Not The Weatherman. But indicative of the mood everyone is in, on a digital television.

It is with sheer excitement and a bouquet of gratitude that I can say The Weatherman, a comedy concept pilot from Dark Heart Productions, has hit its target of $72,500 and is heading into production.

This follows from its screening at The New York TV Festival in late 2011, where from over 4000 applicants, The Weatherman was screened for Festival audiences to encouraging responses. Remember Ira from Mad About You? No? Anyway, I do – and he loved it. I think. There was a lot of free Stella Artois at the Festival. Soon after, though, the pilot was to find itself in interesting new waters. Mobcaster.

For those who don’t know, Mobcaster is a new platform similar to Kickstarter or Pozble, entirely dedicated to the purpose of crowd-sourcing funding to independently produce and air TV series. Creative groups pitch directly to the audience, and must attain funding within a 90 day window – otherwise no money is paid by contributors, and the idea and team behind it has to have a sit down somewhere until it knows what to do with itself.

Unlike other creative groups, however, Dark Heart weren’t pitching for money to shoot a pilot. They’d already done that, filming The Weatherman pilot with a meagre $4000. A half hour comedy, with scripts ready to roll. So why not take it further? Why not pitch a whole damn series? Where some groups had ninety days to hit $8000, for instance, Dark Heart needed $72,500.

And, thanks to the donations from many friends, family, fellow-travelers, well-wishers and (I hope anyway) unnamed celebrities, The Weatherman will soon be entering production – yep, it got there. A full six half-hour episode season of a brand new Australian comedy is coming, independently produced, independently financed. The internet sure is a great place to be. If you haven’t so already, you can view the full pilot here.