Black20.com in the New York Times

No, I don't work for Black20.com but I think I'm definitely one of their biggest fans. There is an awesome write up about the company in the Arts section of today's New York Times. It details the operations unique start and how it's become one of the most viral sites on the web. Here's an excerpt from the article:

"Most humor sites begin when some smart-aleck at an old media company begins nagging: “We have to launch a more robust entertainment vertical, guys.” But Black20 has a cool creation myth.

The story is so suspiciously cool, it puts Black20.com closer to an enterprise like “Ocean’s Eleven” or “Easy Rider” than to a technobabble online initiative you’ll never hear of again. (Then again, you never know.)

The near-perfect story goes like this. Last year two young funnymen, J. Crowley and Neil Punsalan, promising self-starters at NBC, were feeling trapped. Jeff Zucker, the president and chief executive of NBC Universal, had personally green-lighted a broadband series they had pitched called “Out of Context.” They were in their 20s, they’d shot the series, and suddenly they had the run of NBC’s brand-new digital studios department. That was exciting.

What was less exciting were the budget cuts, when they came last year. “Out of Context” was losing support; NBC had other ideas about mobisodes, Webisodes, monetizing ringtones, something. At the same time Mr. Crowley and Mr. Punsalan felt pangs of longing watching the growth of the free-form, lawless YouTube. They should be doing that kind of low-budget D.I.Y. work, they thought, instead of punching the clock for the establishment."

Click here to read the rest of the article. Congrats, Black20!

Severe lack of posts!

My sincere apologies, loyal blog readers! My life has been hella' crazy lately and I haven't had time to update the ol' blog. How have you been? What's new? What are you watching on TV?

I am majorly behind on my Shear Genius. I forgot to set up at series recording on my DVR, so I gotta wait for the rerun tonight at 9pm. Unfortunately I won't be able to watch it until10pm because Heroes is back with a new episode at 9. Are you watching Heroes? It's so good. If you're not watching it then you are missing out!

Are you watching the Amazing Race: All Stars? It's so good, too! Last night Danny and Oswald got eliminated after being given a second chance the week before. Carolyn and I are pulling for the beauty queens, Dustin and Kandice, to win. If they did, they'll be the first all-female team to do so in 11 seasons. They're really smart, resourceful racers and I think they have a good shot of coming up with the win. Eric and Danielle are pretty good, despite the fact that the beauty queens f'ed them with a detour not once, but twice (even if they paid Danny and Oswald the 2nd time!) And as much as I love to hate them, I would be proud if Mirna and Shmirna (Charla) won the race. That little lady sure can haul her over-sized butt when she needs to. Although I hate their weird accents that they put on in each country (which never matches up to the local accent!) they could definitely come out on top.

To quote Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock, I just love television so much.

Black 20 News: 3rd week of April '07

We love us some Black20 News and Jesse Cantrell. Here's what's up in the world this week.
Black20 News

Shear Genius, Week 2

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Crazy busy in universe this week. This Shear Genius update is majorly delayed also, but let's get to it!

This week the elimination challenge for the contestants was to give their client this celebrity hairstyle of the client's choosing. Most of the choices were fairly close to what the client naturally had to work with and involved some cutting and styling, but a few of them had some ballsy requests.

Daisy's client wanted to go to from black hair to the white-platinum locks of Christina Aguilera. Not only is that hard to do under any circumstances, but they only had 2 hours to complete the mission. The result left her model looking more like Marcia Cross than Christina Aguilera, but it wasn't actually that bad of look... just nothing like the intended result. Luckily for her, she wasn't eliminated because someone else messed up worse than her.

Jim's model wanted to have a similar Gwen Stefani look, but unlike Daisy, he decided to dive in and try to take her from black to platinum with the limited time constraints. When the model came down the runway she looked more like Shawn White, the Flying Tomato, than the Anaheim singer and he was cut from the competition.

The winner of the competition was Anthony, the Brit, who took his model from really good looking to really, really good looking with a Carmen Electra-style cut. Not the most challenging 'do out there, but it was well done. His model looked good.

Click to watch Jim's surprisingly happy goodbye message to the viewers. He was apparently really thankful to be in the competition. He also gives detailed steps on how you, too can look like Carrot Top. Shear Genius airs Wednesday nights on Bravo at 10pm, and you can view more clips, photos and blogs at Bravotv.com

Clip Du Jour: Black 20 News

Welcome to this week's edition of Black20 News with Jesse Cantrell. Again, this clip comes from the peeps at Black20.com

Check out the clip as Jesse shows you what's sweet in the universe this week.
Black20 News: Friday, April 13th 2007