Fans of The Room should ready their finest selection of throwing spoons, for Tommy Wiseau is back. This week Wiseau, the shadowy enigma behind the most beloved terrible film of all time, revealed that his sitcom The Neighbors will be unleashed on an unsuspecting public in September.
Judging by its teaser trailer, The Neighbors promises to do for comedy what The Room did for uncomfortably sexual yet entirely impenetrable melodrama. Here are five reasons why you should be looking forward to it.
It's the return of Tommy Wiseau
Wiseau is a truly fascinating character who tends to operate in darkness for months or sometimes years without ever really explaining himself. He has appeared on screen since The Room, often in roles in which he overtly and uncomfortably sends up his own image, such as the short The House That Drips Blood on Alex. But The Neighbors has been gestating for years. It's clearly a passion project. Given that his last one of these was The Room – a film that could keep psychoanalysts in work for decades – it should offer another valuable glimpse into a truly unfathomable soul.
It's nothing like the last trailer for The Neighbors
The Neighbors has been a long time coming. The first trailer for Wiseau's second great labour of love emerged back in 2008, just as The Room was making the crossover from little-known cult curio into fully fledged cultural reference. And how different it was back then. Gone were the bright colours and weird blond bob of the newest incarnation. Instead, we were presented with what appeared to be a workplace comedy, full of zany kooks who push pencils up their noses and scream loudly at each other about wireless internet. The final scene, once the copyright-free comedy redneck movie had run out of its own accord, saw the entire cast jumping up and down while Wiseau (in a short brunette wig and apparently covered in cake) chanted "Wah wah wah" over and over again. It's a shame that this version of The Neighbors never saw the light of day – truly, it looks like the Dogme 95 of sitcoms – but this new version is sure to be just as good, right?
Tommy Wiseau sells underwear now
The bulk of the new trailer for The Neighbors is occupied with Wiseau and his co-star discussing something called a "TW Party". This appears to be a party where everyone holds a pair of underpants with the words "Tommy Wiseau" written on them and that's about it. Incidentally, if you want a pair of underpants with the words "Tommy Wiseau" written on them, you can have them. True, to buy them you'll need to look at the official The Room website, which is so ineptly designed that you're likely to go mad or blind or both after about a second, but how could you possibly have a TW party without them?
Tommy has a new catchphrase
The trailer for The Neighbors has 48 seconds of new footage. And in these 48 seconds Wiseau makes the same noise three times. It's a strange, strangulated kind of high-pitched "CHAW" sound that seems to happen on a completely involuntary basis. What could be better than a brand-new Wiseau sitcom? Why, a sitcom where Wiseau's mouth goes "CHAW" once every 15 seconds completely independently of any other part of his body, of course.
It's the perfect stopgap while you wait for The Disaster Artist
Fans of The Room will have already read The Disaster Artist, a baffling account of the film's production by its star Greg Sestero. It's a hilarious, dark, sometimes moving book that will next year become a feature film starring and directed by James Franco. It's likely to be unmissable, but next year is a long way off. Which makes this the perfect time to watch Tommy Wiseau throwing girls around a brightly coloured room with several dozen obnoxious friends while he keeps unintentionally making a "CHAW" sound a lot. September cannot come quickly enough.
