Absolut Galifianakis, Absolut Absurd

From Sarah Silverman’s tawdry balladeering about “f**cking Matt Damon,” to Craig Bierko bathing John Malkovich from behind, to the ubiquitous online prevalence of Sacha Baron Cohen in the months leading up to the release of Borat, actors and comedians have turned to the Web to develop an “in” reputation with smaller audiences – video viewers who are, at the very least, somewhat attuned to viral culture. In doing so, they have conquered a large corner of the Internet and developed it as fertile soil for comedy of the absurd.

While the loose, no-holds-barred tone of absurdist comedy hasn’t necessarily permeated the surface of mainstream culture (for example, HBO’s Flight of the Conchords continues to garner only a small portion of the audience that tunes in for Comedy Central’s brainless Mind of Mencia), experimental hilarity continues to thrive on sites like Funny Or Die and My Damn Channel.

So it goes without saying that an actor and comedian like Zach Galifianakis

should have no trouble entering the sphere, building an online presence to compliment his budding offbeat career, which includes The Comedians of Comedy, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Funny Or Die Tour, and an unexpected [serious] cameo in Sean Penn’s Into The Wild.

Naturally, when Absolut Vodka decided it was time to spread word about their product online, someone had the brilliant idea to enlist the talents of Galifianakis and Adult Swim staples Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job.

In doing so, they provided the trio with the funding necessary to simply shoot two elongated shorts that somehow incorporated advertising of their signature product – everything else was up to them. What transpired were two undeniably insane, eye-popping (and hilarious, natch) videos that come exclusively from the minds of some today’s most entertaining, hyper-creative, and especially bizarre minds of progressive comedy.