Mocking the news: 10 classic Funny or Die videos
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It’s all about speed at Funny Or Die. The comedy website-turned-digital-entertainment-studio churns out 40-45 original video shorts a month, all on a compressed timeline by Hollywood standards. Concepts are nailed on the fly and Web videos are set up via quick phone calls to A-list friends, often bypassing agents and managers entirely.
At the height of the Charlie Sheen media frenzy, they pitched him a cooking video. Three days later they shot it, edited it that night, and it was live on the site the next day.
Will Ferrell, who founded the site along with Adam McKay and Chris Henchy, calls it “guerrilla-style” production. He says the site’s making an effort to be extra-timely when it comes to current events, creating more sketches in sync with the news cycle. Like a pig in a Donald Trump wig. Or a Will and Kate reality show spoof.
Unlike “Saturday Night Live,” which is tied to a weekly production schedule, Funny Or Die can respond to current events practically while they’re still happening. “It moves so quickly and that’s kind of the beauty of it,” Ferrell says.
Read the L.A. Times Sunday Calendar feature on Funny Or Die.
Meanwhile, here are 10 classic news-based (give or take) Funny Or Die videos, after the jump. (Warning: many of the videos include profanity.)
--Deborah Vankin
Twitter.com/@debvankin
1. Ding Dong Bin Laden’s dead
2.Bin Laden death footage spoof
3. Will & Kate: Before Happily Ever After
4. Before Will & Kate: Happily Ever After Episode 2
5. Barack Obama birth certificate: Death of a Dream
6. Trump roots out Obama’s birth certificate
7.Charlie Sheen’s winning recipes
8.Prop 8: The Musical
9. Paris Hilton responds to John McCain ad
10. “When Harry Met Sally 2”
