Tubefilter News

I won’t say “most,” but a great number of shows on the web don’t take the above quote to heart. Many work ridiculously hard to create something “unique,” and in the process, somehow find themselves mired in ground that has been retread to death.

Sex Personified tries a little too hard at finding that “twist” that’ll make people watch. The premise is simple enough: The god of sex and the god of violence bet on whether or not the former can get a uptight square laid. Comedies don’t need to be deep, and that’s fine. However, what I’m first struck with as I watched the first three episodes, before even considering the construction of the show itself, was simply: “If they weren’t the gods of sex and violence, would the show be any different?” Adjust a few pieces of dialogue accordingly and, well, no.

Today at 6pm Pacific, Diggnation conducting their first ever live streamed episode on YouTube. Hosts Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht will answer questions, respond to comments, and will also conduct another live streamed Q&A after the formal episode.

The show can be watched live on Diggnation’s YouTube or attended in San Francisco at Revision3’s Studio in the Dog Patch. Further information is available on Diggnation’s home page.

Can you not get enough of Mike Sorrentino on Season 3 of MTV’s Jersey Shore? Do you think he was sent home too early on Dancing with the Stars? Did you love his acting in that abstinence and safe sex PSA he did with Bristol Palin? Did you answer yes to any of the above? If so, you’re in luck. The Situation is getting a web series. And you could be his co-star.

Yobi.TV, an online talent competition site, announced this week Mike Sorrentino will play the lead fictional character in a comedy series, the content and premise of which will be announced “soon.”

The Situation’s co-stars are also yet to be determined. Yobi.TV is hosting a contest where one aspiring male and female actor will win the opportunity to act alongside Sorrentino and force the word “situation” into as much dialogue as possible. Similar to Yobi.TV’s singing, filmmaking, comedy, and photography contests, the winners will be determined by whichever audition submission receives the most number of votes from Yobi.TV users.

Let’s face it, SFN Group isn’t exactly a household name. But still some 160,000 people cash a paycheck every two weeks from the company—through its suite of professional services brands like Spherion, Technisource, Tatum, The Mergis Group and others—so it’s not exactly a stretch to consider the 60 year-old firm would turn up some creative ways of reaching its core market of working professionals.

Five years ago, SFN was arguably the first major brand to back a scripted episodic show made for the internet, with The Temp Life a farcical look at the horrors of off-brand temp agencies. Five seasons later, the series is still running with the SFN’s Spherion Staffing apparently happy with its growing, and targeted, audience. (Season 5 of The Temp Life just passed 1 million view mark this past weekend.)

ABC’s Cougar Town just launched its own companion series, Andy’s Dreams, sponsored by Diet Dr. Pepper.

The series features Cougar Town’s character Andy Torres, played by Ian Gomez, and the “wacky dreams” about himself and his friends during his ritual afternoon siesta, where he can let his mind wander into an escapist and over-the-top fantasy world.

“Cougar Town’s Andy Torres is a dreamer,” says the show’s promo video. “And now where sleeping begins, so does an unbelievably satisfying adventure. Join your favorite characters from Cougar Town as we take a trip that could only come from the fantastical world of Andy’s Dreams.”

Each new episode of the six part series, premiering on ABC.com Wednesdays at 6:30 PM PT until February 9, explores a different dream. The series stars Christa Miller, who plays Ellie, Andy’s overbearing wife, and Brian Van Holt, who plays Bobby Cobb, Andy’s best friend for whom Andy has a perpetual man-crush.

The show’s theme and logline, “Take a look at the unbelievably satisfying dreams of Andy Torres!” reflect Diet Dr. Pepper’s recently “Unbelievably Satisfying” campaign

While the Internet of 2010 may justifiably go down as the year of Antoine Dodson, there were many other videos out there that deserved equal levels of oversaturation. Here are a few deeper cuts of the viral video soundtrack that was 2010—videos that personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of in 2011!

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
My favorite video of the year had the perfect mix of celebrities, spoofs, being “topical” and just downright funny! Thumbs up to Eric Appel and Aaron Paul for pulling off this production. TBS may have turned Eric’s “Undercover Karaoke” viral into a TV Show, but “Weird” is the one that personally, I’d pay to see full-length.

Halloween Outfits for Girly Children
Many friends and colleagues I shared this Halloween clip with thought it was real. Which worries me on two levels—that people could believe such a story would make it on the morning news, and that not enough people know about The Onion’s Today NOW! Someone needs to make this spoof series a cable series!

That’s what many consumers will be asking in a few months when UltraViolet, Hollywood’s answer to declining DVD and Blu-ray disc sales, hits online and retail stores. UltraViolet is a new format that lets you store and watch purchased TV shows and movies anytime, anywhere on almost any device from a free “digital entertainment locker” in the cloud. The format was developed by the Digital Entertainment Ecosystem Consortium (DECE), whose 70 members include the Who’s Who of studios, electronics manufacturers and tech companies. Its mid-2011 debut was announced at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this month.

According to John Calkins, executive vice president of Global Digital and Commercial Innovation at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, “Ultraviolet will provide consumers an easy way to access their content without the limitations of a physical product, in the same way that the ATM network provides consumers access to their money – anytime, anywhere. It’s a tremendous leap forward in consumer control and flexibility.”

Do a search on YouTube and you will find dozens of one man or woman shows, most of which are an unsettling mix between poorly executed comedy and possible multiple personality disorder. This is not the case with Meryl Hathaway’s Disconnected web series, produced by Hathaway’s own Curly Cue Productions.

The series follows Sandy, an endearing Midwestern housewife who loves church and Girl Scout cookies dipped in flavored vodka, making and receiving calls to a wide variety of characters, all played by Hathaway. She portrays everyone from a little girl trying to reach her quota of Girl Scout cookie sales to a phone sex worker who gets more than she bargained for by dialing Sandy’s number.