My Damn Channel Founder and CEO Rob Barnett recently told us to expect “more” online original programming to come out of his new media studio (aka the four-year-old home of such online video hits like You Suck at Photoshop, Wainy Days, and Gigi). Barnett and company just found the first of that “more” this past week at the Just for Laughs Comedy Conference in Montreal, Canada.
Toronto’s very own award-winning animation and production shop Smiley Guy Studios landed a development deal with My Damn Channel for winning a pitch contest at the conference. Their interactive cartoon comedy View U – “about four college friends who do anything and everything to get ten million clicks of fame” – impressed an esteemed panel of judges including Barnett, Ben Relles of YouTube Next, Spencer Griffin of CollegeHumor, and Eric Mortensen of blip.tv.
The five-minute pitch from Smiley Guy Studios Executive Producer Jonas Diamond beat out two other pitch competition finalists for the deal. Jeff the Chosen One, a situational comedy about “magic, destiny, and idiots” from Matt Alden and Paul Foxcroft, and Bill and Sons Towing, a dramatic comedy series from Ready, Set, Panic.
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Diamond and his crew at Smiley Guy will work with My Damn Channel Director of Content Jesse Cowell and his team to produce a full-blown pilot. Said pilot will then presumably be pitched around to advertisers to (hopefully) be developed into a full-fledged original series.
If you want to get a taste of what’s in store, check out Smiley Guy Productions’ previous work here.
