Fake Ken Burns Documentary ‘The Virus’ Is SF’s Funniest Quarantine Video Yet

The most hilarious video of our ongoing shelter-in-place nightmare has arrived, and we urge you to drop everything for the next two-and-a-half minutes and watch it. It features the founder of the cult-hit standup comedy show Cheaper Than Therapy Jon Allen, and it’s a satire of a Ken Burns-style documentary that mixes old-timey early 1900s references with gags about modern-day lockdown blues. The Virus tells the fake story of “Commander-Brigadeer-General Beauregard Richardson of San Francisco’s 87th Drinking Brigade” in the form of his posthumous quarantine letters to his “polyamorous second mistress.” And damn is it funny!

“We can’t do stand-up, so I decided to channel my creative energies to different mediums,” Allen tells BrokeAssStuart.com. “It’s not terribly often that you get to live an obvious part of history, so I put our current struggles in the same vein as how we currently look at long past historical events: Ken Burns.”

The video is part of a Patreon campaign called Comedians Helping Comedians.

“To stay sane and productive, I need to be responsible to others, not just myself,” he says. “Thus the Patreon; it’s a forum to share humor with people who need it, have a creative outlet, and make sure that (at least some of) the comedy community can sustain during this. We’ll need art during and after this mess, and should take care of artists however we can.”

The Comedians Helping Comedians Patreon has donor levels called A Pint of Domestic Lager, Avocado Toast, and Bucket of Fried Chicken Meal Deal, all priced at the cost of those things. Throw ’em something down if you’re able!

‘The Virus’ is directed by Kindrid Parker from Last Wave Film, with music by Devin Farney.