Watch “The (Mostly) White Album” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 124: “Another One Bites the Dust”

That video with Herman Cain singing a parody of John Lennon’s “Imagine” with the lyrics changed to be about pizza(!) got us thinking: how would parodies of Beatles songs by the other Republican candidates sound?

THE (MOSTLY) WHITE ALBUM by Michael Hughes, Matt Manser, Phillip Wilburn and Jacob Harper

Starring Amy Paffrath (Amy), Hartley Sawyer (Hartley), Gregg Lopez (Mitt Romeny), Phillip Wilburn (Rick Perry), Kipleigh Brown (Michele Bachmann), , Tommy Bechtold (Newt Gingrich), Colin Contreary (Rick Santorum) and Derek Reid (Herman Cain)

Directed by Kristina Adelmeyer

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Watch “Gadhafi’s Last Crawl” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 124: “Another One Bites the Dust”

With last week’s events in Libya, it was time for one last visit with Gadhafi, Alan, Diego, Pop Secret, Lawry’s Seasoning Salt, and of course, Chuck Beanster!!

GADHAFI’S LAST CRAWL by Michael Hughes

Starring Phillip Wilburn (Muammar Gaddafi), Hartley Sawyer (Alan) and Tommy Bechtold (Diego)

Directed by Kristina Adelmeyer

Dick Cheney Makes a Movie Based on His Book “In My Time” – with Hartley Sawyer and Drew Seeley from “Glory Daze”!!

We had a very attractive cast in Top Story! Weekly this past week. So when I started thinking about how to make a sketch about Dick Cheney’s new book – especially about the gap between Cheney’s account of what happened and everyone else’s – I thought about having Cheney cast someone very handsome to play him in the movie version of his book. That lead to the sketch below, which got the show off to a great start. But Hartley Sawyer and Phillip Wilburn get all the credit for the movie trailer!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GukIUfpsHsY

DICK CHENEY, AUTEUR by Michael Hughes

Starring Phillip Wilburn (Dick Cheney), Kipleigh Brown (Marci), Hartley Sawyer (“Dick Cheney”), Derek Reid (“Colin Powell”), Shannon Ayers (“Cheney Aide”), Amy Paffrath (“Valerie Plame”), Drew Seeley (“Scooter Libby”) and Matt Moore (“George W. Bush”)

Directed by Michael Hughes

Watch Elton John, George Michael, Lionel Richie and Ke$ha Singing About the Economic Crisis – with Drew Seeley and Hartley Sawyer from “Glory Daze” – from Top Story! Weekly Episode 117: “Dick in a Book”

When you have someone in your show who’s had a Top Five single on the Billboard charts, you want to have them sing! So we took a sketch concept we’ve done before, tweaked it a bit, and came up with this dynamite closer to the sketch portion of our show featuring Derek Reid “Dancing on the Ceiling” as Lionel Richie, Kipleigh Brown skanking it up as Ke$ha, and an awesome duet between Drew Seeley as George Michael and Phillip Wilburn as Elton John – plus Amy Seeley and Hartley Sawyer hosting. This was pretty great. Enjoy.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL ECONOMIC CRISIS MUSIC by Kristina Adelmeyer, Michael Hughes and Phillip Wilburn

Starring Amy Paffrath (Amy), Hartley Sawyer (Hartley), Derek Reid (Lionel Richie), Kipleigh Brown (Ke$ha), Drew Seeley (George Michael), and Phillip Wilburn (Elton John)

Directed by Michael Hughes

Sealing the Deal – from Top Story! Weekly Episode 101: “Death Is Beautiful” – with Hartley Sawyer!

In just a month, Hartley Sawyer has become almost a semi-regular in Top Story! Weekly. He’s super talented and a great guy, so it’s a real pleasure to work with him. And now that we know him, we can write specifically for him. The week Osama bin Laden was killed, I knew I wanted to write a sketch for Hartley about a guy trying to pick up girls at a bar with his buddy, the Navy Seal just back from Abbottabad. And Hartley got to say one of the best final lines I’ve written for a sketch in a long time…

SEALING THE DEAL by Michael Hughes

Starring Hartley Sawyer (Dirk), Tommy Bechtold (Pete), Shannon Ayers (Beth) and Kipleigh Brown (Carrie)

Directed by Kristina Adelmeyer

Elton John Interrupts William and Kate’s Honeymoon – from Top Story! Weekly Episode 100: “Kiss Me, Kate!”

So the night before the royal wedding, we’re putting the Top Story! Weekly script together. We have two sketches called “The Royal Honeymoon” and we like them both, so we think about doing a runner – but if so, we need a third. Some brainstorming among the head writers and executive producers leads to the idea of Elton John interrupting the couple; song parody ideas are tossed around – and here’s the result, a tribute to the collaborative process of our show.

THE ROYAL HONEYMOON #3 by Kristina Adelmeyer, Matt Blitz, Erich Eilenberger, Michael Hughes and Phillip Wilburn

Starring Hartley Sawyer (Prince William), Shannon Ayers (Kate Middleton), Phillip Wilburn (Elton John) and Erich Eilenberger (Paparazzo)

Directed by Michael Hughes