Nestflix brings the made-up “shows within shows” a step closer to reality

I can’t be alone in having believed Angels with Filthy Souls, the fake film that Macauley Culkin fools burglars with in Home Alone, was real until way too recently. Or being desperate to watch Moira Rose in her prime on daytime hospital melodrama Sunrise Bay. Both are completely made-up, of course, and hence feature on Nestflix, a new site by digital designer Lynn Fisher that brings together all the “nested” fictional TV shows and movies hidden within real shows and films.

Nestflix looks just like a regular streaming platform, the difference being that you can’t actually stream anything. Instead, it’s a catalogue of over 400 totally fake shows and films which you can click on to find out its fictionalised synopsis, choice quotes, cast, director, and importantly, the real film or show it was part of. For example, The Itchy & Scratchy Show from The Simpsons; Winthorpe Manor from Bob’s Burgers; Good Will Hunting 2, Hunting Season, from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; Simple Jack, the parody of Forrest Gump and Rain Man depicted by Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder; and Kick Puncher from Community. There’s also the many, many pretend shows and films conceptualised in 30 Rock, such as the Martin Luther King Day film with an all-white cast, Bitch Hunter starring Will Ferrell, Milf Island, and America*s Kiz Got Singing, a send-up of all TV singing competitions. Each features on the homepage with a thumbnail showing a still from the film or show, categorised into genres such as Game Shows, Reality TV, Thrillers and Documentaries.

Fisher explains on the site that Nestflix is “a wiki dressed up as a streaming platform” and told Paste magazine that it took around two months to research and build the encyclopaedic list of references, take screenshots and write the blurbs, not to mention also building a very legit-looking fake streaming service, based on the design tropes of Netflix, Disney+ and the many others.

It s unashamedly geeky and endless fun, and hence proving so popular that Fisher has had to pause submissions. Since launching last week she says she has another 300 more to add, thanks to her call for submissions on the site for any omissions. She also added on her original tweet: “P.S. Please don’t send me a cease and desist! It’s just a wiki doing some cosplay.” Hopefully the studios won’t see this as a legal issue, but instead an opportunity to get some of these as-yet-unrealised pieces of cinema and TV history finally brought to fruition.