Tag Archives: Inc.

Sisters Launch Comedy Sci-fi Series with Puppets‏

Protesters line the sidewalks on Wall Street in New York, decrying corporate greed. Occupy Chicago shut down the city’s Loop area. Angry customers yanked their investments out of Bank of America in outrage at a $5 monthly fee, which was swiftly reversed.

Average work-a-day Americans are fed up with corporate shenanigans and frustrated with unemployment numbers. Enter a Web series meant to inject levity, and even inspiration, into an increasingly ugly situation: “Human Resources.” This 11-part Web series – think “X Files” meets “Office Space” at “Sesame Street”– is the work of siblings and Chicagoans, Kozi Kyles and Kyra Kyles, co-founders of Myth Lab Entertainment, Inc. A new episode will hit www.hrtheseries.com every Wednesday starting November 16, 2011.

Nearly a decade ago, the sisters decided to write up a concept Kozi dreamed up as a frightened spectator to a series of layoffs at a former employer. Wondering at workers who were seemingly called away and never returned, Kozi mused that there was something sinister, even supernatural, going on in the company’s HR offices.

“We’ve written several scripts, but this one would have required a robust budget because of the special effects involved,” said Kozi Kyles—who has a background in film and marketing.

“We tabled it to look for ways to fund it,” Kyra said. “But it was always in the backdrop.”

Fast forward to 2009. The bleak economy and jobless outlook drew the sisters back to their original script. Kozi and Kyra re-imagined it as a Web series starring puppets. They hoped their felt-covered stars – including a cold CEO and laid-off family man– would take some of the sting out of real issues in the plot: layoffs, corporate secrecy, and the underemployed.

An early fan of the series was Lil Rel, a finalist on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” show. The Chicago native clocked in some hours providing side-splitting recaps of each episode. The overall result is humorous, but hopefully offers inspiration, both to viewers and entrepreneurs.

“We were able to dive in and make this series having no puppet experience and using our own money,” Kyra Kyles—a Chicago-based writer and TV personality—said of the sisters’ recruitment of local talent from Redmoon Theatre, iO Chicago Theater, Second City, School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia College Chicago.

“Despite the challenges, it has been empowering to pursue our dreams of launching this series,” Kozi Kyles said.