Michael Vick's New Ad Campaign

Chinese Astronauts

It's been a while since I deliberately posted something (thanks, Ike!).  My "Survivor" post from the other day was actually something I had created a draft for several months ago and post-dated it "way in the future", and apparently that post-date was this week.  Oh well.

Anyway, enjoy this brilliant news item from The Onion. 


China Launches First Willing Manned Mission Into Space

I Am Home Alone Legend

Excellent trailer mashup.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

For those of you not getting enough Olympics coverage.

I especially love the cycling.  They don't have a 'degree of difficulty' component of Olympic cycling, but I'd certainly vote for this to become a part of it.


http://view.break.com/157415 - Watch more free videos

Watchmen movie - Commercial contest

 A couple of months ago, Zach Snyder (director of Watchmen) posted a contest on YouTube inviting everyone to create a fake commercial for one of the fake products that exists in the Watchmen universe.  These focused primarily on the products put out by Adrian Veidt, one of the main characters of Watchmen.  Veidt was a costumed adventurer named Ozymandias who got out of the hero game right before the government passed an act outlawing vigilante heroes.  Veidt proceeded to cash in on his hero fame and by the time the movie starts (about a decade after this anti-vigilante act), he's a billionaire many times over.  (this moment in Watchmen history brought to you by Irony Coast Films)

Anyway, Veidt product logos, animations and product shots were provided to everyone to facilitate creation of commercials for these products.  The winners would be put on display on a giant bank of TVs that Ozymandias watches from his secret base.  There will be dozens of TV's all flashing tons of images, so the chances of anyone actually being able to pinpoint any of these fake commercials would be remote, but that's not the point.  WE'D know we had something we created in the Watchmen, and that was all the mattered.

So I thought about what I'd produce that I didn't think everyone else would already be doing and I settled in on Veidt Sport (his line of atheletic shoes).  And since Ozymandias/Veidt's personal theme is Egyptian, and Ramses II in particular, I went along that route.

I wasn't chosen as one of the finalists, but I still had lots of fun doing it.  Congrats to the winners.  They were all very deserving. 

WATCHFRIENDS - The Side by Side Comparison

So just for the fun of it, I placed both the original trailer and the WATCHFRIENDS trailer one on top of the other.  For me, this version of the video is the preferred version.  I find WATCHFRIENDS far more absurd (my original intent) when you can contrast it with the utter seriousness of Watchmen.  To see Gleek onscreen at the same moment as Rorschach, or Zan's ice cube disentregration synced up with Dr. Manhattan, it just makes me smile. Hopefully you'll have the same reaction.

Next time, for those of you into that sort of thing, I plan on breaking down the video, explaining what I had initially wanted to do and why I ultimately chose each of the final shots.

WATCHFRIENDS - Observations in my quest to make a video someone hadn't already done

Over the last year or two, I've lost count of the number of times my friend Corey and I have come across a brilliant little video on YouTube and smacked our heads at the obviousness of it. "Why didn't we think of that?" is a commonly heard utterance.

A few years ago, a friend of mine and I thought it would be funny if there was zombie porn, and speculated on how ridiculous that might be. A Google search later than night brought no fewer than 115,000 hits for "zombie porn".

A few months back, my brother came up with what I thought was a hilarious idea for a video spoof. "Jihad Joe!" Brilliant! Al Queda toys! Later that night, I googled "Jihad Joe" and found dozens, if not hundreds of references to it. There were at least five really well done toy commercial parodies for Jihad Joe. My spirit was crushed.


Were there NO good ideas that haven't been done yet?

So last week the idea for WATCHFRIENDS struck me, and I still don't remember what the inspiration was. Maybe it was having seen the official Watchmen trailer for the hundredth time. Maybe I'd seen a reference to Hanna-Barbera earlier in the day. Who knows? But somehow the vision of the Watchmen trailer replaced with Super-Friends footage bloomed fully-formed in my brain.

And for the first time, a Google search turned up ZERO hits. I knew I had to act quickly.

The video I actually ended up creating turned out better than the one I was amusing myself with in my brain.

So, for at least this one time, I managed to be the first one with whatever stupid idea I came up with. I can rest easy... well, at least until I finish creating the first-ever WATCHSMURFS* trailer!






* There's no way I'm subjecting myself to dozens of ours of sifting through Smurfs episodes... If anyone reading this wants to attempt to do a WATCHSMURFS video, I give you my blessing... and my sympathy.

WATCHFRIENDS

So I finally did one of those "Someone needs to make that" videos. About a week ago, I was blinded with the flash of an idea for what I thought would make a great parody video. Mashing together the Watchmen movie trailer and the Super-Friends. I could instantly see it in my mind's eye and for the next five days, it became a bit of an obsession for me.

I've always loved the Super-Friends videos that have popped up since the birth of the internet, the WASSUP?!? spot being an all-time classic, with the Office Space one coming in a close second. The first thing I did when I came up with my idea, I did a quick check to make sure no one else had already done it. Woo hoo! No matches anywhere for "Watchfriends".

I scoured dozens of hours of old Super-Friends videos and DVDs looking for imagery that could be used to recreate the amazing Watchmen trailer. It was a lot tougher than I imagined, because the Super-Friends was produced back in the dark ages of animation. There were very few shots that ventured beyond the typical sideways flying and walking. The Super-Friends sure did do a lot of walking and riding in vehicles! And it shouldn't have surprised me, but there were next to no shots of anyone punching someone else, which is a common image from the Watchmen trailer.

It took the better part of a full day to edit the video. I have to I put the finishing touches on it at 4:30AM this morning.
Be sure to check back, as I'll be posting a side-by-side comparison video that has both WATCHFRIENDS and the original Watchmen trailer lined up so you can see how closely (or not) the shots line up. In some cases, it's scary. I'll also post an annotated video that points out exactly what episodes each clip came from.

And now, I present to you my magnum opus parody trailer video. The WATCHFRIENDS.

Enjoy.

Have Yourself a Perry Little Christmas

More Black20.com fun stuff.

Lion Cop

More amusing stuff from Black20.com

Journey to the Center of the Earth

(by way of Black20.com)

Battle of the Batmans

I hadn't checked out Black20.com in a while, but they've got a few new brilliant videos.

Groverfield

I know the whole Cloverfield craze has come and gone already and this is way late in arriving on my radar, but it's too funny and well-made to pass up. 


(mildly Not Safe For Work, as it uses one profanity from the original film)

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime...

...but I did. 

Just a few moments ago, I got to see a dog-off.

In an epic battle, Joey Chestnut defeated Kobayashi for the title of Hot Dog Eating Champion.  In OVERTIME! 

It was amazing.  After ten minutes of ramming hot dogs down their throats, Chestnut and Kobayashi were tied at 59 dogs apiece.  The tiny chunks of dog and bun plastered over all over their faces were a testament to their dedication to eating more hot dogs in ten minutes than most of us will eat this year. 

But it went to a dog-off.  Two men.  Five dogs.  First one to shove all of them in their mouth and swallow them, without gagging, would be the 2008 champ.

And amazingly, Joey Chestnut retained the championship he wrested from Kobayashi last year.  Kobayashi had won the previous six years and had taken the sport of competitive eating from little known 4th of July event to a year round industry where people compete to shove all sorts of things down their throats in short spans of time.  Clams, ice cream, hamburgers, entire breakfasts, mini-burgers, you name it.  There's apparently nothing we're unwilling to eat dozens of in less than five minutes. 

Now I have to go throw up.

Have a happy 4th.

Zeroes - The Auditions

Turns out this was all part of an NBC promo guy's marketing plan. One that he came up with on his own. Check out this interview.




Anyway, great job. We close out the week with an audition video for Zeroes. It's not as funny as the other videos, but it allows you to have gotten the FULL Zeroes experience.

Zeroes - The Trailer

They put together a little trailer for the first four episodes of Zeroes. Some funny stuff still to be mined from this concept. Especially the guy that can do the stomach thing.

Zeroes - Episode 4

It's too bad this one just sort of ends. Except for an audition video (coming Saturday!) it doesn't appear they've produced any more videos in this series, which is a shame. I've laughed out loud consistently at these videos.

Good job!




Coming tomorrow, the Trailer for this show that has some additional Zeroes in it that haven't been featured in the show yet.

Zeroes - Episode 3

The guy with the art powers has become my favorite character. His drawings are brilliant and the way it parodies the real Heroes is fantastic.

Zeroes - Episode 2

I wish I could claim credit for these videos. They're everything a good viral video series should be. Short, concise, witty, and very well-made. I love the small touches.

Zeroes - Episode 1

Stumbled upon this a few days ago and was highly impressed. Nice production values, decent acting, funny ideas, all extremely well executed.



I laugh every time the black guy uses his power. Great stuff.

Join me here every day this week for a new episode, and an amusing trailer at the end of the week.

Are you a fan of Heroes (or a former fan, like myself)?