Michael Cera to Star in CollegeHumor Web Series

CollegeHumor has made the transition from the internet’s online video hit factory with a batting average that makes Ichiro Suzuki look like Casey at the Bat, to the internet’s online video hit factory with a success rate approaching 1.000 and a stellar lineup of fantastic web series.

The company launched its Fall programming slate last October, which signaled a slight change in direction from its normal college-coed and twentysomething-oriented viral video fodder.

CollegeHumor co-founder and CEO Ricky Van Veen told Mike Shields at MediaWeek his production team was “trying to shift from one-off viral videos to a full slate of shows.” That strategy saw the launch of programs like Full Benefits, Hello My Name Is, Very Mary-Kate, and the celebrity-studded Star of the Week.

You should give all those titles a watch. They’re as entertaining as they are popular, and they’re very popular. Their productions also forced CollegeHumor to dive into, and take a closer look at the web series world, something it hasn’t fully immersed itself in since 2008 with Street Fighter: The Later Years.

The company is now using its experience from producing those Fall shows to launch a trio of programs for the Spring. “In the Fall, we saw our first real success with series,” says Sam Reich, CollegeHumor’s President of Original Content. “Now, we’re taking what we’ve learned and creating bigger, better shows.” Those include:

• Bad Dads – Before today, Cory (played by Michael Cera) had never met his father. Maybe it was better that way. His father (Will Hines) is, in every sense of the word, a bad dad. Throughout the course of the series’ five episodes, he manages to ruin Cory’s birthday, proposition his girlfriend, and spend his college tuition developing his own vampire sex trilogy.

• Nerd Alert – A talk show, hosted by CH Executive Editor Jeff Rubin, where three experts discuss the week’s biggest news in videogames, comic books, cartoons, and other stuff that used to get them beat up.

• Troopers – An office sitcom set in a Star Wars-type universe, which follows two low-level prison guards on the very fringes of an intergalactic war. It might be an epic space adventure for heroes and villains, but for them, it’s just a day job.

CollegeHumor’s Spring programming slate is set to drop next week at CollegeHumor.com. And judging by the press previews, the shows are going to be good. Very good. Be sure to stay tuned.