NEW YORK (April 17) - FunnyOrDie.com, the Web site started by Will
Ferrell and Adam McKay, is 1 year old. Its biggest star, Pearl, is
3.
The comedy site is celebrating its anniversary with a video
posted Wednesday of its stars wishing Funny or Die a happy
birthday. Among the many making cameos: Pearl, McKay's toddler
daughter who became a star in her own right in the site's first
video: "The Landlord," with more than 55 million views.
In just a year, Funny or Die has expanded to become a repository
of professional content created by many top comedians, including
Judd Apatow, Jack McBrayer ("30 Rock") and the comedy troupe
Human Giant. Their videos are mixed with (the less popular)
viewer-submitted videos, which can remain on the site if they are
rated highly enough.
Pearl isn't coming out of "baby retirement," as was announced
at the end of her last video, "Good Cop, Baby Cop." McKay says
he'd prefer to keep her out of the spotlight, but figured a little
birthday wish was harmless enough.
"It's sort of like when a professional boxer fights a
professional wrestler," McKay tells The Associated Press. "It's
not really a sanctioned bout."
McKay, the director of "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy"
and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," never expected
the site - which he founded with Ferrell and partner Mark Kvamme, a
venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital - to take off like it has.
"I always thought we'd be getting a couple hundred thousand
hits a month and it'd be a fun thing to screw around with," McKay
says.
Instead, Funny or Die has swelled to include several other sites
in the "Or Die" network - including a skateboarding site with
Tony Hawk, ShredOrDie.com, and BlueCollarOrDie.com, a more
Southern-style comedy site with Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable
Guy.
More offshoots are planned, including the soon-to-be-announced
EatDrinkOrDie.com with celebrity chefs.
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Next week, a redesigned Funny or Die will debut with more blogs
and a social networking component.
"The big thing that separates us is the original content,"
says McKay. "I don't think anyone else has the amount of pieces
written specifically for the site, with the amount of actors we
have."
McKay says making the videos is "so pain-free": They'll
dispatch a film crew within hours if someone they know has a good
idea for a video, and they will shoot videos quickly and casually
before a weekly basketball pickup game.
"The Green Team," which starred Ferrell, McKay and John C.
Reilly, was shot on the set of their upcoming film "Step
Brothers" in "negative time it was so fast," McKay says.
Though FunnyOrDie.com hasn't again found lightning in a bottle
like it did with "The Landlord," it has been a dependable source
of funny, original content. Often, the videos are deployed as
promotional tools for movies.
This week, the Apatow-produced "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is
loosely advertised with a video by one of its stars, Kristen Bell,
pleading for people to contribute to the "McLovin Fund" to help
"Superbad" actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse avoid being typecast.
Chief executive officer Dick Glover would like to see the
business of Funny or Die start grossing a few million dollars this
year, after making what Kvamme has said was a few hundred thousand
dollars last year. Glover hopes Funny or Die, which averages 3.2
million unique visitors a month, will double its size this year.
"There are now 30,000 videos on it; it started with a
handful," says Glover. "At the launch, it was looked at - for
good reason - as Will Ferrell's Web site. Now, it's looked at as
its own brand."
McKay says he's considering creating a Funny or Die Productions
to make more elaborate webisodes - even movies. So, what started as
a way to circumvent the studios and interact directly with fans may
itself become a studio.
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