Joss Whedon announces release date for 'Dr. Horrible'

This weekend, Joss Whedon dropped some details about his online spectacular "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog." The first of three installments will debut on July 15, the second on the July 17, and the third on the July 19.  All three will be removed at midnight on July 20.  (Thanks, Whedonesque).

Whedon also added a few notes about the origin of the series.  Here's an excerpt:

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A super-villain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.