New Starz Comedy Channel Invites Viewers To Hop Into ‘Union Pool’

Starz Digital Media is increasing its presence on YouTube through a new premium channel. Union Pool, which has re-launched after three years of inactivity, will feature semiweekly episodes from a variety of new comedy web series.

Union Pool is best known as the home of 30-Second Bunnies, an animated series where anthropomorphic rabbits acted out the plots of famous movies. Bunnies gained a decent sized following before airing its last episode back in 2011, and it will accompany new programs on the re-launched channel.

Debuting alongside the bunnies are three new programs. The most exciting newcomer is Captain Cornelius Cartoon’s Cartoon Lagoon, which won big at the most recent New York Television Festival and has now released its first two episodes. The second debut is Hollywood Acting Studio, where a kooky acting coach trains his students for Hollywood auditions. The final newcomer is Tvoovies, an animated comedy that mashes up movies will ill-fitting TV shows (e.g. “Mad X-Men

“) a la CineFix’s Wrong Director. According to the Union Pool’s trailer, two new episodes will hit the channel each week.

Starz Digital has plenty of experience in the YouTube space. The network’s most successful property is long-running animated comedy How It Should Have Ended, which now has more than 2.6 million subscribers. The new programs on Union Pool are, to some degree, modeled after HISHE; each one uses popular TV shows or movies (or, in Tvoovies case, both) as its fodder, and they all feature very bold presentation. I don’t expect Union Pool to garner 2.6 million subscribers, but it will make a splash.