When the eccentric cast of a mid-90s Public Access show in Detroit reunite after 20 years to make a new episode, they are forced to take a hard look at their lives and reconcile their teenage dreams with the realities of adulthood.
THE DOCUMENTARY
“20 YEARS OF MADNESS” follows Jerry White Jr., creator of the 90s cult Public Access TV Show “30 MINUTES OF MADNESS,” as he returns to his hometown of Rochester, Michigan to make a new episode for the show’s twenty-year anniversary. The show included a ragtag cast of outsiders who routinely played offbeat and crazy characters. What they couldn’t have predicted was that the wild and unhinged lifestyle they embraced on the show would eventually become a reality for many of them later in life.
Jerry, now 37, and a recent MFA graduate from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, never stopped believing in the show and the potential of its collaborators. As we follow him back to Michigan, the film explores the bond between childhood friends, now struggling in adulthood, after life has failed to provide many of them with the opportunities for which they had hoped. As Jerry gathers everyone together, he is forced to confront years of resentment, rebuild burnt bridges, and balance challenging personalities in the hope of reviving a once thriving creative community.
20 YEARS OF MADNESS is a sincere and intimate portrait of an underground community held together by the desire to make each other laugh and the memories of their friendship and creative collaboration.
THE SHOW
30 MINUTES OF MADNESS premiered on March 5th, 1992 in Oakland County, Michigan. The show is a bizarre video mixtape of improv and written comedy skits, non-sequitor vérité samples, and experimental video art. 30MOM embraces the 90s DIY grunge/punk counter-culture — unpolished and genuine. Some inspirations include Liquid Television, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python, Kids in the Hall, The Monkees and the trash art of John Waters and Andy Warhol. The 30MOM vibe lives on in shows like Jackass, Mr. Show, South Park, and Tim & Eric Awesome Show.
The 30MOM crew were outsiders, punks, skaters, nerds, freaks, weirdos, burnouts, theater geeks, and artists. What started in high school as something fun to do on the weekend became their driving passion. For the core group, the show was their life and would hopefully be their future. They continued to make episodes into their 20s, started a production company and moved in together. But they grew up and split apart, gradually at times and violently at others. Some of them moved to Los Angeles to follow their dreams while others remained in Michigan.
While the show had a small audience during its original run, it has achieved a cult following over the years. Their vault of video, music, photography, and artwork is a time capsule of the era: the 90s, the last pre-internet generation; when having access to video equipment and editing facilities was a minor miracle, and a broadcast television audience was mind-blowing.
Over the years, the group amassed a vault some 300 hours of analog video. 20 YEARS OF MADNESS draws deeply on this footage, both from the aired episodes of the show and the never-before-scene raw moments of their daily life and musings to highlight, contrast, and comment upon these vivid characters. We get to see how much they’ve changed, but also learn how they are still very much the same dreamers at heart.
