“Brents in Boxers? Sounds like some kind of weirdo fetish fantasy.”

Yeah. We know. That’s the point. When you toss in a reference to underwear on a family friendly site, you get noticed. We get noticed. And I love to be noticed.

I own both pairs of boxers found in our logo. I picked out the fabric and Brent1’s wife was kind enough to make them for me. She does that a lot and I have the packed dresser drawer to prove it. Anyway, as much as you want to hear about my drawers, back to the boxers.

When we were putting the show together, with the help of TMC and NAR, the name was the biggest struggle. We’d known each other for years, had a dynamic that caught attention and could play off each other for a crowd. Heck, we’d done it on camera for documentaries (you know, I wonder what happened with those. . .). The personalities were easy and they led straight to the signature Brents In Boxers taste.

But what to call the thing?

No flippen idea.

At the time I didn’t have access to a washer/dryer. Or didn’t want to pay for it (same thing) so I’d occasionally bring laundry over while we worked or watched movies. It was late and I was sitting on the couch, covered in clean clothes, rolling up boxers. Somehow it came out. I don’t remember exactly what was said but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my idea. “Brents In Boxers”. Perfect.

Within minutes we had my (previously neatly folded) laundry on the floor; digging through shirts and laying out boxer pairs. Dignified conversation followed. Lines that still stick in my head include:

“No, we can’t use Yoda. George will sue us.”

“Yeah, uh, not the banana.”

“Huh? No, the boxers are fine by themselves Brent. We’re not wearing them.”

Eventually we had two pairs picked out. Flames and planets. We tried out different things. Laying them on top of each other. End to end, leg to leg. Designers do that kind of thing with fake Barbies. We should do it with undies. Made sense at the time.

You’d assume we’d just take a picture, run it through a cartoony filter and go with it. Nope. The final product involved opening Macromeida Flash and getting nitty-gritty. In the end, we changed a few things, “rastorized” some bitmaps to blend in and tried to make elements look like kids did it (note the solid line boxer edges).

So, why the boxers?

Well, it grabs your attention. And does it well. Certain words do that and they’re usually related to sex. Boxers are fun, safe enough for family content and just plain interesting. They get people to listen. We get them to stay.

And my giant collection of boxers? Still have it. But now I’m working on pajama pants.