videos

Fuse has given its musical sketch comedy series The Whitest Kids You Know a second season. The series, which originated as a series of Web videos back in 2000, first hit Fuse last March. Before coming to Fuse, the team of Trevor Moore, Sam Brown, Zach Cregger, Timmy Williams, and Darren Trumeter made a name for themselves around New York City's various comedy venues.

Variety does not specify when the second season will begin, although it does mention the possibility of a DVD release.

If you're like me and don't have Fuse on your cable lineup, you can watch some of the sketches on YouTube, which has a collection of some of their old Web stuff and possibly a few clips from the actual series. The Fuse site used to have clips, too, but those are gone. I watched a few of them not too long ago and found them amusing, but right now I have to say MTV's Human Giant is the better sketch comedy series.

Reality show wunderkind Mark Burnett will be launching a reality series for both television and online audiences that seeks to find one person to serve as the political voice of young America. The series, Independent, will launch sometime early next year on MySpace, and will also be seen on television, though at this stage no network has been found for the series.

If you have little kids in your home, either because they're your children or you just left a window open and some random kids crawled into your home and now refuse to leave, you might like to know that there are six free videos from the Learn Along with Sesame series available on iTunes. The segments include:

Popular YouTube star Lisa Nova, real name Lisa Donovan, will be joining the cast of MADtv on Saturday, February 17. Donovan originally auditioned for MADtv upon moving to Los Angeles, but didn't make the cut. She then started her own production company and started putting her short films on YouTube. Those shorts were seen by a casting director at MADtv and Donovan was given another shot.

Of course, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise, since MADtv's main competition, Saturday Night Live, also dipped its ladle into the internet comedy pot to bring the Lonely Island boys to the show, and with impressive results. We'll see if MADtv can duplicate some of that success as well, or if they'll force Donovan to play the same three characters over and over and over again, which I'm fairly certain is written into everyone's contract on that series.

Adult Swim lovers who rock the Macintosh can rejoice: Adult Swim Fix, the broadband video site where you can watch clips and full episodes of your favorite Adult Swim series sometimes before they air on television, is now compatible with Mac computers. At least, that's what Adult Swim claims. I have a PC, so I haven't been able to test it. Mac users, let me know how the new Fix works out for ya.

Currently, the Fix has episodes of Trinity Blood, The Brak Show, Space Ghost, Sealab 2021, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Venture Bros., Minoriteam, Full Metal Alchemist, Eureka 7, Metalocalypse, Robot Chicken, Harvey Birdman and Tom Goes to the Mayor. If you're at work and your boss has been getting on your case to lower productivity, this should help.

Call me an old crankypuss, but I've never really been impressed with unmoderated discussions on the Web. Once you leave the doors wide open, you're almost immediately overrun by folks who gleefully pound out vicious bromides while hiding behind the anonymity allowed by the Web. One has only to read the comments on any YouTube clip to see how quickly this can bring down intelligent discussion.

Alas, that's how this crazy medium works, so you have to take the good with the bad. That is, unless you're CBS. The network, which boasts some of the most-watched clips on YouTube, is trying to police its comments by moving them to a different page, rather than directly below the videos themselves. The network is also trying to stay on top of profane, off-topic and unconstructive criticism. The network has been doing this since late October, and all I can say is, "Welcome to the user's Web, CBS."

[via Lost Remote]

The Digg community has once again uncovered a lovely little gem in this great mountain called the InfoWeb. YouTube Shuffle is a player that provides you with up to one hundred randomly selected clips from YouTube based on your search criteria. For example, I'm a huge fan of the band Pavement so I typed in "Pavement" and whaddayaknow, a whole bunch of Pavement videos for my enjoyment. I also recommend typing in "kittens" if you want to be overloaded with feline cuteness. This is really a great idea, considering the sheer volume of videos on YouTube. It serves the same function as hitting "Shuffle" on my iPod by bringing up content I might normally have missed. Very cool, but typing in "three stooges" brings up a lot of personal videos and no Larry, Moe and Curly, which is kind of a shame.

Starting November 27 and airing through December 1, you'll be able to catch reruns of VH1's Pop Up Video on VH1 Classic, one of the last remaining "music" networks that actually show videos on a semi-regular basis. If you're a pop culture and trivia nut like me, you probably loved Pop Up Video, a series that would showcase videos both new and old, complete with facts about the song, artist or video itself that would pop onto the screen throughout the video. The series was a font of useless knowledge and loads of fun until it ventured away from videos and began to give the same pop-up treatment to commercials and other non-musical things. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm not all that interested in knowing the inner workings of an OxyClean commercial.

The Pop Up Video repeats will air every night at 8:00 and 8:30 pm. If you've been meaning to bone up on your knowledge of Journey and Tina Turner, this is your chance.

Wouldn't it have been hysterical if on its first day MTV couldn't afford the rights to any songs, so the entire day was nothing but videos for public domain songs like "Happy Birthday" "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?" I'm sure a few strobes and a fog machine would have added a whole new dimension to "Three Blind Mice," as performed by Alice Cooper: "She cut off their tails with a CARVING KNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE!!!"

But no, MTV launched in 1981 with a bunch of videos of regular pop and rock musicians, starting off with The Buggles catchy "Video Killed the Radio Star," a hit song that was later followed by other great hits from the band such as "Country Music Molested A TV Personality" and "Ragtime Was Convicted of Aggravated Assault."

Thanks to whoever runs the blog IZ Reloaded, you can now watch YouTube clips of every video that aired when MTV first jumped out of your cable box. There's also some REO Speedwagon songs for people like me who mock the band when around friends but secretly sings "Keep On Loving You" in the shower. I've placed The Buggles' video after the jump, cause I love that song.