By now, if you aren't in fact already involved with Sitcom 2000, you must surely know of its existence. That striking logo and even the name itself appearing on walls all over the Tisch Building has no doubt intrigued you, but wonder no longer, for the story will now be told. It's a story of three young men and an idea dreamed up in a White Castle in Cleveland. What started simply as a final project for Intermediate TV Production grew into no less than the very first comedy series created both for television and the World Wide Web.

From its humble beginnings in that White Castle last winter, Sitcom 2000 was always destined to be an online TV series. Don Pavlish and Nathan Craddock had asked themselves where televison might be headed in the next few years and what the future would be for the World Wide Web. "The Web is a new media that hasn't been fully exploited," says Craddock. Using video clips, sound bites and diary entries, viewers on the Web would be able to explore the characters in greater depth, thus experiencing a whole new dimension in the world of television. Ben Zelevansky, who soon became the third member of the team and an assistant producer of the series, says, "People who used to be in front of television screens are now in front of computer screens. This way we can hit both audiences."

The show involves two men and a woman in their twenties living together in a college town in a house they share with the ghost of a bawdy nineteenth-century sea captain called Skipper McGee. (Skipper McGee can actually be seen by everyone in town and serves as a kind of father figure for his young housemates.) The idea was always to have characters with real substance involved in wacky situations, not unlike the American sitcoms of yore, such as MASH, WKRP in Cincinatti, and All in the Family. They were influenced as well by the classic British comedies, Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones and Benny Hill. And in the course of production, they also turned to their idols, Roger "Brilliance on a Budget" Corman and Rod Serling, for inspiration.

As soon as the pilot script was written, an ad was placed in Backstage which resulted in 2,500 headshots, though eventually four principals and five extras were chosen. Video was decided on as the medium of choice, costing 1/10 of what film would cost and allowing for greater editing flexibility. In order to recruit help for their vast undertaking, the producers/directors spoke in front of the freshman colloquiums taught by Professors Carlos DeJesus and Barbara Malmet. They received a great number of responses and right away a team of writers and a production crew were put to work.

Using five different sets in two studios in the 12th Floor TV complex, the pilot episode was shot on two consecutive Thursdays last spring. Initially Pavlish directed on the set and Craddock directed from the control room, but whenever possible the two studios were going simultaneously, with both directors in the control rooms and Zelevansky acting as the floor manager.

Professor Lynne McVeigh, whose Intermediate Television Production class sparked the idea for Sitcom 2000, considers the project an extremely ambitious effort and praised the amount of organization and energy that went into it. "I don't see how anyone in the industry would not be impressed," she says. "I think they have a very promising future."

As pioneers of the first online series, Sitcom 2000 will be responsible for introducing viewers to what could very well be the next wave in entertainment. Pavlish remembers Professor George Heinemann once telling his class that when he started out in television it had no rules. "You could define the medium in its early stages as you went along."

Right now a team of writers, digital artists, and programmers headed by Pavlish are continuing work on the website. As for prospective TV viewers, you have only to wait until the 1997 First Run Festival in April, where the Sitcom 2000 series will make its triumphant debut, and an unsuspecting world will be hooked forever...