When not doing stand-up, New York-based comedian Sean Crespo reviews TV shows for his Web series, “No Prior Knowledge.” He has also written for a number of publications including Cracked, Comedy Central and The Onion, which is based out of Chicago.

Crespo recently took time out of his schedule to speak with the Northern Star about his acclaim as a “vlogger” and offer advice to those interested in a career in comedy.

Northern Star: Where are you now?

Sean Crespo: I’m in Manhattan, in New York City.

NS: How did you come up with the concept for “No Prior Knowledge”?

SC: I was doing a video series for one of NBC’s Web sites called Dot Comedy, which by the way, as soon as there’s an ironic name for the Web site, it’s doomed. I did that for like, eight months and the site went under because NBC made the brilliant choice of paying the first three months’ worth of people $5,000 a shot for each of their short films. So I did a

series for them, then when they closed, somebody over there passed me along to the people at Bravo, because they had the same parent conglomo company and my boss Daniel at Bravo asked me to come up with some ideas for a video series about TV shows. But since I don’t watch a lot of TV, it’s really hard to justify doing that unless the angle is that I don’t watch a lot of TV. So it wasn’t much of a choice. It was really the only option, unless I wanted to spend the next 500 hours watching every series on television so I could say something pithy in a three-minute video to an audience of a few million who don’t care about who I am. So I opted for the lazier of the two choices, talking about not knowing stuff.

NS: How long does it take you to complete an episode of “No Prior Knowledge”?

SC: I’ve got it down to a decent length of time. It takes roughly six hours, I guess, if I go straight through. A lot of times I have to stop and start, though … so it can take anywhere up to eight hours. It’s a pain in the a– if I really put some effort into it.

NS: You’ve done about 50 of those by now. Do you have a favorite that sticks out in your mind?

SC: I think a couple of earlier ones. The “Jericho” one is really funny, and that might be the second one. “Life on Mars” was pretty funny, I think. I enjoyed doing that one.

NS: When you’re not mocking television programs you haven’t seen, you’re doing stand-up. Has that experience been rewarding for you?

SC: I’ve been doing standup for a long time. I’ve been doing this for probably way too long. I did it for five years when I was 16, I stopped for about four or five years and then I started up again when I was still out in Los Angeles. So it’s been about five or six years again, since I’ve been doing it, but the reward is essentially the set that night, and if something comes of it longer term, that’s great, but for now I’m trying to just get paid gigs, which come pretty regularly, so that’s not bad. Then eventually trying to get a Comedy Central Presents or a Live at Gotham set, something like that. Pretty standard.

NS: Would you say that’s your goal as a stand-up comedian right now?

SC: Yeah, I mean, that’s the immediate goal. The long-term goal is just to have a career that I’m proud of so that when other comedians talk about me, or my jokes, I want them to say something like, “I loved that bit.” I would just like my fellow comics to really like and admire what I do, because I work with so many very funny, very smart people that if they like it, I know I am doing something good. That’s kind of the overarching.

NS: Is there anyone or anything you draw your inspiration from as a comedian?

SC: There are comics I really love that I would love to be as funny as; they kind of set the bar for me. Guys like Paul F. Tompkins, Maria Bamford, Patton Oswalt. You’ll hear the same names from everyone. That’s kind of the current batch of people I really love and would love to be at the same level as. I don’t know if that’s inspiration, but that’s kind of a benchmark to reach for, I guess.

NS: Doing stand-up is more or less a solo gig for you, but other than that, comedy writing and comedy in general seems very much a team effort. Do you struggle at all to find people who share your interests and sense of humor, or have they found you?

SC: Comedy is a weird thing. It’s almost like some right-wing conservative’s wet dream because it appears to be a meritocracy where people buy individual islands. You know how they say “no man is an island”? Which, in comedy, it seems like there’s nothing but individual islands. Occasionally people chip in or help each other out or pass on a connection, but pretty much whomever knows the most industry folks and has enough of their own fan base, they’re the ones who are going to scooch ahead. There’s not a lot of, “I’m going to take you with me,” because you can’t. It’s just not up to you. If somebody at NBC or whomever decides they like you, they like you and not your 52 friends, so you might get a show or a showcase or something, but your friends won’t. Maybe you could give a few small spots, like maybe a writing job to somebody else, but that’s about it. Comedy’s more sort of a “DIY” sort of thing, basically.

NS: To change gears a bit, you’ve also starred in a number of sketch comedy videos on YouTube, my favorite of which is “Arbitrary Real-Time Narrative,” the spin on “24.” Has producing videos always been something you’ve been interested in?

SC: Yes and no. It’s the sort of thing where the medium is available, and nature hates a vacuum, and I hate nature, so I just wanted to make some videos. That makes no sense, but with my producing partner Carol, we’ve had a number of deals over the last couple of years to make short films and you basically get a lump sum of change. You write whatever you want; you write like, 10 sketches let’s say, and you figure out how many of those you could do with the money you were given and just do them. Making videos is something I’d want to do, but I don’t want to do them for free. It’s fun to do them, but I’ve got a stand-up career and plenty of writing submissions that need to get out there and lots of auditions, as well. So it’s tough to fit that stuff in unless you just want to do that and make that your thing.

NS: Speaking of the videos, you co-wrote the series “I Am Drugs,” which has been pretty popular on the Web. What was the goal behind those shorts?

SC: We did those in 2005. I had a brief sketch group that was around for about a year and my friend Matt Preskenis, who I’m working on a book pitch with right now, with Carol, he and I got together just started laughing about crappy PSAs and then it just kind of rolled out from there. The videos became an excuse for a series of one-liners, which is why it’s cut and edited the way it is. The whole point was just to make ourselves giggle and laugh, and we enjoyed it so much we took a crack at getting everybody together to shoot it. It turned out so well that we made a few others. Organizing a sketch group is kind of a nightmare, which is why I put the kibosh on it after about a year. It was too much.

NS: Do you have any advice for those interested in comedy, or comedy writing, stand-up, anything like that?

CS: You know what? I’d like some advice, but if there’s any advice to be had if you want a career in comedy, which is kind of a big tent to want a career under, I’d say pick one thing and do that. Be really good at it and don’t stop. I would recommend not taking the path that I’ve taken. I’ve kind of fallen into this though a combination of my different interests. I went to drama school, I had different writing jobs, but I’m also a stand-up comic, so I’m constantly juggling between auditions. It’s really, really hard to invest yourself in any one of those things when you’re constantly thinking about the other two. So if I were to do this all over again, I would just be doing stand-up comedy and I would just focus on that. Whatever happened with that, I’d let it happen. If it fell apart, and I wound up doing something else, that’s fine. But the best piece advice I could give anybody is don’t do 10 different things; do one thing, and do it really well.

NS: Thanks a lot, Sean, I appreciate your time.

Visit Sean on the Web at www.drinkatwork.com.