Blog

At long last Sty TV have unveiled our second challenge video, sponsored by Wicked Pig pork snacks. Richard and Dan have a week to become fully-fledged celebrities…

P.S. Apologies for the title card grafted onto the beginning which is almost as long as the feature itself. Sometimes our baking gets re-iced after it leaves our kitchen…

In the meantime, here’s a picture of a Pearly King and Queen to get you in the mood

I recently watched a documentary on BBC iPlayer, that was titled The Winnebago Man. It was about this chap called Jack Rebney, who became famous after the out-takes of the corporate film he was staring in, found their way onto YouTube.

I’m completely in love with this man and this clip above. Some people have said the clip is a great expose on the frustrations of filming. I also think of it as a brilliant glimpse into the frustrations of trying to act normal, when your real character is anything but.

Instead of trying to be calm when irritated, i think we should celebrate the emotion with passionate outbursts of very loud swearing. Not only in honor of this chap, but because i think it will make the world a little more interesting.

For those living in the UK, i strongly urge you to watch the film on him:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tmhc8/Storyville_20102011_YouTube_Hero_The_Winnebago_Man/

This is definitely the best YouTube advertising I’ve seen recently

Click here to watch ‘A Hunter Shoots a Bear.’

Gold star to Zanda for pointing this out in the comments.

Some would call it a meeting of minds.

Others, the inevitable union of kinsmen.

Yes, it was bound to happen sooner or later: Richard and Dan have finally joined forces with Zoo magazine.

This puts me in mind of another recent comedy/marketing alliance: between the Edinburgh comedy awards and Fosters piss-water, which resulted in the Frank Chickens becoming Comedy God (yes they did! Look here! How fantastic! Well done to all who voted!)

Kazuko Hohki, lead member of Frank Chickens, rather gloriously said to BBC Scotland that “Frank Chickens were not comedians, they were a band of performance artists.” And, magnificently, that she does “not understand stand-up comedy,” because “her English language skills aren’t good enough to listen to someone talking for an hour.”

You’ve got to take your hat off to Stewart Lee for turning such moribund marketing on its head so triumphantly, so authentically and so damn amusingly.

Meanwhile, Dan and I are awaiting the results of the above Zoo competition which will determine a future challenge. It closes tomorrow. None of you are exempt, and we don’t choose the winner – they do – so ENTER WITH YOUR INGENIOUS SUGGESTIONS!

Our sponsors would get very upset if we published anything that might give Zoo a bad reputation in the minds of our audience. We are however encouraged to give you a link to the contents of their website. Please feel free to scour this paragraph for any traces of irony.

I’ll leave you with a choice quote from a recent illuminating article from the Guardian which notes:

“If you have a . . . marketing budget and think you’d like to sponsor a comedian, you’ll need a thick skin and a robust sense of humour.”

Our second Wicked Pig challenge film is coming very soon, and the topic is celebrity…

Appropriately enough, the gormless faces of Richard Dadd and Dan Fryer have been turning up in all sorts of odd places recently. Here is a roundup of some of them:

1) This week’s edition of YourCanterbury includes an interview which is by turns sarcastic, sobering and hyperbolic (left – click image to enlarge) as well as a generous plug for this ‘ere Bakery website. Our thanks to Florence, the journalist.

2) The University of Kent ran with ‘Kent alumni named Britain’s next comedy double act’ and even embedded our video on the University homepage for a short time . . . despite YourCanterbury having labelled our campus-based occupations “the most boring jobs in the world” above . . .

3) Amongst such worthy headlines as “What entrepreneurs want from their accountants” and “100 days later – what has the Coalition done for you?” can be found an article about our egg portrait business model, which concludes “it’s probably more of a lesson on how not to set up a business” at the official website of Real Business ‘The Champion of UK Enterprise’

4) The Canterbury Times (formerly Adscene) along with the Kentish Gazette and This Is Kent website have all featured variants of this article which includes an extremely accurate quote from Dan. Accurate apart from the bit about being “over the moon” (he didn’t say that) . . . oh, and the bit about us writing together for 5 years (we haven’t been) . . . and the bit about “showing the world what we can do” . . . okay, he didn’t say any of it. Makes you wonder why they even bothered interviewing us. Oh that’s right, they didn’t.

5) One of the proudest moments of our Internet career so far: we appeared at the top of the B3ta newsletter!

6) And apparently we also deserve a brief blog entry on Ant and Dec’s “No.1 Fansite on the Web”

This is all a bit odd.

Anyway, keep your eyes peeled for more, and remember the second Wicked Pig challenge is imminent!

Our old friends Ed and Will popped up last night in the first episode of ‘Secret Britain’ on BBC One, which focussed on the south of England.

Click here to watch their appearance, in context with the full programme. Warning: may contain Matt Baker.