Knestor, the smart-man’s Borat, is the awkwardly intelligent alter ego of Jim Meskimen. Jim is that voice you’ve heard as just about every political figure on JibJab’s celebrated animations, and he’s been the subject of countless blog posts here.
So it’s a delight to see the bow-tie, tweed jacket wearing faux Brit interviewing the very real Evan Spiridellis of JibJab media. See more of Knestor at Jim Meskimen’s top-secret YouTube account. Knestor sees the flower in the box. Do you?
My four favorite moments:
- Spiridellis acknowledges his Ethopian doll is in poor taste. One of those brilliant moments you’re so glad wasn’t chopped out in a dastardly moment of politically correct editing, because you can see he really feels it.
- Meskimen is mentioned as the voice of JibJab like he’s not in the room. You can just hear Evan instinctively honoring that his pal is in character.
- Knestor thinks the dynamite figures on a birthday cake are, in fact, wieners. That moment may go unnoticed by most, but it had this 14-year-old 40-something guy giggling.
- In a wonderful example of Meskimen’s improv abilities, Knestor reminds us that uploading your head to JibJab permits you to keep your head when you’re done. We don’t care if he’s used this bit before, because it seems to glide out his brain like a child from a water slide.
I saw a live webcast of JibJab by FallofAutumnDistro in July 2008, and remember thinking, “wow these guys aren’t just talented, but really likeable.” The company was born in a manger by a frustrated investor banker with a Wharton MBA (Gregg Spiridellis) and Evan, his award-winning animator and brother. In a parallel universe, I was their third brother who was often picked on, never amounted to much, but helped turn some of their bulletin-board notecards green.
This interview with Evan, a fellow Jim Henson fan, reminds me that the dudes in this Santa Monica, California creative nerve center may not wear tattoos but may sport some of the coolest jobs of our generation.
Traveling the world with Prof. Jackdaws is like riding shot gun on a ginned-up road trip with Rick Stevs and Sister Wendy. What a ride that is!
I love jibjab, not only are these guys talented and politically astute, you’re right, they are super-duper nice.
Always look forward to anything new at jib jab.
I hope they come up with a simple and creative way to explain the larceny, fraud and theft in the wall street derivatives market melt down debacle. That would be a great public service.
For the archives… If I’m not mistaken… “This Land” pre-youtube, has to be the first original viral video ever. I know it changed online video forever, made me buy more ram.
Hmmm… countless = 10. This revelation will be most useful in my research.
Alexis… is it time for your weekly poop yet?
@3 Since you care so much, I’ve been eating a lot more fruit recently resulting in greater regularity. I pooped yesterday and I’ll poop sometime before I go to bed tonight.
Would you like me to tweet you when I’m in the process of unloading?
I could not agree MORE with jischinger….the first time I saw “This Land” I immediately ordered several copies to give as gifts and share…I had truly never laughed as hard!!
And, I still stay in touch with several “internet” friends that I met ONLY through JibJab Jokebox (when that was up and running….what a phenomenal idea that had been!!)
Thank you for sharing this “interview!!”
I want you to make a Jib Jab gig of British Petroleum and Obama Administration with Wall Street.