“Strap on your Stupid! Donnie’s Back.”

Two months ago, Donnie Hoyle called it quits. The chronic depressive behind MyDamnChannel’s You Suck at Photoshop curled up into a ball of sad, shuffled off his online coil, and disappeared from his virtual friends. His buddy, Sn4tchbuckl3r went looking for him.

So disturbed by his friend’s disappearance, Sn4tchbuckl3r entered the MMO-world of Peopleburg – a 12-step program for recovering online gamers…that’s also an online game.

In a five-part “seasonette,” we see him looking for answers and progress with little payoff, until, in a self-aggrandizing, altruistic, and existential twist, we find that Donnie’s been behind the whole thing.

He created Peopleburg as a safe-haven – free from scrutiny and insecurity – and to show off his Photoshop skills. But now the code’s been hacked. Some Agent-like entity is out to disseminate spooning across the internet, Donnie’s gotta jet, and Sn4tchbuckl3r is the World Wide Web’s only hope.

All this somehow means that Donnie’s back in his basement, and we have another 10-episode season of You Suck at Photoshop:

This wasn’t supposed to happen, but after the series abruptly ended last season and fans cried murder, the creators – Troy Hitch and Matt Bledsoe of Big Fat Institute – had no choice but to resuscitate the show.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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Aside from window shopping in Kid Robot and involuntarily caressing all the smooth plastic surfaces on anything not inside a display case, I don’t have much experience with America’s designer toy craze. According to Paul Budnitz – a seminal figure in bringing the art-cum-action-figures stateside – in 2001, stylized vinyl figures and plush dolls from Asia started trickling into the country. Just a few years later, a fully-fledged US subculture developed including talented artists and collectors with disposable income.

I couldn’t find any hard evidence, but I’m thinking Domo is one this fashion’s major progenitors. The furry love child of a pillowcase and Smokey the Bear was conceived in 1998 as mascot to Japanese television station NHK and became an instant popular icon, spawning TV appearances, fan clubs, and licensed products. If you look at some designer toys today, especially those cute-but-not-cute Uglydolls, you can see Domo’s far-reaching influence.

And now, just like his offspring, Domo’s stateside.  While a Nickelodeon series has apparently been put on ice, Big Tent Entertainment and video-sharing site, Veoh have partnered up for a 12-episode series starring the little guy girl thing.

###Here’s a primer on what Domo’s all about:

“Domo was hatched from an egg, that one day mysteriously fell into the home of a wise, elderly rabbit named Usajii. Domo loves watching television (obviously) and named himself after the first word he ever heard on TV which can mean either ‘hello,’ thank you,’ ‘excuse me,’ ‘sorry’ and ‘goodbye’. Domo also enjoys drinking tea, listening to garage band music and sinking his sharp teeth into seasoned beef with potatoes.” 

It’s cute in a Saturday-Morning-Cartoon and claymation-is-always-cool kinda way, but clearly meant for more of a Wubbcast set. It lacks the gratuitous violence present in Pib and Pog that would make it more attractive to older generations, though there are still some winks to those with a reading level post 6th grade. It’s also produced well enough where the fantastic animation and ridiculous situations can be enjoyed by all.

Find the episodes and some of Domo’s Japanese commercial clips over on Veoh.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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Gotham Girls was ahead of its time. Jointly produced by Warner Bros and World Leaders Entertainment, the flash-animated, online series debuted in 2000, featuring a catty of improbably proportioned heroines and villainesses from the world of DC’s caped-crusader, Batman.

It begins with Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Batgirl, Catwoman, and Zantanna, in some type of lesbian fantasy where the women have super powers and all the men in Gotham have disappeared, and ends three seasons and two years later with a five-part, physical comic book mini-series that leveraged its online counterpart’s success.

Little action has occurred in the world of comic book-derived web shows since. With the unimpressive exception of Strange Detective Tales, nearly all experimentation with new media has come from the literary side of book publishing. There, you can witness the initial rumblings of change in the process of promotion.

Publishers of books like Celebutantes and Foreign Body precede print releases with web shows meant to popularize titles, hoping to increase awareness and sales. But this phenomenon hasn’t yet caught on in the world of comics. Until now.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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The trailer for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, an upcoming “Internet musical” featuring Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion, was leaked online yesterday, giving us a first glimpse into Joss Whedon’s latest creation. According to Whedon, “It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.” Harris, who has seen a surge in popularity with his cameos in the Harold and Kumar movies, plays the super-villain protagonist, with Fillion as the antagonistic “hero” and Day as the love interest.

Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, said in a recent LA Times article that the project emerged from last year’s writer’s strike as a way “to get out there and create jobs and tell stories, and really [explain] to people that there really is another way.” Co-written by Whedon, his brothers Jed and Zack, and Maurissa Tancharoen, the show took only six days to film. By the time production on Dr. Horrible was set to begin, however, another one of Whedon’s creations, Dollhouse was picked up by Fox, and fast tracked into production. At the time Whedon said he felt that he “wasn’t going to abandon or short-shrift either project. You just can’t.”

Looking at the Dr. Horrible website tells a different story. Featuring only the trailer, hosted on Vimeo, and a series of broken links, we get no information about the show, nor a schedule for release. In fact, the only place to get any details is through the show’s fan site, DoctorHorrible.net. Apparently we can expect three ten minute episodes, most likely to be released sometime between now and Comic Con in July, where Whedon and the cast will appear on a panel. According to Harris, Whedon is still working on channels of distribution for the show itself.

Hopefully the show will be a hit; so far, it’s been an inauspicious start to the star-studded production.

Filed under: Comedy, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, News by Arjun Sharma
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Following up on yesterday’s post on the live appearance of The All-For-Nots on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the fictional-turned-real indie band rocked out the aptly-chosen track “Stretching the Truth” to the old-school-TV audience of millions.

Is this the indie version of Hannah Montana? Creating a band within a scripted show that then breaks the fourth wall and becomes larger than the show itself? Time will tell on the fate of The All-For-Nots as a standalone musical act, but either way, this is another step forward for the web series format. The show, which has racked up some 300,000 views (just on their YouTube channel) since its launch in March, has a growing audience that blends fans of the show itself and those that just love their sound. The band had a few live gigs in NY, playing at Bar Matchless in Brooklyn and The Annex on the Lower East Side. After Kimmel, I’d expect to see some more of these on the docket.

Want to hear more All-For-Nots?

Filed under: ABC, Comedy, Network/Cable Television, News, Production Companies, Vuguru/Tornante, Web Series by Marc Hustvedt
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Remi Gaillard is a merry prankster of public space. His art is in athletics and devoid of the sharp social, political, and ethical satire of Banksy, Ji Lee, or other modern troublemakers active in metropolises, but the work is no less entertaining and done at greater (immediate) personal risk.

Hailing from Montpellier, France, Remi’s got mad soccer skills and a knack for circumventing authority. His tour de force came after Lorient won the final match in the 2002 Coup de France. He stormed on the field in a replica jersey, ransacked the goal with the real team, did that weird flying-a-plane thing that soccer players do when they’re excited, and posed for the press, trophy in hand.

But that was for a special occasion. Normally, Remi’s performances are relegated to city streets and buildings and captured by handheld cameras. Under the banner n’importe quie (I don’t speak French, but I hope it means, “Awesome”) he recreated Rocky, practiced the rings in a metro car, tunneled his way out of prison, broke into bodybuilding competitions, and scored touchdowns with found objects.

Remi’s clearly talented, both physically and in deciding what makes for great hidden-camera-performance-art, but his latest video – Foot 2008, where he makes soccer goals out of the urban landscape – looks a little too slick to be legit.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Joshua Cohen
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“Funny is funny,” the creators of Kyle Piccollo: Comic Shop Therapist say. Just because the series’ protagonist is a comic book geek whose therapeutic intuition is harnessed through comic books alone does not mean that those of us unfamiliar with the wacky world of comics won’t find the funny. Like The Guild, it intends an approach accessible to anyone, but with subtle winks and sly nods to those intimately involved with the subculture.

Through “stilted” observations and advice set in Manhattan’s Midtown Comics, Kyle Piccolo intends to be one of the first online, comic-related shows that’s more than just geeks talking about the industry and its latest releases.

The first episode, Fantastic Fix, creates the setup for what will likely be a repeated bit: Guy walks up with Comfort Comic. Moments later, with little prodding, he’s spilling the beans of his dysfunctional relationship and, a few quick Kyle Piccolo quips after that, he walks away with a receipt longer than expected.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jamison Tilsner
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Break A Leg, the fast-paced web comedy series about a hapless television writer desperately trying to launch his first network sitcom, has recently secured a sponsorship deal with Holiday Inn Express, delaying the release of the highly anticipated season finale by a week and extending the show seven more
episodes, according to co-creators Vlad and Yuri Baranovsky in the show’s latest featurette. The sponsorship will enable Break A Leg to divide the hour long final episode into seven parts to be released every other week over the next four months, interspersed with branded content which will include a short slate in the front of each new video released.

The season finale, rescheduled to release July 7, features big locations such as an old cowboy town and the Hotel Majestic in San Francisco. “We’re really excited about the season finale,” Yuri says. “It’s probably
the coolest looking thing that we’ve ever shot.” Whether the show will continue after the finale, he adds, remains to be seen.

Filed under: Comedy, News, Production Companies, Web Series by Drew Baldwin
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Vuguru‘s scripted web docu-comedy The All-For-Nots, which follows a fictional indie-rock-pop-punk-Americana band on their tour across the country, will feature the fake band’s members in a real performance tonight (June 25) on Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 12:05 ET on ABC. The “quasi-fake, quasi-real indie rock band,” as Jane Hu of Vuguru describes them, is based on fictional characters with fake names and personalities, but comprised of real musicians who play real shows with original songs.

Although the series, co-created by Dinosaur Diorama‘s Kathleen Grace and Thom Woodley (The Burg) and backed by Michael Eisner’s Vuguru (Prom Queen and Foreign Body), has had apparent hit-or-miss success on the web (episode views have ranged from several hundred thousand to only a few hundred), this crossover onto national TV (unlike Quarterlife‘s experiment with NBC) is proof that scripted web shows, even with inconsistent metrics, cannot continue to be overlooked by mainstream media.

It will be interesting to see how tonight’s show will influence the The All-For-Nots viewership.

Filed under: ABC, Comedy, Drama, Network/Cable Television, News, Production Companies, Vuguru/Tornante, Web Series, YouTube by Drew Baldwin
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Ropeadope is a record label named after Muhammad Ali’s famous boxing tactic (in all its glory here, but not to be confused with this). The company started in 1999, made waves last year by switching to near-exclusive digital distribution, and has also expanded into clothing, concert promotion, and online community building.

It’s all par for the course in this era of brand complements and extensions, and the Ropeadope vets have certainly learned a lot about what works across genres ranging from hip-hop to experimental jazz over the past eight years (one of the founders, Andy Blackman Hurwitz, has even branched out into diverse, kid-oriented music that won’t drive parents nuts).

Ropeadope TV seemed like a bit more of a stretch, especially after observing that a significant amount of its content is rather unexciting collections of YouTube videos.  The selection of original footage from staff at the All Good Festival last year is better, and it makes sense given the label’s concert promotion arm and focus on indie appeal. For example, here are the founders giving their own circuitous, transparent explanation of the Ropeadope name:

But if RAD TV aims to become a distinct destination, instead of just a time-waster for visitors to other parts of the site, it will need to find more contributions from original filmmakers like the two series there now – 7 of 7 and Keeping the Lights On.

Read On…

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Colin McDonald
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Mike Albo is a “jack of all trades” – at least all that are media related.  The Fort Greene native has written two novels, has a regular style column in The New York Times, performs both as a solo artist and with the group Pupu Platter, and has worked on numerous film projects.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Owen Roberts
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Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee recently posted an overview of a new media distribution startup company called MediaMerx, which licenses video content to ISPs in emerging economies where bandwidth bottlenecking from US servers has caused poor quality streaming video. 

Josh and I consulted the team on the emerging market of independent professional production for the web.   We helped craft a media-owner interface and license terms that we thought fit with the ethos of the community.  Given our involvement, I won’t evaluate the business model, but I will say that it presents a unique opportunity for content producers to potentially broaden exposure with little associated risk. 

Revenue share agreements are outlined in MediaMerx’ terms of service…

If you opt-in to MediaMerx’s advertising program, if any Content provided by you receives more than 50,000 views and if MediaMerx runs any advertisements against such Content, MediaMerx shall pay you fifty percent (50%) of the adjusted gross advertising revenues that are actually received by MediaMerx generated in connection with such Content.

Content creators interested in distributing video internationally can add MediaRSS feeds to the MediaMerx distribution system by creating an account.

We’ve been impressed with the team and their concern for the interests of content creators, and we wish them the best.

Filed under: Tilzy.TV by Jamison Tilsner
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