Bryan Callen directed The Experts, written by Kurt Metzger

Bryan Callen directed a comedy pilot. It is called The Experts, it was written by Emmy winner Kurt Metzger, and it hits YouTube on October 21 after premiering at The Creek and the Cave in Austin.

Callen and Brendan Schaub went through it on TFATK Ep. 1232, the same episode where they previewed UFC 333. The cast is stacked with road comics plus one actual actor. Callen is in it, so are Metzger, Jimmy Dore, Ryan Long and Aaron Berg, alongside Alexandra Chando.

Callen on his own cast

Callen spent most of the segment handing out praise to the stand-ups rather than to himself. He called Dore hilarious and lumped him in with Berg and Long as "All great stand-ups." Then he got specific about who would have eaten him alive in a room.

"Ryan Long killed me. That guy Aaron Berg would have [ __ ] wrecked you," Callen said. "So hilarious."

Schaub described the look of the thing as single camera mockumentary, the format everyone recognises. "It's shot like The Office. Is that the vibe? Yeah, exactly. Like The Office," he said, adding that it was good for Callen to get in front of a camera again and do some acting.

The premiere

Schaub said the Austin premiere the night before was packed and that it went well. UFC middleweight Robert Whittaker turned up, which sent Callen into a short detour about how good the fighter's skin is. Callen also said watching himself on screen was enough to make him shave.

"I look homeless. I look like I've been drinking all night," Callen said of his bearded self in the pilot. The beard is now gone.

The real story

Callen has been in front of cameras for decades, so stepping behind one is the newer move here, and he is doing it with a script from Metzger and a cast drawn almost entirely from the stand-up circuit rather than from a casting office. That is the comic owned pilot model, premiere it at a comedy club, put it on YouTube, skip the network entirely. The Creek and the Cave crowd got it first. Everyone else gets it on October 21.

The rest of Ep. 1232 is Schaub and Callen on UFC 333, including Schaub saying he is never betting against Volkanovski and that he would take Aaron Pico as the more technical, more well rounded fighter. If you only want the pilot talk, that is the front end of the episode.