It has become a December ritual for several years now, watching the send-off that the guys who created the online digital media company JibJab, which makes funny online videos and e-cards, give to the year in news.
This year's installment has its moments but several of their previous efforts seemed more inspired. Take a look at a handful of other year-end wrap-ups here. I thought the 2007 installment had much more enthusiasm and 2008's reflected the buoyancy and grimness of the year.
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
The JibJab guys have released their new parody video, featuring President Obama and Vice President Biden, lampooning the year in news. It’s not as sharp as the videos they’ve done in past years which was unfortunate as this year has been filled with insane events.
Compared to, say, the send-off they gave to 2009, this 2010 version isn't quite as lively . . .
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
Our neighbors send us our first e-greetings of the season this week. They used the JibJab.com web site’s personalization option by uploading images of their family of four which were superimposed over musicians/dancers performing, “Feliz Navidad.”
I spent way too much time messing around with the site and saw that they offer an It’s a Wonderful Life video. You input photos of people and watch them re-enact a massively truncated version of the famous Jimmy Stewart/Donna Reed flick. I, being a major Mad Men fan, selected Mad Men characters and put them into a JibJab re-creation of my favorite movie.
Wonder what Don Draper – who Peggy Olson said “sees everything” -- thought of the movie, of Jimmy Stewart’s down-trodden family man?
Mad Men-Themed Gifts
Speaking of Mad Men and Christmas . . . here are a ton of official Mad Men-themed gifts available at Gold Label from T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and iPhone covers, to tote bags, greeting cards and calendars featuring cartoons of Mad Men characters. Among my favorites -- many featuring the illustrations of Dyna Moe -- are the ones of Joan and the one of Don saying, “Fear stimulates my imagination.”
Additionally, the Mad Men-obsessed Dyna Moe also has a cool book out, Mad Men: The Illustrated World, featuring her insightful images based on the AMC drama. (This is one I’d personally like to see under my Christmas tree . . .)
I also liked the thoughtful Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America by Natasha Vargas-Cooper which examined pop culture and the 1960s world of advertising, placing the reader in the mindset of the era.
Another Mad Men book I read over the summer but would recommend only to those who like somewhat dense, scholarly examinations of what motivates people (or doesn’t motivate people) from ethical, pragmatic, moral and sociological points of view is Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is As It Seems I personally enjoyed it, found it thought provoking, but it did remind me of something you'd read for a college class.
'Christmas Comes But Once a Year'
And, for those of you (including me) who miss seeing new Mad Men episodes, you can fondly remember the second episode of the recent fourth season, the one in which Roger Sterling played Santa and Don bedded his first of two secretaries that season. How ironic was it that by the season’s end, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce lost the client for whom they put on the dog and pony show – as well as the Santa suit – and Don got engaged to his secretary?
Love the JibJab guys, the ones who make those snarky online videos featuring caricatures of real people. (My favorites are their political ones and the year-end wrap-ups.) Now they've leapt into the wonderful world of Mad Men, as we get ever-closer to the fourth season premiere later this month. (Sunday July 25 at 10 for those of you keeping tabs at home.)
You can either watch the Mad Men JibJab video as they've designed it:
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
It really amazes me to see in how many different ways people take something like a single TV show and then add their own creative twist to it, like with theMad Men Yourself images and the book I'm reading in advance of the new season, Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing is as it Seems. (A very scholarly read, though with many cool observations.)
My Notes from the Asylum blogging has been a bit on the light side over the past week or so as I'm trying to give myself a mini-break before I plunge into some major writing/editing/blogging in the new year.
But in between numerous Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations, the kids' Christmas break, barely eluding being guilted into taking my 8-year-old to see Alvin and the Chipmunks The Squeakquel (a friend's mom took him), seeing It's Complicated with a gal pal, baking loads of holiday cookies and, at the behest of my daughter, polishing off the last of the Twilight series (just finished Breaking Dawn today), I learned that the JibJab guys have finally released their comedic send-off of 2009 called, Never a Year Like '09. Don't play this video at work or in front of kids though. The Octomom part made me laugh/cringe, as did the scene with David Letterman's "late night lust" and Miss California fake-humping the state of California.
Speaking of the New Year . . . I'm not one for resolution lists and media tips which proclaim to possess the answers to how to make your life better, particularly around this time of year, so for my GateHouse News Service column this month, I wrote a snarky parenting "anti-resolution" list including recommendations on embracing the crazy, acting more like moms on TV and campaigning for national acceptance of "underparenting."
Okay, so it doesn't involve killing a fly with a single, vicious, ruthless slap, but the new JibJab satire which spoofs President Obama taking on everything that's wrong with the world with his superhero powers is sharp. And pretty cool. Like the superhero Obama, with an Obama campaign logo on his chest where the super "S" should be.
Earlier this year, they created a sharp video spoofing the presidential election and I've been a huge JibJab fan for years. But the 2008 wrap-up just didn't do it for me this time around, maybe it was the different style. Wish they'd done more with Sarah Palin and mentioned Joe the Plumber, Tina Fey, Joe the Gaffe Machine and other pop culture nuggets from 2008 besides Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair and Daniel Radcliffe nude on stage.
The video (link here) is NOT work-safe and is inappropriate for the kiddos.
There's been much teeth-gnashing among media folks following a New York Timesstory saying that people -- comedians in particular -- are uncomfortable poking fun at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. This navel gazing came on the heels of the ill-advised New Yorker cover which was intended to mock critics of the Obamas . . . but instead got some Obama supporters really angry.
For those people who are pondering how to go about seeing and remarking on the humor in this election need to chill out and take a page from the guys at the JibJab web site who, since 2004, have regularly been dispensing humorous, bipartisan criticism via video about our elected officials with sharp incisiveness that sometimes teeters on the edge of impropriety. Which is what makes the JibJab videos so much fun. They know how to create satire that's clearly satire.
The latest JibJab video, released to kick off the general election campaign, portrays Republican presidential candidate John McCain as a tough, gruff, old military dude, while Obama is like a naive Bambi in the woods, cavorting with wildlife amidst rainbows. For those who are tired of the ultra-serious campaign coverage and want a laugh, this is a must. (I had trouble embedding the video, so click here to watch it.)
