Tag Archives: finebrothers

Online Video

Network Poaches Space-Comedy Web Series, But Changes Outfit Colors

14 Comments

The creators of ClipCritics are seeing something awfully familiar on SkyFy. The new show, “Outer Space Astronauts,” also looks so familiar to ClipCritics fans that they’ve written its creator, Chad Sahley, with congratulations.

Turns out Chad, who produced “When Standup Stood Out,” has no ties with the show. But, quite coincidentally, he and his team approached SkyFy with a show called “Webscapers, about a top-secret crew digitized into the internet to surf and protect the world wide web (think Star Trek in Cyber Space).”

ClipCritics Emergency
ClipCritics Emergency
Outer Space Astronauts Emergency
Outer Space Astronauts Emergency

“We pitched SkyFy a couple years back showing them our animation style along with our trailer,” said Chad. “They said they didn’t do comedies. Shortly after we decided to produce the show on Youtube and call it the Clip Critcs with the hopes of someday getting the money to produce the full idea of Webscapers.”

Of course, “Outer Space Astronauts” is a Star Trek spoof based on outer-space — not cyberspace. And although the animation style (see images) is unmistakably similar, SkyFy reduced its legal risk by changing the outfits from orange to blue.

This isn’t the first report that a network has poached an amateur, and a difficult thing to challenge. Remember when ABC featured promos with Lost action figures that were indisputably similar to the FineBrothers’ work?

In related news, ABC’s “Good Morning America” Host George Stephanopolous announced he’ll feature a 14-year-old sidekick who pretends to be a manic 5-year-old child that speaks in a squeaky-pitched voice. His name will be “Jed,”and he’ll have a crush on “Julie,” live with his drug-abusing mom, and scream about a bully named Levin.

Online Video

ABC Swipes Idea from Consumer-Generated Lost Parodies

8 Comments

ABC recently launched a new Lost parody using Lost action figures. To see it yourself, simply go to ABC, download its new player, sit through three commercials, search for the episodes, then connect your firewire to your television set using an ABC-converter-box, which is only $79 at ABC.com. 

Of course the FineBrothers came up with this concept in late 2007, as evidenced by their videos below on YouTube.

The FineBrothers are probably safely protected by “fair use” even if they’re monetizing the content (but my original source: Online Video Watch thinks otherwise). And certainly the Fine Brothers would be wasting their time suing ABC for ripping off an idea that they, in fact, built on the back of ABC’s intellectual property (if indeed Lost is intellectual).

The Fine Brothers action-figure series is below, and the comedic duo told NewTeeVee that they saw numerous fan and official cast websites referencing the material. So we’re quite sure that the creators of ABC’s were well aware that they were ripping the idea from the Fine Brothers.

So why didn’t ABC just hire the Fine Brothers to make the series? It would have been cheaper and funnier. My guess is that there were two problems with that. First, if ABC had approached the Fine Brothers and didn’t settled on terms (like price), then ABC would either have to ditch the idea or assume actual legal risk (the brothers would then actually have a lawsuit claiming intellectual-property theft). At the least, The Fine Brothers would reek PR havoc. Secondly, ABC probably thought it would set a bad precedent to financial reward individuals who had been using their content without permission… to make a buck on YouTube. 

The bottom line? Nobody’s in the right, or likely capable of suing. But I’d say this is a ruder move by ABC than its launching its new video player… which can also be found easily on Listserves and then run on DOS.

And hey, ABC. We’re looking forward to seeing the next promotion by the bottom-feeders that made the action figure promo for you. I’d suggest a speed painting of John Locke. It’s never been done. Seriously.

Fine Brother parodies below- advance with arrows. You’re on your own finding the ABC ones.