Category: Funny Stuff

Hitler finds out he’s pulled from YouTube

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Downfall is the movie about the final days of the Third Reich.  But of course, many of us know it for its climatic scene of Adolf Hitler’s bunker tantrum – which has been re-subtitled on YouTube to make Hitler rant about HD-DVD losing to Blu-ray, his car getting stolen, the Cowboys losing to the Giants in the 2007 playoffs, and even everyone forgetting his birthday.

Coming soon: Hitler finds out that Constantin Films, which owns the rights to Downfall, is pulling the clips from YouTube.

While it should be well within their right to do so, is this the smartest business move for the film company?  Recall that Chris Brown (before his alleged domestic violence incident made him untouchable) was able to use a viral video of a wedding party dancing to one of his songs to sell mp3 downloads.

I added Downfall to my Netflix queue last month just because of the Hitler parodies – how many DVD sales is Constantin missing out on?

I hate Jackie Robinson

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Major League Baseball is honoring Jackie Robinson today by having all players wear his number, 42.  I honor Jackie Robinson differently: I hate him.

And yes, it has everything to do with color: blue.

Jackie Robinson was a Dodger.  As a Yankee fan, mentioning Robinson conjures thoughts of the 1955 World Series – including the blown call on his steal of home and his team beating the Yankees in seven games.  Was I alive for it?  Not even close.  But as a fan, it stings, and so Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Johnny Podres, and especially Sandy [expletive] Amoros are forever enemies.

One could argue either way whether being the first black major league baseball player was enough to make someone a Hall of Famer; Robinson’s on-field achievements made the point moot.  He didn’t ask for grudging respect from fans or peers, his play demanded it.

Robinson was a ballplayer first and foremost.

So yeah, I hate Jackie Robinson.  I hate him the way I hate David Ortiz, Curt Schilling, Edgar Martinez, Luis Gonzalez, Sandy Alomar, Alex Gonzales, Bob Gibson, the 1976 Reds, the 1993 Blue Jays, and of course Pedro Martinez.  It’s not a personal hatred – I wouldn’t throw a D-cell at him – but on the baseball field I’d sure love for him to strike out four or five times.

Would Jackie Robinson have wanted it any other way?

3 Reasons why Conan made the right move

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The internets lit up as soon as the announcement hit (which, oddly enough, happened on Dave Letterman’s birthday): Conan O’Brien is headed to TBS as soon as his contractually obligated silence is up.  The basic cable station won out over Fox, which was the place O’Brien was widely rumored to head since it was first announced that NBC was bumping him out of the 11:30 time slot. That led to some head scratching, though it makes a lot of sense for three big reasons:

1.  Turner properties offer valuable opportunities for cross-promotion. O’Brien was always positioned as the host with the younger audience, and Turner is well positioned to reach that audience. Not only does TBS airs three hours of Family Guy on Monday nights (leading right into the time slot O’Brien will occupy), but Turner’s cable properties have been at the forefront of providing television-quality online video – first with the now-defunct website SuperDeluxe and now on both TBS.com and AdultSwim.com.

The real underrated asset in this deal isn’t online though – it’s the cross-promotional opportunity with Cartoon Network, whose Adult Swim shares some of the same audience as O’Brien.  While it would appear that sets up a tough intra-company competition, that isn’t exactly the case because of the second reason TBS and O’Brien are a great fit.

2.  TBS offers time slot flexibility no other network will. This isn’t just about getting a half-hour jump on Jay Leno and Dave Letterman; Fox could offer the 11:00 p.m. time slot, too.   But after the 11:00 showing of O’Brien’s show, and the 12:00 airing of George Lopez’s program, TBS will have the 1:00 p.m. time slot to fill.

What’s going on at 1:00 a.m.?  Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night show and Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show have moved from comedy bits into guests.  Comedy Central is replaying their 11:00-midnight programming (The Daily Show and the Colbert Report).  Adult Swim is getting into its final hour, which features shorter cartoons that aren’t as popular as Family Guy and Robot Chicken – and, let’s be honest, really target the stoner market (have you ever tried to make sense of 12 oz. Mouse?).  And remember those hypothetical college kids who media analysts claimed stayed out too late to catch O’Brien’s Tonight Show?  The 1:00 a.m. slot is a lot closer to last call.

On TBS, O’Brien could wind up with two chances to rope in an audience – so even if more people watch Leno between 11:30 and midnight, O’Brien has a better chance to snag viewers from 11:00-11:30 p.m. and 1:00-2:00 a.m., rack up big viewership numbers, and claim victory on sheer volume even while Leno wins the 11:30 time slot.

3.  TBS straddles the line between cable and network television. This is important because, for as edgy as O’Brien is credited as being, he’s quite traditional in many ways.  With a pedigree in Saturday Night Live, the Tonight Show, the Simpsons, and even Late Night, O’Brien’s signature projects have counted their runs in decades rather than seasons.

TBS is pretty much a network television station in two important ways.  First, its mix of original and syndicated programming mimic most Fox affiliates.  The big difference is that TBS is still searching for signature, cornerstone shows to build a prime time schedule around as Fox found with Married with Children in the late 1980s and the Simpsons in the early 1990s.  (Notably, Fox built a solid prime time audience but could never keep them around for late night; TBS seems to be building in the opposite direction.)  Second, TBS is nearly ubiquitous – among the most basic of basic cable stations.

At the same time, cable (even basic cable) offers some level of freedom that escapes over-the-air network television.  Being on cable at 11:00 may offer the same creative outlet as being on at 12:30 on network television, when O’Brien shined to begin with.

TBS offers these benefits with a final caveat: because it’s cable, measures of success will be different.  It will be easier to become the top-rated original program in TBS’s history than to hold that same position with Fox. After all, the difference between victory or defeat is often a matter of expectations met or missed.

Screwing strippers

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

At the end of last week, The Daily Caller published a two-part, uh, exposé on court-mandated reforms to the exotic dancer trade in my adopted home state of Massachusetts.   It’s relevant because a recent court ruling mandated that strippers could no longer consider themselves “independent contractors,” and instead must be full-time employees of a club.

(At press time, there’s no word on how this affects “amateur night.”)

Massachusetts law is designed to carefully scrutinize independent contractors – even if they keep their clothes on – to make sure businesses aren’t getting away with something.  The reasoning is that most workers would prefer to be full-time employees instead.

But it turns out, that isn’t always true.  Independent contractor status allowed strippers to work multiple clubs, set their own pricing for things like lap dances, write off commuting expenses, and – most important – pocket much of the money they received from customers, save for what they would pay in taxes.  Strippers are now guaranteed a nightly payout – an assurance they did not enjoy as independent contractors.  Previously, though, an astute practitioner of the burlesque could use the aforementioned freedoms to earn a much bigger payout, without having to share every single tossed their way with the owners of the runways.

As it turns out, the most successful strippers are the ones that are best at math.  Oddly enough, that was never an answer back in school when people asked when they’d have to use algebra.

The  Massachusetts Stripper Story isn’t about women removing their clothes.  (It may, however, be why the story gets read.)   This is about laws meant to protect workers – laws like compulsory unionism, minimum wage, and overtime – that actually limit workers’ ability to work.  Limiting things like independent contractor status really limit employee innovation and entrepreneurship – the ability to find a market for your skill and make money off it.  It has potential implications, for instance, for freelance writers.

With national employment in the state it’s in, workers need flexibility to make as much money as possible.  Creative thinking like that should be rewarded.

(Lest anyone think this is a partisan story because Massachusetts Democrats were behind the independent contractor ruling, Republicans apparently have their own issues with punishing strippers.)

Fake Twitter Accounts: A Big F***ing Deal

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Leave it to Joe Biden.  After a year of contentious debate followed by 36 hours of talking heads trying to make sense of what the health care overhaul means, the Veep’s tidy summary was at once true, painfully obvious, hilarious, and in character with the caricature of Biden as an elder Dan Quayle redux… Which meant that the internet would have a field day with it.

Within hours, the Twitter feed @BigFnDealer was mocking Biden and chronicling the reactions.  This comes just a few months after  Carly Fiorina’s “Demon Sheep” web video spawned @DemonSheep. And @BOTeleprompter has been mocking Biden’s boss just about as long as the President has been in office.  Sarah Palin and Michael Steel have been targeted.

Fake Twitter have been giving alter egos to characters both fictional (@DarthVader) and real (@Michael_Bay) since Twitter launched.  They have generally been a hobby, but as the political examples show, they can also be a way to advance a message in a comic, snarky way.  Because they are generally anonymous, they are tough to engage unless the account owner does something stupid (like trying to claim the actual identity of the person being mocked).

As @BigFnDealer shows, getting in on the ground floor is a necessity – the internet moves fast.  And of course, satire only works as a powerful message advancement tool if it’s good; lame jokes tend to backfire.

But when it works, what better way to needle your opponent than to put words in his or her mouth?

CoCoBama

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 2 Comments

The official logo of Conan O’Brien’s upcoming Legally Prohibited from Being Funny On Television tour is based on the now-familiar illustration of a stoic O’Brien standing against the American flag, gray but for the bold orange pompadour rising from his head like a mighty wave rising from the ocean.  It may be the icon of Team CoCo, but it didn’t come from Team CoCo: the graphic was created by Mike Mitchell, an enthusiastic artist who had nothing to do with O’Brien other than being an avid fan with an idea and some spare time.

Largely on the back of the massive outpouring of support he enjoyed in the final weeks of his Tonight Show run, O’Brien stands to make a lot of money wherever he lands this fall.  O’Brien will be rewarded for embracing that organic excitement.  It’s similar to the smart moves made by the 2008 Obama Campaign, which enjoyed the creation of a similar iconic image created by Shepherd Fairey – an enthusiastic artist who had nothing to do with the campaign, but had an idea and some spare time.

A technical term for this is “advocate-generated content.”  Even that mouthful is easier said than done.  You can’t force people to identify with a cause, let alone feel so strongly about it that they are willing to make art.  Both Team CoCo and Obama 2008 benefited from a simple, direct, and resonant message.  The fancy artwork was just a symptom.