The latest from This Is Branchburg's Brendan O’Hare and Cory Snearowski tackles leaf-raking, doormat-stealing

Brendan O’Hare and Cory Snearowski have spent the last few years cultivating an amiable brand of absurdity via their YouTube channel and podcast, This Is Branchburg, providing a genial alternative to the cringe comedy and IRL shit-posting that tends to dominate the scene. From inside the very real township of Branchburg, New Jersey, the pair subvert the forced pleasantries and aggressive politeness endemic to suburban America by flooding the everyday with oddball characters, dark twists, and offbeat, lobotomized behaviors. Their latest video, “It’s A Beautiful Fall Morning,” might be the perfect gateway into their hyper-specific approach.

“You’re at your best when you’re taking care of your lawn,” narrates O’Hare, fashioning himself as an advocate for the joys of raking leaves. His voice never wavering from its folksy cadence, he soon raises eyebrows by recalling the “hundreds of snowmen” you build every winter and the time “someone stole all your grass.” Soon, he’s telling you about “a little lemon-lime number called Sprite,” lamenting his “little eardrums,” and greeting a strange visitor with designs on his pile of leaves (and doormat).

O’Hare and Snearowski aren’t as profane or nihilistic as their contemporaries, nor are they aiming for the kind of whiplash-inducing shocks of something like I Think You Should Leave or “Too Many Cooks.” It’s no surprise that they’ve been hyped by Tim Heidecker, as they practice the same reality-bending blend of sincerity and absurdity of his On Cinema universe.

See more of Branchburg over on their YouTube channel.

[O’Hare and Snearowski are former contributors to The Onion and Clickhole, which, like The A.V. Club, are owned by G/O Media.]