'Socktube' Sends Up 'Slumdog,' Signs with Wizzard

If you’re not a Harry Potter fan, the selection of quality puppetry on YouTube is somewhat bleak. But if you appreciate acerbic movie parodies and live for pop culture references of questionable relevancy, Socktube has you more than covered.

Socktube is produced by LA-based Attention Span Media, the same folks behind the awesome, college-aged mockumentary series Dorm Life. The concept is simple: identify a movie that is the subject of critical acclaim and/or constant derision and reenact it using sock puppets in about five minutes.

But it’s not the concept that makes Socktube brilliant. It’s the fact that their parodies are equal-opportunity offenders – they’ll send up Indiana Jones just as much as Step Up 2: The Streets.

It’s hard not to like Socktube and it appears that most people do (including The Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher). That’s why Wizzard Media just announced a distribution deal with Attention Span Media that will put installments of the series on Zunes and iTunes in exchange for a cut of the advertising revenue.

It’s not a huge development for either party, but it’s a reminder that Wizzard is making potentially lucrative plays with independent content producers, and it’s an excuse for us to shout out (again) to one of the most fun series on the web.

New Socktubes come out on a somewhat irregular schedule (unless it’s Oscar season or Attention Span is commissioned by Universal Studios to create a video to promote the release of National Lampoon’s Animal House 30th Anniversary DVD). Personally, I’m waiting for a rendition of Speed, anything with Jennifer Lopez, or one of these.