Is this the answer to Catholicism’s prayers?
As Cardinals prepare to select a new Pope, a number of Catholics hope the next supreme pontiff will help rehab the image of a church rocked by scandal. But a video parodying the Bravo series Tabatha Takes Over proposes a different solution.
In Breaking Habits, a no-nonsense nun (24 alum Mary Lynn Rajskub) takes over a convent to whip its sisters into shape. In many ways, the video is a spot on recreation of real-life ads for Bravo reality shows, down to the camera angles announcer’s voice.
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“We studied their promos down to minute details to get it right,” co-writer and co-director Mark J. Marraccini tells The Hollywood Reporter. He says the wheels started rolling on the idea in October 2012 when Rajskub told him she was a fan of Tabatha Coffey’s show, in which she takes over a business to improve it.
Marraccini is interested in developing Breaking Habits into a reality parody show in the vein of Burning Love, a web series spoofing The Bachelor, or B.E.T.’s Real Husbands of Hollywood. The video was produced by Kids at Play for Principato-Young Entertainment, which produces the Yahoo! series “SketchY.”
There are also nods to other reality shows in the sketch, including a slap inspired by a moment in Real Housewives of Miami where Adriana DeMoura infamously slapped Joanna Krupa.
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“Unlike most scripted sketches, we shot this ‘reality-style’ with two cameras rolling at once as if we were really shooting a reality show. Luckily, shooting that way gave the cast more leeway to improv,” Marraccini says.
Watch the video below.
