Next New Networks’ Barely Digital channel, the 11-month old offshoot of its Obama Girl led Barely Political, has launched a new musical series Key of Awesome this month. The musical lampooning series has already belted out four episodes bashing everything from celebrities crying to Twilight hating vampires. There’s even two “making of” videos that are pretty spoofy themselves.
The new series is a slight turn from Barely Digital’s first scripted comedy Tech Know, which took a behind the scenes look at a fictional tech gadget review show. Think an internet spin on The Larry Sanders Show or Goodnight Burbank for the techie set. Tech Know has been on hiatus since mid-August and no word yet on its return.
Subscribe to get the latest creator news
Key of Awesome is a return to what put the Barely Political crew on the map in the first place–internet topical music vids with viral breakout potential. And using their highly subscribed Barely Political YouTube channel is key to sparking that viral mojo. The Twilight episode above had already raked in over 270,000 views on YouTube alone in just a week since launching.
Most episodes star Barely Digital writer Mark Douglas and are helmed by Tom Small. New episodes are planned for every week. Barely Political founder Ben Relles says so far the reaction to the series has been strong. “I think we’re around 1 million views for the series and people seem to like the videos,” said Relles. “We’ve been creating videos with Mark Douglas now for a couple of years and love his sense of humor. This idea came largely from the great response we got to some of his prior music videos he did for Barely Political like ‘Political Sex Scandals’ and for Indy Mogul like ‘Harry Potter Rap’,” added Relles.
Relles and the Barely Digital crew are also hosting a live show 7pm on Thursday November 19 at the Canal Room in NY as part of Web 2.0 Summit that will feature The Gregory Brothers (AutoTune the News), Amber Ettinger and Leah Kauffman (Obama Girl), Mike Relm (mash-up artist) and Mark Douglas who will be performing Key of Awesome songs.
