The beloved St. Louis-born donut shop, Strange Donuts, gets even stranger (and cooler) in their new web series, “Strange Louis,” which debuted Wednesday night on YouTube.
“[Strange Louis] shows more of who we are behind the business,” says co-owner Corey Smale.
The first episode dropped Wednesday night on Strange Donuts’ YouTube page. It features a behind-the-scenes look at their charity event, Power of the Dinner, which took place in April and raised money for Strange Cares — Strange Donuts’ nonprofit that benefits Big Brothers Big Sisters, Girls on the Run, and The Children’s Heart Foundation.
The episode packs in plenty of humor — especially when co-owner Jason Bockman’s character Brother Terry Strange, and his hilarious pastor-esque, Southern accent, has to quickly climb a mountain of stairs to change out of his brown suit and wig and into his regular clothes during breaks. “I think I probably ran over 12,000 stairs tonight,” he quips to the camera.
The episode also includes a hint of drama (the dinner is a tad behind schedule) and endearing pathos from Bockman when he explains the meaning behind Strange Cares’ scholarships. He says in the video that he didn’t graduate from high school, and thanks someone from Big Brothers Big Sisters for helping him along the way. He has a debt to pay, he says in the video, to both the city and to kids like him.
But before this finished product was expertly and stylishly edited into a neat 9-minute video, Smale tells SLM the idea for “Strange Louis” was centered around showcasing St. Louis and utilizing Strange Donuts’ strong social media presence.
“We’re pretty connected with new and upcoming stuff on Twitter and all that,” he says. “And I like to discover things that have been going on [in St. Louis] that maybe I didn’t know about.”
Future episodes take Smale and Bockman to St. Louis gems like Bolyard’s Meat and Provisions, where they learn the basics of butchering, and Such and Such Farms.
“We played with these pigs that were born the day before,” Smale says. “We had fresh goat’s milk, road ATVs, went in the creek. We had a lot of fun.”
The fourth episode, he says, will feature a behind-the-scene look at their National Donut Day event last month, which marked Strange Cares’ first scholarship presentation.
Smale says he looks forward to a second season of “Strange Louis,” and hopes to preview footage for it in the final episode of season one. He says they’re also looking for advertisers to pay for production and filming costs, and briefly mentions the idea of combining the four episodes into one long video and distributing it to Hulu or Tastemade.
“We’re definitely not trying to make a bunch of money off of it,” Smale says. “We just want to keep [Strange Louis] going… We want to keep showcasing St. Louis and all the cool stuff that’s happening here and the people here.”
The three remaining episodes of season one of “Strange Louis” will debut Wednesday’s at 9 p.m. on YouTube. Watch the first episode above or here.
