It’s a known fact that reality television thrives on sob stories and melodrama, with many contestants known to get by on sympathy votes. Comedy group All India Bakchod and the lifestyle channel TLC humour this fact in a promotional video (above), Every Reality Show Ever ft AIB.

“Every reality show’s backbone is a sad backstory,” says AIB’s Rohan Joshi to Ashish Shakya, to whom he is selling the idea for a new reality show featuring women stand up comedians, “... and with sentimental music playing in the background, there is no limit, no limit, to how much we can fool our audience.”

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The parody is a subversive commentary on the reality of reality shows, and also on how female comedians are dismissed easily and tagged unfunny. A troupe of female comedians sit in a conference room, and are asked to come up with tragic backstories of their own – perhaps financial doom, an alcoholic father? But what if they don’t have any sob stories?

Here’s the fun part: these eight women comedians are actual contestants on TLC’s real-life show Queens of Comedy, starting September 24. “No sad stories. No melodrama. Only comedy,” is the promise.