Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous
Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous is an American teen sitcom created by Bo Burnham and Dan Lagana that aired on MTV from May 2 to June 29, 2013. The sitcom stars Burnham as Zach Stone, a fresh-out-of-high-school teenager who opts to pursue a life of fame and stardom instead of attending college. The series follows Zach, who hires a camera crew to film him throughout his daily life as a part of his quest to become an overnight celebrity, even though he possesses no real talent. On  June 26, 2013, it was announced that "Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous" had been canceled after one season. Following a massive surge in Burnham's popularity in the months after the release of his Netflix special "", the series was made available to stream on Netflix on December 24, 2021. Premise. Zach Stone, an 18-year-old high school graduate from Boston, opts to pursue his dream to reach a life of fame instead of attending college. Having saved up his income from his grocery store job over the last couple of years, he hires a camera crew from  MTV to film him throughout his daily life as a part of his quest to become an overnight celebrity, even though he possesses no real talent. From his attempts to become a celebrity chef to creating novelty ringtones to purposely going missing, he tries any method he can to get noticed and will stop at nothing until he reaches stardom. He has the entire summer vacation to get noticed and to hang out with his friends before they all leave to go to college. Background. The series was commissioned in September 2010 by MTV. "Variety" magazine reported that MTV had  ordered a half-hour-long put pilot from Burnham "about a kid fresh out of high school who's pursuing the new American dream of being a celebrity without having any talent". The show was inspired by a study that polled graduating high school seniors on their possible career paths, and 40% chose "famous" as opposed to extraordinarily low numbers for more realistic choices, such as "doctor". The pilot was filmed in 2011, while the rest of the season was filmed over the course of 2012. Burnham initially felt the show to be a dark, satirical comedy that slams the  title character for having "shallow priorities", but grew to see the character as more of a product of the culture surrounding him. The show spoofs youth culture, celebrity and the pursuit of fame. Outwardly, Zach projects the image he feels will most make him famous and casts a thin layer over his true feelings. In reality, he is completely insecure and the idea of fame presents a "fix-all" to him. The show was primarily inspired by comedy series such as "The Larry Sanders Show", "The Comeback", and the original British version of "The Office", the latter of which Burnham  considers one of his favorite shows of all time, stating in an interview that he watches it from start to finish at least once a year. Reception. Ratings. "Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous" struggled in the ratings during its run. The series premiered to 650,000 viewers and saw its numbers decrease to half of that midway through its season. The show originally aired at 10:30 p.m. on Thursdays, but was moved to 11 p.m. in June 2013 to expand its dwindling audience. MTV scheduled its eighth and ninth episodes to air back to back, and burned off the  following three the next week. MTV officially cancelled the series on June 26, 2013. Critical response. "Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous" received generally positive reviews from television critics. Brian Lowry of "Variety" wrote, "While the concept is hardly original ... the series still feels fresh and timely," adding, "this single-camera satire zeroes in on a burning, warped desire to be famous that MTV, as much as anyone, has stoked and exemplified. ... Indeed, even MTV appears oddly oblivious to the ironies of this dichotomy." "Entertainment Weekly" called the pilot a "promising debut", positively reviewing Burnham's portrayal of the  titular character: "Because there's an inherent empathy to the character, it's a delight watching him strive and fail to make the mundane ordinariness of his suburban reality sexy." While noting the premise of parodying reality shows covered no new ground, "The New York Times" did commend the show's attempt to aim "straight for the dark underbelly of all these fantasies. It's one thing to put on a show; it's another to do so to mask huge holes within." Pilot Viruet of "The A.V. Club" noted that the character's "off-camera moments", such as his  appeasement of girl-next-door Amy in the pilot, were more satisfying than watching "a completely abhorrent character do awful thing after awful thing. ... It's clear that the writers (and Zach) are so knowledgeable of this particular world that the end result is smarter than you'd expect the average reality show send-up to be." "Newsday" called the show "almost too clever, funny and ironic for MTV", also praising the show's softer moments: ""Zach" is both commentary and send-up of the ephemera that MTV and the Internet at large celebrate – then instantly forget. ... But there's  a core gentleness here, too, and while Zach's frenetic attention span is extremely splintered, he still manages to be relatable." In contrast, David Wiegand of the "San Francisco Chronicle" felt that the show "is more noisy than funny", comparing it to Burnham's beginnings posting videos to YouTube from his bedroom: "His bedroom videos were weird, too, but funny-weird, not I-need-an-Excedrin weird." Hank Stuever of "The Washington Post" gave the series a scathing review, claiming that "this show is so bad, it's beneath even MTV". Describing the series as irritating, he continues, "One thing  about MTV's so-called original programming is that it is often a safe refuge for the criminally unoriginal. I would like to point out that we can extradite Burnham back to reality and prosecute him as an adult."