Dr. Horrible A Rush For Whedon

Joss Whedon told SCI FI Wire that he created Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, a loony Internet musical, in a "mad rush of joy and ridiculousness." The first of three parts debuts on the official Web site on July 15.

"Dude. Why would I do anything else?" Whedon said in an interview in Santa Monica, Calif., on July 14, part of the Television Critics' Association's summer press tour.

The quickie Dr. Horrible project was a counterweight to Whedon's other major project, the upcoming Fox TV series Dollhouse, he said.

"Dollhouse is something that has taken an enormous amount of crafting, and we're still in the process of working out what the show is while we're about to film the second episode," Whedon said.

By contrast, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog just fell out of us in a mad rush of joy and ridiculousness. And they're two completely different kinds of art that lead to the same thing, which is me having a happy. And the one helps the other. The fact that I could throw out Dr. Horrible as quickly as we did--and we did our best; I'm not saying that we tossed it off like it didn't matter: We worked our asses off--but the ability to do something that fast gives you the sort of patience to do the fine-tuning and the crafting on the other thing that you need to do."

Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) wrote the musical series during last year's writers' strike. Co-writers for the Internet feature are Whedon's brothers, Zack and Jed, and Jed's fiancee, Maurissa Tancharoen. The Dr. Horrible story centers on a low-rent supervillain (Neil Patrick Harris), the hero who keeps beating him up (Nathan Fillion) and the cute girl from the laundromat he's too shy to talk to (Felicia Day).

Act two goes live on July 17 and act three on July 19. All three parts will remain on the site until midnight July 20. After that, the Dr. Horrible series will be made available for paid download in some format and will ultimately end up on DVD, with extras. Whedon promised more information at Comic-Con International in San Diego in July.

Whedon was OK if the small Dr. Horrible project ends up as something bigger. "If something turns into something bigger than you intended it to, and it's not your ass, you're doing fine," he said.

-Patrick Lee, News Editor>