In December, my friends Leon and Andy, who were featured in last year's Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, cast me in a little video project they were doing. It was directed by Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show), and also starred Jerry Minor (SNL) and Brandon Johnson (Arrested Development).
Here is the first video...
On YouTube, it has been viewed well over two million times. It has been viewed millions of times across many other sites and blogs. It was the number one featured video on CollegeHumor.com and was featured at the end of Anderson Cooper's show on CNN and was also seen on Attack of the Show, Talk Soup, and America's Most Outrageous Moments.
I don't think any of us expected the magnitude of the response. Many people thought it was hilarious. Others said it was clearly fake. A few said it was fake, but thought it was funny anyway (my favorites). Those shouting fake often pointed to the extraneous boom mic, the redundant guy with the soda, the lack of an affiliate logo, bad lighting, the non-existence of Canadian brown finches (a species we made up on the spot), and my "obvious bad acting." :-)
Well, now the truth can be told. It was indeed a marketing stunt to promote Frumondah Soda, made by Nigerian Sunshine International.
Yes, that's right, we made a fake viral video to promote a fake soda and we made a fake documentary about it. With a musical number at the end.
I would like to thank the Academy...
The whole experience was a fun ride. I knew that theatre degree would come in handy one of these days.
