Even Bo Burnham's unused footage from Netflix special Inside is brutally good

Is there a reality in which Bo Burnham wins another Emmy for his Netflix special Inside, this time for the hour's worth of scrapped footage that didn't even make the final cut? We have to wonder, because the stand-up comic and Eighth Grade director released a cut of unused Inside footage on YouTube Monday night that he edited together — and it's really good

"a year ago today, i released a special called inside," Burnham tweeted. "i've spent the last two months editing together material that i shot for the special but didn't end up using. it will be on my youtube channel in one hour. i hope you enjoy it."

Burnham calls this cut the Inside Outtakes, and it's such a mind warp. It throws viewers immediately back to March 2020, when many of us were losing our minds in quarantine and Burnham started recording what would become Inside. He tapped into the collective consciousness — the overwhelming sense of anxiety, in particular — when his special finally arrived on Netflix a year later in May 2021. The Outtakes feel the same.

Similar to Inside, which was shot in isolation without a crew or an audience, this new footage was captured between March 2020 and May 2021, and edited between April and May of 2022.

Burnham ended up scoring three Emmys for his work on Inside, including for variety special writing, music direction, and directing. And even his "unusable" footage from it is still solid work.

Watch the outtakes directly on Burnham's YouTube channel.

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