The hair metal cover/parody band Steel Panther is producing a pilot episode for Comedy Central. There are more details, including the planned premise of the show in the original article at the Las Vegas Sun.
I can honestly say that this sounds like a great idea to me. Yes, I do enjoy listening to hair metal, but I do realize that it’s all more than a little ridiculous. (Hey, I enjoyed Brutal Legend, which made hair metal the butt of more than a few jokes.)
Steel Panther is really good at mining this territory for laughs too. I’ve seen a couple of their videos, and they seem to have a good grasp of exactly how far over the top to take their act to turn it into comedy gold. These guys are experts at manipulating every cliche that comes with the hair metal territory and turning it into entertainment.
Plus, they’re more than just jokes. These guys, while they might have started out as a cover band, do have a pretty good grasp of how to construct songs of their own. I remember the first time that I heard ‘Death to All but Metal’ — my first thought was that they could have released it as an un-ironic song in the 80′s and they would have had a hit with it.
All together, I’d say that they’re pretty good candidates to do a show of this type. They have the right attitude to make it really entertaining. I’d say that this shows way more promise than that “Livin’ on a Prayer” TV show that I heard about awhile ago. Personally, I’ll be watching to see what comes of this. Hopefully Comedy Central will pick up the pilot. If they do, I’ll be tuning in for that.