon, not very soon but

JW: As soon as possible

MT: As soon as possible. With everything we have going on, the things we want to accomplish keep piling up so we’re trying to pick away from the pile as quickly as humanly possible.

JW: Yeah, we have to do a little remixing and remastering for the actual soundtrack and so that’ll take a little time and right now because we’re doing this ourselves, we’re just trying to get Act III up. But then, next week..

MT: I think we’ll have time, Jed will have time, that’s all in Jed’s hands pretty much the mixing and mastering with the sound track.

JW: But with Dollhouse and we’ve got Comic Con next week you know and we’re going to try and get it out as fast as possible because we want people to rock it in their cars.

MT: Oh Yeah

DBB: I’m sure that right now people all around the world are watching this and singing along because they’ve already learnt half the words.

JW: Oh that’s great, awesome.

MT: I’ve seen also the sort of speculation on song titles that I love, that tickles my little heart. So I feel that once we release the CD with the actual titles and lyrics and everything it’ll be fun for everyone to be like “Oh! That’s what it’s called”

JW: Also, I see some people have transcribed the lyrics which is helpful too.

Click on the link for more :

http://doctorhorrible.net/exclusive-jed-whedon-maurissa-tancharoen/151/