John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Christopher Meloni lets it all fang out

We caught up this evening with the latest True Blood episode, the second of the season and the series debut for Christopher Meloni, who has left Law & Order: SVU to take on an uber-vampire role, playing a real piece of work named Roman. Meloni showed up at the end of the episode, presumably to play a major part in the rest of the season. It was a hoot to see him ham it up so much, I have to say. 

A True Blood mug

With bite, of course. Or bites ... there are two.

Me and the Devil

True Blood has a certain way of ending each episode: a dramatic moment or a big reveal or a subtle tease, and then straight to credits with an evocative song playing underneath.

This past week's episode was a cover of Me and the Devil by the Gil Scott-Heron, who died just a couple of months ago. The tune is from Scott-Heron's 2010 album, the ironically named I'm New Here. A great song.

Wake up America!

Imagine how tickled I was to see that the YouTube video in this weekend's episode of True Blood, from a group callled "vamps-kill.com" (with the "hiiii-fin") is actually on YouTube. Heh.

True Blood's brilliant ads

A month or so to go before True Blood kicks off its fourth season. Ah, summer.

From the start, True Blood's advertising has been top-shelf, and often quite funny. I reposted to my Tumblr feed a large collection of print and outdoor ads the show has used to promote the show.     

The Muppets: a lab where things go viral

Surf’s Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010. Click here to read more Surf's Up.]

He’s blue, he’s furry, he stands a few feet tall, preschoolers have wanted to squeeze him for four decades straight, and now – finally – he’s a viral star on the web.

 Grover, in case you haven’t heard, stars in one of the latest videos to catch flame online. It’s a Sesame Street video that pokes fun of Old Spice’s “the man your man could smell like” commercial, which itself was a viral sensation only this winter.

Smell Like a Monster

In this case, Grover focuses  on the word “on,” as in, “on a boat.” Or, “I’m on a horse,” as Grover says at the end … except that the animal below him says “Moo.” “Cow,” Grover quickly adds.

Hilarious. It works for adults, particularly those who like a little burst of satire, and it definitely works for children, too. By early this week, well over five million people had seen the video on YouTube, not including copies posted elsewhere.

I wasn’t surprised, then, to read a piece from New York magazine that revealed not only that the producers of Sesame Street aim to hit two generations with one video, but also deliberately try to get a viral thing happening when they make a video.

They’ve also done parodies of Mad Men – “I’m mad!” says one irate Muppet – and True Blood, a.k.a. True Mud. Yes, it’s a bit risky source material, but the idea is that the kids appreciate what they’re seeing for what it is, while the adults get a lift on a couple of levels.

The Grover parody was conceived, in part, as a way of getting people’s attention, and its internal budget was justified as a promotional event (you’ll notice a brief slide at the end suggesting you watch Sesame Street on PBS, or their website).

More with Muppets

Of course, Grover is a Muppet, but he sticks to Sesame Street. The Muppets, as a brand in their own right, have been reinventing themselves over the last couple of years, and have been making extraordinary clever use of the web to do it.

Muppets Studio

Consider the cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, which reunited all of the Muppet Show gang for a rousing yet kid-friendly rendition. (Animal “sang” the word Mama over and over in the place of the lines about pulling a trigger and shooting a man dead.) The video was just posted, a few nudges were made, and boom – everyone got excited about the Muppets again.

For some, it was a bit of nostalgia; for others, like my son – who particularly likes watching videos of Beaker and Bunsen Honeydew’s ill-fated experiments – the videos are entirely fresh.

When you think about it, the Muppets had a built-in advantage for the web. Their sketches were short and often action-packed, built around one strong joke … and just the right length for bite-size videos that people overwhelmingly prefer online.

Many viral hits are shot with a simple camera, even a cellphone, which makes the Muppets different. The production values on the new ones are sumptuous, and quite a bit of thought and skill has gone into pulling them off.

The Muppet videos are laying the groundwork for a new movie, and no doubt a multimedia presence that will probably be hard to ignore, and possibly overwhelming.  For now, though, millions of people can’t get enough of those morsels of Muppet humour.

Angry Birds: Halloween
Angry Birds has been a worldwide phenomenon since this summer: a game where a little geometry knowledge helps, and a whole lot of fun for anyone with a smartphone. The free version unveiled for Android phones this month drew 2 million downloads in half a week.  

Rovio, the company behind the addictively compelling game, has issued a special Halloween edition, with new levels and challenges. Downloading it made me a hit in our house, where both my wife and son are far adept than I am in maneuvering those die-hard birds into slingshots.

John Gushue is an online editor with CBC News in St. John’s. Twitter: @johngushue.

True Blood, in less than two minutes

This parody is teasingly called True Blood in 60 Seconds ... but I guess they're either bad at math, or this is the director's cut. In any event, fans will get a chuckle.

True Blood: Season finale teaser

Given that True Blood's current season has strayed wayyy beyond the source novels, who knows how the second season is going to end up. (Given the hints in the last episode re: the obliteration facing Michelle Forbes' wickedly fascinating maenad character, I'm thinking it could be a bummer for Maryann.) Here's the HBO teaser for the finale, which airs Sept. 13, with a break over the Labour Day weekend.

Oh no! The maenad from True Blood got hold of Puss in Boots from Shrek!

Making the True Blood opener

Alan Ball ensured the opening titles for Six Feet Under were complex enough to hold a viewer's interest every week; the opening for True Blood is even more detailed. Digital Kitchen, the production company that made the opening, puts it this way:

The final edit contains over 65 shots comprised of original documentary, studio, tabletop photography and found footage. 6 separate shoots took place in Louisiana, Seattle, Chicago on 7 different still, film, and video cameras.

Not to mention the editorial content, which works in the South, sex, religion, death, bigotry, humour, animal urges and, yes, vampires. Watch a video about the making below: click here to download it, as well as the opening itself.

True Blood Making of and Featurette from DIGITALKITCHEN on Vimeo.