I always wanted to make a web cartoon. Apparently, anyone can do it! Don’t expect there to be an episode 2. So, enjoy. (Click to enlarge, click again to en-smallen)
People Think: Episode 1
August 7th, 2009
TRAVESTY Episode 1: Spoof videos
June 18th, 2009Hellow,
Welcome to my new series called, “Travesty”. This is where I tell people who don’t care what I think, about the worst things in the world. It is my first foray into becoming a curmudgeon. I’m guessing it won’t be the last.
Today I cover the “spoof” video. What’s a spoof? Well, dictionary.com (a handy resource) lists it as:
1. a mocking imitation of someone or something, usually light and good-humored; lampoon or parody: The show was a spoof of college life.
2. a hoax; prank.
Of course, on today’s internet, the correct definition is:
1. Unoriginal imitation
2. Hunk of crap
Please see exhibit A, a spoof of a popular Saturday Night Live sketch. (Keep in mind, SNL has been around longer than most people doing spoof videos of it. A sad aside.)
Yes, it’s just like the original, but with one detail changed. They replaced “mother” with, get this, “father.”
Oh my dear Lord Xanadu, that is just wicked! They’re making fun of… uh… well they’re taking the fact that the original video is funny and creative, and… uh… uh… proving how funny and creative it is?
I know what could make this video better… FORGETTING IT EVER EXISTED!
I’m not even going to mention that all the work that went into the MUSICAL part of the song was just copied and pasted. Ripped……… Off.
But it’s a parody! It’s a parody! It’s like Weird Al! He’s a respected musician!
Weird Al Yankovich doesn’t do parodies of funny songs, and I’ll tell you why: It wouldn’t be a parody if he did. He has to work hard to come up with funny takes on serious songs. The more serious the song/artist, the better. Not to mention, Weird Al has written COUNTLESS original funny songs on top of his parody repertoire. I’d bet my life (value: $26.17) that Weird Al has received thousands of e-mails telling him he should do a parody of any number of SNL/Lonely Island songs, and I’d bet even more that he pays someone to delete them.
Ok, the point is this:
If you make a parody of something serious and put a funny light on it, that’s funny. If you parody something that’s already funny, and make it less funny, that is a TRAVESTY.
Being creative is hard, I know. It means having to use your brain, like, once a week. At least! And brains just aren’t made to be used that often. If they were, they’d be five times the size, and ten times the mass. Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg are creative. Can you imagine the rush they got, the joy they felt, coming up with the funnier, original video? If you are the creator of this spoof video, my guess is, no. You probably can’t.
Spoof videos are an easy way for someone to convince themselves that they’re funny. It’s like paint-by-numbers, without the skill. YouTube is rife with this kind of bandwidth-wasting tripe. It’s like the monkey inside us has suddenly found an outlet. Ooooh, funny movie! Me like, me like. Hey monkey-friend, grab camera! We shoot exact same thing! We are profeshunals now! Wait! We must change single detail. Now we are funny, origninul profeshunals!
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but there’s a difference between flattery and respect. And that difference is… the Spoof Video.
Ugh, what a travesty.
How Does it Work? Episode 5: Flight
June 13th, 2009Flight is the act of things going through the air and not touching the ground a lot. Flight can also be achieved over water, but it is a little harder. At first only things like birds and bees could fly, and scientists thought it had something to do with sex, but it didn’t unfortunately. Now, thanks to Jerry Bernoulli, flight is possible for all kinds of things. The key is to make air go really fast and really slow, on either side of a thing, like a wing, or a box. This makes the one side lighter than the other, and bingo, flying box! (Watch out for landing boxes.) The Wright Brothers were the first siblings to try flying together, and it didn’t work very well, because they were always bickering on who got the window seat. Also, Wilbur was a big fat guy, so he was chosen to stay on the ground while his brother Orville was flying and inventing microwave popcorn, the second-best invention after flight.
How Does it Work? Episode 4: Ducks
June 11th, 2009Ducks are an animal that have been around since the dinosaurs died. Some people think that’s just a coincidence, but others believe ducks were the cause. Ducks are really adept at scavenging food, especially food that dinosaurs used to eat. Also, the duck’s size is to its advantage, as it is considerably more small than the most famous of dinosaurs, the Tyranosaurus Rex. Tyranosauri Rexium (plural), or, T-Rexes, had really big mouths, with a lot more teeth than the duck. Which made it harder to taste the difference between nuts and grubs, which are the main dietary staples for both. T-Rexes are the awesomest of all dinosaurs, real OR fake. To fully explain how a duck works, you would first need to understand flight, which will be covered in Episode 5.
How Does it Work? Episode 3: Staples
May 29th, 2009The staple is a practical bit of magic that almost anyone can use. The machine called “Stapler” acts as the staple enabler. That’s how the stapler got its name: staple(enable)r. The staple’r was invented in 1767 by a young Turk from Hungary named Alfred von Lastname. He found that if you tied a string of solid lead through the holes in several papers, you cured the headache of organizing papers, but also caused the headache of lead poisoning. Hence the need for the stapler. The staple uses friction and gravity to “hold” several “sheets” of paper together. You cannot put a staple in the middle of a page because of Newton’s Seventh Law of Stationary. Staples come in a variety of sizes, but mostly people just use “standard staple” size, because of a government mandate in the Reagan years.
