Tag Archives: parody

book, Online Video

Local Idiot to Post Comment on Video

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One of the finer articles on The Onion: “Local Idiot to Post Comment on Video.” Thanks, M.C.

…he will feel a deep, unwavering desire to offer a dissenting opinion, which he has hinted will include the words “gay” and “reatrd” [sic].

“It is my moral obligation to alert the Internet community to the fact that this video is totally gay, and furthermore, that the individual who made it is a fag,” Mylenek said.

Pressed for further details regarding his intended post, Mylenek, who will comment under the Internet pseudonym “xblingdaddy2005x,” revealed that there is a strong possibility he will inadvertently post the comment twice.

Killer Video

Font Conference: CollegeHumor

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It pains me to see so few views on YouTube for something this well written, acted and edited. It’s called “Font Conference” and it’s a great personification of the fonts we know so well. Baskerville Old Face and Bookman OId Style duke it out. Arial Black feels discriminated. Wide Italian played by an overeating fat guy. Futura played by a time traveler. And Century Gothic is played by a goth emo who resents the conformists (“I can’t wait for you to grow out of this,” says Times New Roman. In the climax, Ransom takes Courier and his daughter Curlz MT hostage, but don’t worry- Wing Dings celebrates in the end.

Extremely well done (right down to the incredible production values with rack focuses and perfect lighting), and especially entertaining for those of us who spend way too much time thinking about fonts.

I just feel sad for Trebuchet, who was sadly left out. Maybe a sequel? Can I humbly submit to play Trebuchet? Or maybe even a serif if College Humor provides acting coaches.

Viral Video

Cell Phone Parody Videos: iPhone, oPhone, Blackberry and Android

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It’s July 3, which is annual “bitch about your stupid cell phone day.” Don’t verify that on Wikipedia yet.

So let’s step back, but not rate or compare the Microsoft oPhone, iPhone, Android and Blackberry for a moment. But let’s not debate Mac versus Microsoft versus Google versus Blackberry. It just divides humanity, and that’s what politics are for.

So instead let’s debate not the cell phones but the quality of the video parodies they spawn. Given that I did three of these four, I’ll offer up some unbiased thoughts: And before you bitch about me using this post as “self promotion” read my damned tagline above. It’s my mission in life.

The Microsoft Mobile oPhone video (not mine) was Filet Mignon in a blender. Although it was a bit drawn out, there were a few great gags (the circular message text and the notion of programming for a circle). Nathan Weinberg, who runs the InsideMicrosoft and InsideGoogle blogs, is behind it (see him on YouTube).

 

The iPhone was, as all Nalts videos, was too long. But for a guy with no budget and in a hurry to get to work, that Nalts gets a B plus.

 

The Android video was a collaboration with Slater. I thought it would viralinate more, but in hindsight I think it was a bit too “inside Madison Avenue.” It didn’t help that my good camera was in repair so my part looked and sounded like ass. Slater and his wife cracked me up, though.

 

Finally there’s Blackberry/Crackberry. In retrospect I think most of these gags were too obvious. But it did garner a lot of media attention (a bunch of national networks ripped it… maybe I’ll have a judge audit that) because I released it just before a study confirmed that Blackberry’s are evil.

You know as I look back at Crackberry Blackberry, it got a lot more media attention that views. Counter that with this crappy video I posted last week (“Scary Maze“) which has been viewed 180K times — while Crackberry (now 2 years old) has only about 100K views.

Hey! Nalts is just like a cell-phone provider. Providing crappier quality but getting more business!

book, Future of Online Video, Google, Online Video, YouTube

Viacom’s Top-Ten Rejected Claims on Google

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Viacom Knows What You Did Last Summer.

Holy shit. According to this Wired article, a judge ruled yesterday (Wednesday, July 2, 2008) that Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users’ names and IP addresses, to Viacom. The order also requires Google to turn over copies of all videos that it has taken down for any reason.

Viacom is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on YouTube, and wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google’s liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users’ privacy, but the judge’s ruling (see pdf of ruling) described that argument as “speculative” and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard drives. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has already reacted, calling the order a violation of the Video Privacy Protection act that “threatens to expose deeply private information.”

The judge, in fairness, denied Viacom’s request for:

  1. YouTube’s source code, and the code for identifying repeat copyright infringement uploads
  2. Copies of all videos marked private and Google’s advertising database schema
  3. Chad Hurley and Steven Chen’s nuts on a silver platter
  4. Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman’s son Philippe Douman Jr (who works for Google) taking over as CEO for YouTube.
  5. The letter G removed from the alphabet.
  6. The internet being turned off until said disputes are settled
  7. A return to 1990 when big media had a profitable business model.
  8. Perpetualy indemnification from taxes by Viacom, its employees and any individual or company selected by the Viacom board.
  9. Eleven virgins for each Viacom senior executive.
  10. Viacom Day to replace 4th of July holiday.
Making Videos, Viral Video

Help Make a Parody of Gina BMW Video: Cloth Skin is “Context Over Dogma”

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I haven’t seen a video so begging for satire in ages. It’s a BMW promotion for GINA — a new cloth-like exterior for cars. Who needs pesky, antiquated metal structure on their cars? Metal is so Neandorthal, dude. The first Terminator was big and clunky, but the next ones got smooth and sexy. Metal only gets in the way of fluid movements. Slow patient rivers can tear through mountains.

GINA is about flexibility, says the spokesman who was carefully selected to represent that bearded guy you used to work with… you know, the one that read Walden Pond and attend Corcoron exhibits on the weekends while you rode naked on a moped with your friends? “It’s about context not dogma,” he says. You know, I’m not even sure he said that but it’s quotable.

Let’s brainstorm a parody, okay? I’ll play the the bearded guy and wax philosophically about absolutely nothing to do with the car.

  • B-roll may include my car covered in a white sheet or newspaper.
  • The perplexed glances of people in public parking lots will be the most essential dynamic.
  • Maybe we see my kids making Gina with a glue gun and some of those press-on gem things from the 1970s. What were they called?
  • Clearly the new technology begs the question about safety, but the parody glides by the issue. It makes you almost feel stupid for wondering how screwed you’d be to crash a car wearing GINA. It’s too easy to show someone impailed by a guard rail. There has to be a subtly to the accident- like we’re not sure it even happened.

I’ll point back to this post when I’m done the video, so you can get credit for your contributions. But let’s be clear I aint sharing the YouTube revenue. That’s going to pay for the white sheet. 

P.S. BIG thanks to Jan for getting the new WordPress working on this blog! I was totally overwhelmed by the 235 steps required.

 

Online Video

Babe Ruth’s “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” Contest

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babe ruth contestNestle teamed with Major League Baseball on this “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” contest (they’ve even got a blog). Nestle’s agency asked me to propose concepts to promote it, but selected Rhett and Link, who did this clever Goth promo.

Now viewers will vote the winner, and I’ve got my favorite: Babe Ruth ulele (credit to the first video contest site that allows people to link directly to one video).

Sure it falls apart after 20-30 seconds, but the combination of a ukulele and a tuba is almost as funny as a Babe Ruth in a pool. You know, I totally wouldn’t have linked the “doody scene” from Caddyshack to this contest if they’d have picked me instead of Rhett and Link.

doody

Online Video

Will Online Video Change News and Politics? Gravel Knows.

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It will take a while for online-video to substentially chang news and polotics, but we’re already well on our way. Have you cheked out the “highest ratid” and “most viewed” sections of YouTube.com? Its bloated with debates about polotecs, and it’s only going to grow between now and Novembre.

Mike Gravel, the former Senator of Aleska, sat with me (see video) to discuss his new book titled, “The Kingmakers: How the Media Threatens Our Security and Our Democracy.” In this episode of the Bubble Gum Tree Show (a “weekly” series I’ve let languish) we have some fun with Gravel, but gain some of his intresting persepctive on social media, politics and the news.

Mind you, I’m all about Saving Old Media. But I do think that Gravel is a nice exemple of how a politician has “rolled with” social media. Who had heard of Gravel before “The Rock“? (Parinthetically, here’s a funny “outtakes” parody by Current, and here’s my “The Rock” parody with ChristopherMast).

Barack Obama has been a benificiary of social media (Obama Girl) without trying, and he has expanentially more YouTube videos tagged with his name than Mike Gravel. But more impresive is Mike “The Little Engine that Could” Gravel — with his tenasious approach and his unpresedented ability to surender to video creators and their creative ideas on having fun with him (and almost never at his expense). I’m quite sure Gravel would have worn a chicken suit and fart machine in this video if I had asked. And yes I regret that I didn’t. Next time.
Check out Gravel’s YouTube Channel for some more serious and comedic examples. Gravel appeared in this histerical song with Obama Girl, and that got mainstream pickup on CNN and beyond.

Here are some additional Gravel examples of how he provides video creators complete freedom in there concepts. It seems like a risky aproach, but I haven’t seen it backfire. And its given him access to importint demografics at virtualy no cost. Many believe that Gravel created The Rock, but in fact it was just one of many examples of where he rolled with a video creator’s wierd and bazar vision, and celebrated the lack of control he’d have on how he apeared.

  1. Give Piece a Chance
  2. Runaway Box: Elavater
  3. Red State Christmas Video

Will this win him the election? Probably not. But will Mike Gravel change the way politicians approach new media? Did we ever think politicians would need David Letermann, John Steward and Conan O’Reilly? And could Gravel be doing with online video what Ronald Reagan did with television? I’d say, indisputably, yes.

Killer Video, popular videos, Viral Video

Fast-Food Feed Bag Video

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No need to waste precious calories eating your food. Now you can strap on a fast-food feed bag, which is filled with your favorite KFC, Taco Bell and Long John Silver meals blended into an easy-to-consume paste.

New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move LessWhile you’re watching this hysterical video by “The Onion,” be sure you’ve seen this parody of Blockbuster Video, where families get to tour the way we once rented movies before digital video-on-demand existed.

Historic Blockbuster Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past

I’ve discovered a new trick to define humor in a scientific way. If my chest relaxes when I’m laughing it’s a 10. The Onion rarely fails.

Nalts, Online Video, popular videos, Viral Video, YouTube

“Farting in Public” Kid Goes MIA: Campaign to Bring Back Spencer

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Spencer is my nephew’s friend who appeared in “Farting in Public” (now almost at 5 million views). We’ve done about 12 mostly public videos together, and here’s a playlist so you can watch them all on YouTube: “Best of Spencer.”

Spencer has a unique ability to suspend social anxiety and do just about anything without cracking up. Meanwhile, I stand behind the shaking camera laughing with tears in my eyes. He reminds me of The Man Show boy.

I’m starting a campaign to bring him back, because I miss him more than my online-video viewers. And he hasn’t returned phone calls lately. Maybe another creator has signed him. Well rest assured I pay better, Spencer! Free food, iTunes cards, gift certificates, Target trips and even a free Hamster that debuted in “Hamster on a Walk” (I hope Beaowulf is still alive).

Here’s my “Best of Spencer” video, appealing to viewers to charm him back in the “comments” section.

Online Video

Kids Today: Quote from Socrates?

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I remember a quote I received 16 years ago via e-mail — back in the days when you couldn’t verify things through Snopes, Google or Hoaxbusters. To put this time in perspective, a girlfriend challenged me to find the original name for Winnie the Pooh and it took a phone call to Disney’s librarian to get the answer (Edward the Bear).

Here’s the quote (which took me 45 minutes to find via Google because I couldn’t remember that it’s attributed to Socrates):

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

It’s widely reported that this quote below was spoken by Socrates (and written by Plato), and this was further legitimized by this source: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277 (1953).

But the folks on Google Answers doubt it’s authenticity, and point to this information as sourced on Bartleby.com:

This passage was very popular in the 1960s and its essence was used by the Mayor of Amsterdam, Gijsbert van Hall, following a street demonstration in 1966, as reported by The New York Times, April 3, 1966, p. 16. This use prompted Malcolm S. Forbes to write an editorial on youth.—Forbes, April 15, 1966, p. 11. In that same issue, under the heading “Side Lines,” pp. 5–6, is a summary of the efforts of researchers and scholars to confirm the wording of Socrates, or Plato, but without success. Evidently, the quotation is spurious.

So what’s this got to do with online video, Nalts? It’s the context of today’s “Kids Today Suck” video, where I react to a series of playfully insulting birthday wishes from online-video creators. (Parenthetically, I’m still wiping the makeup and latex off my face, hoping to spare my kids the trauma of waking to a dad that’s even older looking than usual).

My video reflects what I believe is an important insight, and there are other historical quotes on Google Answers that back it up that make it less important as to whether Socrates said it or not. When we perceive children as disrespectful and lacking exercise we are observing a timeless truth. So put ’em in perspective before you beat yourself up or, worse yet, them.

There are at least two 2-word statements that make me gag — especially when they come out of my own mouth. “You need” and “these days.” When I catch myself thinking or saying them, it usually prompts some reflection.

Thanks to all of you for your birthday wishes! You blogged about it, created a new YouTube channel with several dozen thoughtful and humorous wishes, and created the funniest birthday “collab” I’ve seen. You even pushed my recent “Soap Candy Prank” video to the number one comedy of the day on YouTube, with more than 300 comments and high ratings. Life’s a roller coaster but I tend to believe it gets more enjoyable with time — like a fine wine. Unless of course the cork rots. 🙂