I know what you're thinking now:

Wow. What a clever website. So eloquently worded. So mysterious and yet so inviting. I need to know more!

First of all, thank you. I try. Secondly, here's the skinny on PTV:

Pointless TV was born in the late summer of 2002. It was the brainchild (not to be confused with love child) of Peter Simon and Jeff Thelen, two decidedly bored gentlemen from Mayville, WI. It seems worth mentioning at this point that Jeff Thelen is also the somewhat self-important author of this fine Internet establishment. Hi, I'm Jeff. Nice to meet you.

Anyway, back to my story. Petey and I, along with several of our friends, had started performing, taping, editing, and showing friends and family skits of ourselves. It wasn't long before we realized that we could mix them all together and make a TV show. A few phone calls to the local cable access channel and several nights of post-production later, and Pointless TV was born.

Yeah?

People liked it. We ended up doing two more shows between January and April of 2003 for the Mayville public access channel. We were even featured in the documentary, Cable Access Show, which aired on PBS36 out of Milwaukee. (It helped just a little that our good friend Ryan Erdmann produced that documentary.) This website has been up since before the first show, offering exclusive content and witty writing throughout. Pointless TV, it seemed, had a point.

Then what happened?

Pointless TV got to be something we really believed in. The problem was, there just wasn't any time. I would have loved to have done another episode, but I had a full time summer job and both of us were getting ready to move away to college. PTV was put on hold.

Now what?

I spent the better part of December 2003 putting videos online and redesigning the site. There is now over an hour of Pointless TV living online. You can also play several fun games, and talk in the dedicated PTV forum. Thanks to the lack of limitations at our new web host, we can have cool things like searches, near unlimited space, interactive sites and more.

When I first decided to redesign PointlessTV.com and add videos, I envisioned it replacing the actual show. But that won't happen. It may be a while before you see another episode of Pointless TV, but rest assured, you will. In the meantime, enjoy the videos and keep checking back for more info.

- Jeff Thelen
February 17, 2004

If you want to send us something, it would help if you knew where to send it. So here you go.

Email:
general@pointlesstv.com

If you just want to talk to us, without the hassle of stamps or an email program, come visit us in the forum and leave a note. Most of us have our personal email addresses and IM info posted there, as well.

Wondering what you can do for Pointless TV? (You know you are)

Plenty. The more people that we get involved, the better things will get. If you want to help make Pointless TV a better place, you can contribute money (always nice), props, or just yourselves as cast or crew in one of our skits. Or, you can save us a lot of work and send us your own clips. That's almost as good as money.

There's nothing we like more than getting someone else's clip to add to our collection. It saves us the trouble of working towards one of our own. It's kinda like a Christmas present. Plus you get to show everyone that someone put your clip on the Internet. Anyway, if you have a tape that you want on Pointless TV, read on.

Guidelines
Now that we're off of public access and on the Internet, we have a little more freedom concerning what we can put out there. So unless your clip offends me, which is near impossible, we'll probably add it.

Got little kids and that freaks you out? We'll put up a warning for any clip that isn't appropriate for younger audiences.

How to Give Us Stuff
We can accept footage on VHS, SVHS, MiniDV, 8mm, Hi8, and Digital8 tapes. We will also take DV-encoded AVI files if you have some way to give them to us. Our return policy is simple. If it's free or easy for us to do, we will give you your stuff back. If it isn't, thank you for donating equipment to Pointless TV.
To recap: if you mail us something, unless you have return postage, we keep. If you hand a tape to us, we will hand it back to you when we're done. Bada-bing, bada-boom.

Do you have a show kind of like Pointless TV? Do you wish you did? Do you just have some stuff you want to see put online? Odds are, we can help.

There are a bunch of guys here with a variety of skills that you might find useful. We do anything from web design to video transfers, and we come cheap. For more info, email us at services@pointlesstv.com.

Hosting
Want your show to have an online home, too? We can help. PointlessTV.com is offering relatively inexpensive web hosting to others in the fledgling filmmaker industry. We can put your videos online, give you pointlesstv.com email addresses; all sorts of stuff. For pricing and other info, email us at hosting@pointlesstv.com.

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