comedy
The Doctor Is In The Middle
The original title was “Just What the Pretend Dr. Horrible Ordered. Pepper.” Yes, it was even more obviously a way for me to connect three related pieces of content (four if you count the content link) and serve them to you with very little (read as: no) added value. Hopefully, one or two of you haven’t seen one or two of these things and find them entertaining.
First, our Portland office created a new site for Old Spice Pro-Strength Antiperspirant. It allows you to get your TV Medical Doctor certification. Here’s mine:
You may have seen the commercials which feature Neil Patrick Harris. They’re pretty good too but couldn’t hold the stethoscope of (NPH as) Dr. Horrible. Greg March put me onto it with these two posts. Give it a watch:
And finally, Leland recently posted an interview of Stephen Colbert with the guy who wrote OBD (Obsessive Branding Disorder)…brought to you by Dr. Pepper. Check it out:
This Is How You Do Viral
A few months back Absolut Vodka approached Zach Galifianakis to make an ad for them. He said, yes…as long as he could do whatever he wanted with no restrictions. Then they said (wait for it), yes!
There is a reason Absolut approached him in the first place. Likely they felt that his type of humor connected to their target of LDA-25. (That’s a guess, and LDA = Legal Drinking Age for anyone who has not worked with a liquor, spirits, alcohol company.) Sure there were definitely a few rules in place, such as: no underage drinking, binge drinking or death. But otherwise, AV gave him the creative freedom. They realized that there’s no worse way to lose authenticity and relevancy with your audience than to change (even subtly) his brand of comedy!
Zach enlisted Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Coincidentally or not (depending on Zach’s motive for bring those two in), the sign-off to their show is Tim’s father rich saying, “Abso…lutely” and their production company is called Absolutely. (Apologies followers for having to use the term awesome.) And as of now, the first in a series of I hope more than two has around 55K views on FoD, where it was first launched. Don’t let that (low?) number fool you, though. It has 280K on YouTube as well as 138K on MySpace. The second, which was added about two weeks ago, is at about a quarter of that total number. But even if it this number didn’t even reach that illusive 6-digits (the 100K view mark on YouTube I’d say is the metric lots of clients set), I’d call this a successful foray into the world of branded entertainment.
BONUS: As you’ll see, the comedians (I’m assuming) even came up with a great tag-line for the content: “In an Absolut world, friends would get together more often.”
Here’s Part 1:
And Part 2:
That’s So Raven!
Two Sunday nights ago I skipped the Oscars and hit up Will Ferrell’s FunnyOrDie Comedy Tour: Presented by ‘Semi Pro’. Though Will would be “presenting” I assumed his role would be limited, and I went for the three comedians. I’ve always been a fan of Zach Galifianakis (who is responsible for the post title) and Demetri Martin (who my friends and I spied at Grey Dog’s one afternoon making little charts and drawings on a notepad). And though I was unfamiliar with Nick Swardson before going and whose particular type of humor is not my favorite (more Dane Cook-esque), I couldn’t help but get into his tales of drunkeness with the crowd. I was pleasantly surprised by Will Ferrell’s presence, especially when interviewed Tom Brokaw (or T-Bo as he called him once) as Ron Burgundy.
Amy from the tour blogged her insider experience on FOD here. The New York Times blogged its take here, which includes a smart perspective on how the promotion of the tour underwriter, ‘Semi Pro’ was more subtle than limited. NYTimes concludes:
…this audience demonstrated how well Mr. Ferrell knows his fans, and how a Web site can drive an entire comic enterprise. Except for a quick opening clip, the stage show included nothing about the movie; with all the online hype, it didn’t have to.
I have to agree…and if you’re new to this blog or it hasn’t been apparent from recent IOI posts, I’m hooked on FunnyOrDie. Yet the point of this post was less to recap the event (that was just the hook) than to test out my new flip video. I bought it earlier that Sunday and have since found it ridiculously easy to take videos and download them to my computer—it runs on two AA batteries and has a USB arm that flips out (hence the name) and connects directly to your computer. Now I wanted to see how easy it is to upload my first-ever thirty-seconds of video (my walk to the show) to YouTube in order to embed here…and here we go:
Not hard at all though the .AVI file took a few minutes to upload to YouTube and then lowers in quality vs. viewing in Quicktime on my laptop. Any tips/suggestions from owners on process or use? Oh yeah, that and I hate my voice…but I knew that already. Unfortunately as I’m spending more time videotaping/being videotaped, videoconferencing for work, on Yahoo Live!, Seesmic, and who knows what else in the future, so I guess I’ll get used to it.
Inbox of Immaturity
Valentine’s Day has passed but in case you’re alone in your room starting at the wall (sometimes), here’s a bit of week-late love…
Let’s start with an “oldy but a goody” (can guys say that phrase?) in Nick Thune’s Late Show performance.
Next let’s get some Breakfast in Bed. Props to Honey Bunches of Oats for trying something new and interesting.
Now if you’re ready like spaghetti, Rod Benson lets you in on the Boom Tho movement.
In case you missed V-Day because of a date with the parole board, this should set you free.
Plus some sites that have caught my eye these past two weeks: The FAIL Blog, Hotties Who Leave, Science Fair Experiments, and the most ridiculously named of the group, Buge Hoobs.
And finally, in case you need an “ad wizard” to “fit into your new business model”, let me present Alex Perez. Found through Chet.
Foreshadowing Fun
Who would have thought that the event Eddie Murphy described just about 20 years ago in one of my favorite movies would take place in real life? Somebody call up David Sheffield and Barry Blaustein (the screenplay writers) for a statement or check their other movies for some more character soothsaying? (I’ve been a fan of the soothsayer since reading Julius Caesar in high school and have been trying to work it—and “aluminum siding”—into a post for a quite a while. Leap of Faith, anyone?) By the way, what team did St. John’s play in that sport where you can use your hands?