"Baked Goodes" Web Series

Written By: Caryn Ruby

Creating the web series Baked Goodes was one of the most fun and exciting times of my life. It was one of those things that when it started, there was no way anyone could have predicted where it would lead - and that has everything to do with the unique way it all came together.

It all started with a post in a Facebook group for female comedians in Los Angeles in the summer of 2015. The post said something to the effect of: “my job just ended and I have some free time. Who wants to make something?”

I and about 25 other women responded. A meeting was set at the Inner Sanctum at UCB in Hollywood. From the jump, it was a 100% democratic, collaborative process. From “what should we make?” to “what should we write about?” and “who are the characters in this world?” Everyone pitched ideas then we voted for our favorites. As a collective, we decided to make a web series that revolved around how hard it is to be “successful” as women – and what that even means – as well as sexism, ageism, religion, and marijuana (at the time) being illegal. You know, all non-controversial topics. We decided early on that we wanted it to be inclusive and progressive, but not preachy.

We went in with no predetermined expectations or agenda. It was a group of women, after all.

A month or so after our weekly meetings started, the attendance started to fall, and we were left with 5 women. Molly, the original “poster,” Mack – who knew Molly through improv, Anna and me who randomly saw the Facebook post and thought it looked fun, and Erin who was brand new to LA and introduced to me by a mutual friend from Chicago the week before. As luck would have it, it was the perfect group of five, all of our individual skillsets complimented each other perfectly! We became the creators, producers, casting directors, actors, director, art department, and crafty (more on all that later).

Just like in a “real” writer’s room, as a group we broke down the characters and backstory, and pitched storylines and episodes. Then, not at all like a typical writer’s room - we created doodle polls to vote on our favorites, and the episodes with the most votes became the ones we wrote. Everything was democratic. Everything was fair. The group talked about our process on an episode of the Podcast “The Other 50%” (sadly I was out of town and had to miss the recording, but it’s a great conversation!)