ZZ Top is right. Every girl’s crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man. Well, at least this girl is. What I initially believed to be a joke, has quickly caught on as a trend around here. Though the attire at Next New is usually pretty casual, my co-worker Lee Rubenstein has taken it upon himself to set yet another trend. First there was juggling, then unicycles, now ties. Lee likes to say the morale has increased 80% since he was hired. And you know, he just may be right. Take a look at the before and after.

As if “Internet People” wasn’t cool enough.

The first episode of Channel Frederator’s first original cartoon series, The Meth Minute 39, was an instant smash hit, seen more than 4,000,000 times with over 10,000 comments in our super-distribution (courtesy of Next New Networks).

On the heels of CF’s 100th episode, I’m extremely proud announce the official debut of our weekly series, The Meth Minute 39. Starting today, and every Thursday into next July, the original vision of New York filmmaker Dan Meth explodes, with a cartoon featuring James Brown crossed with “The Matrix.”
(And check out some of the internet love already coming Dan’s way on his blog.)

Bookmark the page, set your RSS feed, or hit ‘Subscribe’ on your iTunes or YouTube.

You’re going to enjoy it. Everyone else is.

Ahoy, bilge rats! In observation of International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2007, Next New Networks will be beginning and ending all office correspondences with pirate terminology. So grab some grog ye salty dogs, because today the pirates have landed!

Arrrrgghh!

Last year, Birthright Israel enlisted our good friend Dan Meth to create a video card people could send around for Rosh Hoshanah, and the very funny YouTube hit “Hebrew Krunk,” featured in this week’s Channel Frederator, was born.

It’s fun to see them up to the same tricks again. This year, Birthright created a pitch-perfect remake of “Crush on Obama” with new lyrics, called “I Gotta’ Love You Rosh Hashanah,” and as expected, it’s getting popular on the YouTube right now.

Great work… I like when she sings the “R to the O to the S to the H” part at the end. Happy 5768!

We had a pretty good idea that when we launched our first Channel Frederator original series (and the first original animated series distributed by Next New Networks) that it would go viral pretty quickly. But, here we are less than 12 hours later with over 200,000, thousands of comments, and five star ratings. I think it’s far to say that creator Dan Meth will himself now join the exalted ranks of the internet people.

A few of the comments:

“I’ve seen all these videos… I don’t know if I should feel great or terrible.”

“noooooo!!! not chuck norris!”

And then, there’s the response video from our friends at Indy Mogul:

Dan Meth is one amazing filmmaker. Thanks bud.

Who would have thought that Election ‘08 would be sexy, funny and cool — and it’s still ‘07? Our friend Ben Relles, that’s who.

He’s the mastermind behind BarelyPolitical.com’s Obama Girl, the viral video phenom that made loving Obama something more than sticking a bumper sticker on your car or a pin in your lapel. Ben’s back with more political love as his new video features “Giuliani Girl”, who’s got it for a former NYC mayor whose chrome dome is now, well, sexy to somebody. Better yet, the video features Giuliani Girl meeting Obama Girl in a “Beat it” face-off that’s a hoot.

Ben’s onto something with his unique twist of bringing politics into the pop culture discussion and his ambitions for BarelyPolitical.com are to keep the discussion fresh and funny. I’d bet on Ben to do it… and do it again. There’s a lot more smart, funny, sexy satire in Ben’s brain, and politics will never look so good.

During a routine freak-out at work, Wubbzy decided to stop by and bring us some fun, and help us through our day. Unlike yesterday, which was Barney the Purple Dinosaur Day, today was Wubbzy, the big lovable yellow-thing, day.

Wubbzy Entered the Office

Apparently Wubbzy uses gang signs to communicate the need for hugs. Amazing.

Wubbzy began offering hugs to all.

(more…)

Ward Sutton is a young political cartoonist (and an animator featured in Channel Frederator’s Episode #7) who’s forged his own unique voice in a medium that is often undistinquished in its me-too-ness. He’s a passionate, skillful stylist with the guts to stand up when others sit on their hands.

Follow his weekly cartoons in the Village Voice (click on the strip above to see one of the latest full size), buy his book, or buy stuff from his great poster archive.

The new episode of Galacticast (now officially the one I “instantly produced“) is up this morning, and it’s a doozy, a funny mashup of Super Mario Bros and The Sopranos. Since I helped launch The Sopranos mobile content for HBO, I especially dig being connected to this one. If you don’t love this, well, something’s just not right with you. Special thanks to Casey and Rudy for being cool and offering for me put a plug in for our next network, PulpSecret, launching March 8th.

VOTING IS NOW OPEN for the latest Vlog Deathmatch, an independent competition between videobloggers featuring some people we like. This time, “the glamazons of the vlogosphere” are in an all-out silent air guitar battle. Casey McKinnon lays out the challenge above:

• Silent air guitar performance
• No music (if you’re listening to music, you must listen through earphones)
• No cuts, no edits (except to add titles)
• 30-60 seconds
• Female contestants only

The line-up besides Casey includes some of the brightest stars of the videoblogging world, including CNET’s Veronica Belmont, JetSet’s Zadi Diaz, Micki Krimmel, Noodlescar’s Bonny Pierzina, and D7’s Sarah Meyers.

The first vlog deathmatch, unofficially springing, like this one, from the vlogging community with the help of Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf,
featured teams of brothers battling it out.

Watch and vote today and tomorrow — but whatever you do, don’t miss the trailer videos that were posted over the weekend, which featured some awesome trash talking by the ladies.