Relying On Benjamins

Relying On Benjamins is a scripted musical comedy about two friends who share a first name, Benjamin Feyler and Benjamin Ozwald, and the dog at their side, Ashton. It is serialized fiction, and it plays its own serial structure for laughs. The cold opens share a formula, starting with 'Not so long ago, in a land high, high away' before a narrator rushes through the previous episode's chaos. Sometimes the recap gives up partway, admits it cannot explain what happened, and tells the listener to go back and hear the last episode. That narrator is the running joke under everything else. The narration calls the heroes idiots, wonders what a character might be hiding under a jacket, and at one point complains that the story set up a courtroom trial involving Harvey Blurk and then dropped it. The early episodes are a workplace farce. In episode 3 the trio arrive at the Von Winkle Talent Agency the morning after the Sparky Awards, lying about their sexual orientation, short on money, and sizing up coworkers with names like Melvin Wednesday, Herbert Wagenfeld and Angelina Umbrella. An agency belonging to someone called Blumberstoop has taken more awards, and a colleague named Robert M. Harvey wins Best Dog and Best Dog Handler yet again. The Benjamins even walk in with a rhyming entrance about bringing cash in. By the episodes numbered in the thirties, the story has turned into the Battle of Astoria Park. Grandmaster Kawa and Master Zaru step in against the Man with Many Names, whose eyes turn blue when he clenches his fists and who fires a big blue energy beam from his hand. The fights are narrated blow by blow, down to both fighters spinning through the air in a shape the narration compares to a cannonball. Ashton, called beautiful again and again, glows with a golden brown aura, manages to bite the attacker, and turns out to have healing powers. The characters argue over whether a grandmother's crystal necklace, which one Benjamin chewed on as a kid, could explain any of it. The characters play it straight even when the narration will not. Grandmaster Kawa asks Master Zaru to save the Benjamins instead of him if it comes to a choice, and Master Zaru objects that they only met the pair about eight days ago. More threads pile up: Frederick Von Winkle, Carl Salad, and a hole stuffed with cash and more crystals. The episode titled '37. The End of the First Saga' wraps up that arc and promises that a next saga will answer the leftover questions. As a musical comedy, it works original songs into the story alongside the dialogue and narration. The language is crude, the violence is cartoonish, and the show knows exactly how ridiculous it is.