John Cleese wants to see Obama win, the internet and the Economist are finding out who the world would vote for, but which US presidential candidate would the the Iraqis elect? After enduring five-and-a-half years of US liberation/occupation/military campaigns, Alive in Baghdad asks local Iraqi citizens and politicians whether they prefer McCain or Obama in the White House:
CBS’ new series, Novel Adventures, which we noted last week has employed the marketing expertise of a popular YouTuber to spread the word, just released its first installment.
Lizzie, a newcomer to LA, attends a snooty women’s book club and, aghast when asked to consider the context of The Old Man and The Sea, retreats to the appetizer table where she meets three similarly disdainful, fun-lovin’ girls. Adventure ensues!
The premiere episode bares an uncanny resemblance to Quarterlife, but with middle aged women: a cheesy name, bad voiceover, contrived nonchalance, gooey melodrama, and a story crafted around an auto manufacturer (Saturn sponsors the series) with too many money shots.
By the time I first heard a prepubescent Michael Blount finish his goodbye, I had already forwarded his website to my e-mail list. The 11 year-old’s confident, high-pitched internet outreach for a steady female play date – coupled with elementary HTML, a charming naivete, and a haircut that might’ve barely passed for fashionable in the previous decade – inspired a mesmerizing mix of emotions (Do I feel sad for this kid? Is he awesome? Is it OK to laugh?).
From what I remember, Hello My Future Girlfriend was my initial foray into the crawlspace of the World Wide Web, my first encounter with a meme. It was Martin Sargent who made the introduction.
In January 2001, Sargent featured Blount’s amateur online personal during his segment on ZDTV‘s Screen Savers. Formerly an editor at PC Computing Magazine, Sargent originally appeared on the program to explain things hardcore tech, but quickly found a niche in online cultural phenomena. He was one of the first personalities to talk about the memetic internet and expose a cable television audience to bits of online wonderful. Hello My Future Girlfriend resides inside the Pantheon of Internet Ephemera because – along with a numuber of other inadvertent and unexpected virtual creations – Sargent put it there.
Okay, so I’m with the majority here. This show is funny. I’ve been watching David Blaine’s Street Magic since the beginning and waiting with anticipation as new eps come out. And the stalwart casting of Mitch Stilpa as David Blaine and Mikey Day (Kath & Kim) as Idiot One and Michael Naughton as Idiot Two is the bread and butter of this show. The three LA comedy vets make up Groundlings-trained Those Lil Rabbits, who’s channel on YouTube is definitely worth checking out. This show is like comfort food for me, ham and cheese, I know what I’m coming for and I know I’m gonna like it. But then they go and try to fix what ain’t broke. (Sorry ‘Zaoza,’ you seem like a person, but you gotta go.)
But before we get into that, let’s go back to what we love. First of all, the single shot technique is sheer genius. As low budget a production as this seems, there is some serious work going on behind the scenes. First of all, rehearsal, I have to believe they do a lot of it, because they do not miss a beat in the entire single shot of each ep. So kudos to all of them, and their director, David Morgasen, who definitely has work cut out for him.
Second of all with their mise en scene and staging as in episode two (above) when one of the idiots is lifted into the air and placed on the garage (hysterical), or in three when the car is replaced with a miniature version, then again with its life size version, all before our very eyes (or at least just off camera – which takes some serious skill and preparation). Ep three (below) also has the changing of one of the idiots’ hats to different sizes which had me crying with laughter, then Mitch doing a fast and seemingly miraculous wardrobe change that you just have to see to believe.
The performances are great too. Stilpa’s David Blaine is so bizarre and lifelike it’s both frightening and hilarious. And though I’ve never seen the actual Blaine do it, his mysterious gaze into camera after each illusion has me in stitches EVERY TIME. That’s a trick in and of itself. It’s also very funny that each time he approaches them it’s all new to him, but the boys remember him from the last time he ruined their day. And the boys’ performances as the Blaine-beleaguered (and what I can only assume is) gay couple just going about their day be it shopping, fishing, or…shopping, never miss a joke. The writing is simple, but clever with the boys’ constant refrains of “What the F?!” and “Big whoop!” which I can only imagine is interspersed with a lot of good improv.
It should also be noted there are a few errant versions of the show, like the one of just Silpa’s Blaine, doing things like ‘magically’ making a trashcan rise (as a garbage truck raises it) and pigeons disperse (as he runs toward them). And then there are the French ones. The guys flew over to France to shoot two online commercials for a French subscription music site, ZaOza.com, featuring a rival magician “Zaoza” brought in for the fourth and fifth installments, who incidentally is the website’s spokesman.
Zaoza just doesn’t do it. He could be funny I’m sure, I mean, it’s not his performance, it’s just that it messes with the format too much. Suddenly, Stilpa’s Blaine is less confident, and instantly unfunny as a regular Joe. I liked him when he was perfect. That’s the joke of Blaine, guys, when Blaine is on, he does unbelievable, otherworldly things. He’s better than us and it’s frightening and amazing. And as in real life, when Blaine becomes fallible, it’s boring and kind of depressing. [Ed. note: The french episodes were written by the Zaoza team (owned by Vivendi) and aren’t part of the official three-episodes from ThoseLilRabbits.]
Now, in the end I guess the question remains, how long will the joke last if they just kept going the way they were, the three leads intact? Who knows? But I was good at three. And four and five are still funny before Zaoza appears, so I’m thinking there are a few comfort food, oldy-but-goody Street Magics left that will leave us laughing. Guys, please, don’t mess with my ham and cheese like that, leave frenchy for another sketch and bring back just the boys for a couple more.
Until then, there’s always Human Giant’s “The Illusionators,” a spot-on spoof of Criss Angel’s Mindfreak.
This week was scary fun. We got into the Halloween spirit early, even taking the Tuesday Picks in a early-Halloween direction. Then Strike.TV launched with guns blazing bringing some scare from Tom Holland’s 5 or Die series along with nine others to chew on this weekend in case you haven’t already. Take180 rolled out its new dark supernatural conspiracy thriller In2ition, after swapping out one of their lead actresses after a contract dispute. And MSN and Endemol UK teamed up to bring out its big-time interactive sci-fi thriller series Kirill. Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!
The final episode (above – warning: contains spoilers if you’re not caught up!) of Sorority Forever came out today at TheWB.com and MySpaceTV, closing this chapter of the 40-episode college sorority thriller. The Big Fantastic/McG-produced series, chock full of web stars — Jessica Rose (lonelygirl15), Taryn Southern (Private High Musical) and Mikaela Hoover (Sam Has 7 Friends) — had the web media hype-machine in full force this summer, us included, before its Labor Day debut.
The first major scripted series out of Warner Bros.’ new digital portal TheWB.com, Sorority Forever has lived up to its end of the bargain in terms of viewership. Distribution partner MySpaceTV, who had a exclusive 48-hour window for new episodes, certainly delivered. They accounted for over 4 Million views for the series so far. TheWB.com hasn’t yet released viewership numbers for those shown on its own site, but it’s expected that they are at least over 1 million for the series.
Internationally, the series is distributed by Warner Bros. International Television Distribution (WBITD) who has landed a couple of choice placements for its teen hit including Bebo in the U.K. and MSN in Canada and even Korean video portal GOM TV.
We had a chance to talk with Sorority Forever star Taryn Southern, who plays Taryn in the series, about the whole experience and what’s next for the ladies of Phi Kappa Alpha.
“It’s been so exciting to see the evolution of the audience in response to the series,” Southern tells us. “As the mystery unfolded and characters were given a chance to develop, the audience became more and more invested in trying to determine the fate of the girls and the heart of the mystery. The message boards are filled with people playing detective – from analyzing pictures in the girl’s rooms to reading our character’s MySpace pages and finding hidden metaverse blogs, the audience really got into it! That’s what’s so exciting about online series – the interactive elements of storytelling.”
And what about rumors of SF Season 2 in the works?
“I haven’t heard any ‘official’ rumors yet. If a rumor wills a sequel into existence, then yes! I’m starting the rumor now. Ha-ha! We all had so much fun working on this together and grew very close. It was very much like a film set in that way, and I know we would all go back to work on a second season in a heartbeat.”
For more of Taryn check out her original comedy web series Private High Musical, which she created and stars in. She’s also keeping up with her political sing-along “Hot 4 Hill” video series with the latest installment hitting YouTube last week.
In the comments of Tilzy.TV, LOL Cat Reblogger Brad O’Farrell and I came up with the hands-down winner for best costume of Halloween 2008. You can have it, because I’m going to reprise my Casey Jones and Brad is going as Ashely Todd.
If the below is done well and you can document it, I guarantee you at least semi-prevalent internet fame come Monday. Politicos and pop culture junkies will feast on this as if they were zombies at TED (Get it? Because, at that conference, there are some BIG brains!).
Here it is: What are 4 out of every 5 girls going to be? Sarah Palin. What are 4 out of every 5 guys going to be? The Joker. What’s the best, most timely costume ever? Joker Sarah Palin.
Genius. I know. If I were female and wanted to win Halloween, I probably would’ve Pan Labyrinthed my cheeks a couple weeks ago to make the getup more authentic. Whoever wears this, you’re welcome. Send me pictures of you and your trophy and take some footage of all the high-fives you get.
If you’re not interested in the awesome idea above and you still don’t know what you want to dress up as, here are some last minute ideas (Note: You won’t have time for any of these):
For all you Felicia Day fans, a full new season of The Guild is coming November 20th 25th, and this time in high definition. Web star and famed new media producer, Miss Felicia Day has turned down numerous offers for sponsorship deals for the series. She dropped by Revision 3’s Internet Superstars (above) last week to 
update Martin Sargent on the future of the series, and life as a gamer.
Of the choice to stay indie, Felicia says, “I didn’t want to give up the rights to my show. A lot of people wanted to buy my show, and fund it, but even with a good budget, you are not making a lot of money as a producer. And for me, I wanted to have the right partner help with the distribution and take it to a new level, but also retain the rights to what I created. I think as a web producer you want to break that Hollywood rule that as a writer you have to sign away that copyright, and then the studio owns it.”
Known for being completely devoted to the show’s fans (Felicia mails out most of the show’s purchased DVDs herself) the entire cast of the show recently dropped by Blizzcon to show a preview of the first episode.
After making the decision to go forward with no sponsor, Felicia posted this on her blog: “Mantra: Don’t wait for other people to make things happen.” So The Guild forged on buoyed by a large amount of volunteer fans who helped to get the show done.
When we last left Codex, Bladezz, Tinkerballa, Vork, Zaboo, and Clara, they’d just battled and conquered the worthy opponent of Zaboo’s mother, only to leave Codex realizing she now may still have a warlock sleeping on her couch. Find out how these gamers will continue to forge a real-life bond with each other, while continuing to battle evil in the cyber world when the second season drops November 20th 25th.
UPDATE: Corrected the date of Season 2 premiere. It’s really November 25th and was incorrect in the video.
UPDATE 2: Well, so much for staying indie: ‘The Guild’ Lands Microsoft and Sprint In Exclusive Deal
Donnie Hoyle must’ve read some Thich Nhat Hanh.
In the You Suck at Photoshop season finale, the chronically depressed Grand Master of Image Altering interrupts his regularly scheduled tutorial for much needed self-reflection. Like a mini clip show, he inventories his frustration fueled accomplishments from the previous two seasons (modified pictures that figuratively rectified the problems he couldn’t fix in real life), and then reaches what I (hear interventionists on TV) call “a breakthrough.”
The Photoshop guru realizes it never had to be this way, that by practicing a little more acceptance, he could’ve stopped this butterfly effect of malcontent. Just before he reaches a high point of personal enlightenment, he asks “Who is Donnie Hoyle?” The answer? Dane cook. Really! Err…kinda really.
It’s almost obligatory today to take a look at some of the spookiest and ghoulish in web series in honor of the freakiest of all the holidays to get you in the Halloween spirit. If you live in Los Angeles, sexy is usually the de facto adjective before your costume title. (See “Sexy Witch,” “Sexy Nurse.”) Have no fear, web series creators are in on the trend, so enjoy these delectable sexy-scary delights.
Whatever Hollywood in ‘Trick or Treating for Beer’
When the girls from Whatever Hollywood get some sweet Oktoberfest costumes from a fan in Germany, they make sure to put them to good use.
Easy Bake Lovin’s Happy Halloween
Piper has an empty womb, and a bowl full of caramel corn. She’s just waiting for you to knock on her door.
Italian Spiderman
Everything is usually sexier in Italian, even if it happens to be a slightly overweight guy in a lame Spiderman costume. He does, however fight evil crocodiles, and bed hot, Italian women, all to a super smooth soundtrack.
The Theater of Uncomfortable is explored with Strike TV’s Joe and Kate. Directed by Ryan Suffern (Warthog) and written and performed by Joe Kelly (How I Met Your Mother) and Kate Purdy (Cold Case, Mad TV), Joe and Kate perfectly captures those oh-so-awkward couple moments between dating and marriage.
Take a look at the following exchange, promoted by Joe randomly skwaing Philadelphia accent at the breakfast table, taught to him by a “buddy“ of his.
(Note to women: Yes, guys do this.):
Wes Craven has taken over YouTube. The legendary director of such films as A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Scream trilogy and Red Eye has control of the YouTube front page for Halloween as well as the Google homepage logo doodle, which is a holiday tradition going back to the early days (1999). The tradition of taking over YouTube on Halloween is a newer one which started last year when Halloween director and rocker Rob Zombie had the reigns.
We had a chance to ask Wes what he thought of the explosive growth in web video content. 
“I’m all for human expression, no matter how or where,” he told us. Clearly, he likes some of what he’s seeing out there. He had a chance to pick his Halloween favorites from the vast YouTube library and feature them on the front page as well as his own official channel.
We took a look at his picks and he’s chosen a mix of web series and one-off videos ranging from dark and scary to absurdly awesome. Here’s the run-down: (web series are in italics)
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