Cheezburger Network Tries Reality FAIL with ‘Bag of Misfits’

What do you do when your flagship YouTube channel has over 1.1 billion(!) views, and firmly in the top 15 most subscribed channels of all time? Launch more YouTube channels of course.

Cheezburger Network, which runs the juggernaut FAIL Blog channel on YouTube, is doing just that, and trying something new while they’re at it. Today the LOLcat loving network behind meme-riding supersites like I Can Has Cheezburger and FAIL Blog, launched an attempt at some live-action reality FAIL with Bag of Misfits.

It’s the 53rd humor site to launch as part of Cheezburger’s growing list of internet humor sites. Launched with a modest start, just three videos up so far, the site and corresponding web series is Cheezburger Network’s first foray into reality comedy with variations of man-on-the-street sketches, crank calls and musical acts for unsuspecting bystanders.

The network tapped some popular online comedians like Paul Telner, Ed Bassmaster, Peter Coffin and even TV-turned-web star Tom Green. Other regulars will include musicians Stuckey & Murray and Eric Schwartz (aka Smooth-E), cooking guru Nadia G, RAD Girls and Robotic Bees. It’s also, according to Cheezburger, the first time that one of their sites will have “a designated team of full-fledged contributors.”

The network effect and cross syndication of Cheezburger’s rather beefy traffic will no doubt help Bag of Misfits, but nothing so far comes close to the viral bait of a Triple Flip FAIL. Then again, perhaps it doesn’t really need to. The content is low cost, and its performers are for now compensated with additional exposure—prominent links to their main Facebook and YouTube channels are under each video.