A film about Jim Varney and Ernest P. Worrell. See more at BeingErnestFilm.com
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For those who may have missed it, "Ernest Goes to Podcast" is the antecedent to this documentary: a ridiculously in-depth, hours-long dissection of everything Ernest has ever said, done, or appeared in, hosted my myself and my friend Erin Natal.
While this latest episode is not explicitly about the documentary, I spend a good chunk of the first 15 minutes talking candidly about how "The Importance of Being Ernest" film came to be. Erin and I record these episodes in person, and the pandemic has prevented us from releasing a new one (or seeing each other at all) since before the documentary was even announced. So, it's good to be back.
We've also done seasonally appropriate episodes about Ernest Scared Stupid (main and extra), if you're interested. 🎃
- David
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Our Kickstarter campaign for "The Importance of Being Ernest" documentary is complete, having raised just shy of $77k over the course of a month!
Not only that, but y'all managed to unlock the "Ernest Archive" stretch goal on the final day!
On behalf of the entire IOBE documentary team, I want to extend the biggest of thank-yous to everyone who supported, shared, backed, and otherwise put in the effort to make this campaign the success that it is. We could not have come this far without help from all of the families, friends, fans, and every single person who showed up to help preserve Ernest and Jim's legacy. Not only have we raised a significant amount of our budget, but we've also got concrete proof of the Ernest audience's existence. As Dan Butler put it: "A tremendous vote of confidence from the fans is the creative force now."
With the urgency of this leg of fundraising complete, our posts won't be quite as frequent as they have been for the past few months. But you can rest assured that we'll be posting all of the latest updates, discoveries, and progress made on this documentary right here for you all to follow along with. We've got a few new contributors to the film awaiting confirmation, and we're also working on ways that folks who missed out on the Kickstarter can support the documentary after the fact.
In short, there's lots more coming soon. KnoWhutImean?
- David
Well, Ernest P. World, we are in the FINAL LEG of this Kickstarter fundraising marathon! As of right now, we are well over the $60k mark, though still just a bit shy of our $75k stretch goal...
With that in mind, we've got a few more final promotions to carry out! One is this ad for ABC Warehouse that we digitized recently—yet another company Ernest pitched for back in the day that now has a social media presence. (Also, note the Detroit Lions pennant in the background! That's how you play to the local audience.)
We've also got a few more add-ons to, well... add on! First is some extra stock of that Neil Fraser "Jim Varney is Ernest" poster everyone was so jealously fond of. We received more than a couple of requests to increase the available quantity, and got approval to include 10 MORE POSTERS in the add-on offerings! Don't forget: this documentary fundraising campaign is the only place this poster design will ever be sold!
Again, you can find images of our add-on items on the main Campaign page (scroll alllllll the way down to the bottom of the page) and add them to your new or existing pledge using the "manage pledge" feature.
Finally, after seeing how fast the official Ernest photos sold out last night, we went and found two more prints. They're not Ernest prints, though:
These official vintage photo prints of everyone's favorite naïve, semi-mad scientist are EVEN MORE LIMITED than the Ernest prints were, with only one of each Dr. Otto image available. Go get 'em!
And that's about it. 21 hours to go, and we'll be wrapping up the "Importance of Being Ernest" Kickstarter campaign! That's when we, like Dr. Otto, will move on to the next phase of our plans. (Don't worry, it doesn't involve a giant magnet.)
- David