Something The Streamy Awards Did Right

Despair not, Web TV producers. Sunday night's Streamy Awards, despite the bad behavior and poor planning, may have done some justice: It exposed an audience of onlookers to new programming online they might have never have known before. Twitter chatter today is suggesting as much. As one Tweeter mentioned, "when life give you lemons..." Now he, and loads of people who suffered through technical problems and streakers, have a list of online shows they want to check out. Here are some that strike my fancy:


The Guild, starring and co-created by Felicia Day, is a funny, quirky show about a group of online gamers. I'm just starting to watch this series, and so far - it's quirky and fun. Watch The Guild at http://www.watchtheguild.com/





Easy To Assemble. This comedy is created by and stars Ileanna Douglas playing a fictional version of her actress self who quits the Hollywood acting rat face to work at an Ikea in Burbank. Justine Bateman co-stars, also as herself.

Watch Easy to Assemble here: http://www.easytoassemble.tv/


The Kevin Pollack Chat Show. This is an entertaining video podcast talk show hosted by the actor/comedian. Pollack's comedy, stories and ease make him a great interviewer and host. His guests are amazing: Jon Hamm, Kevin Smith, Huebel and Scheer, Kevin Nealon, Henry Winkler, Hank Azaria. The show streams on iTunes and on his site. Watch Kevin at: http://www.kevinpollakschatshow.com/



Wainy Days. Ah, Wainy Days. One of my all time favorite web series. Created by, written by and starring David Wain, it chronicles his fictionalized pretend lonely life picking up the ladies. (Paul Rudd starred in an episode entitled "The Pickup" as seen in photo). David won a 2010 Streamy for best writing. Watch Wainy Days here: http://www.wainydays.com/




What the Buck Show. This started out as a YouTube web show that I subscribed to and love, love love. Now it's a big deal. Michael Buckley reports on Hollywood and pop culture with breathless speed and humor. He's super fun. "I had to have it!" What the Buck is at: www.buckhollywood.com



So, perhaps something positive came out of the craziness of Sunday night's fiasco. I discovered more original content and hard working creative professionals trying to do something independently. It might take a few years to wash the stench of this weekend off, but even the pioneers of the wild west had to dig a few stinky muddy trenches before they built their homestead.

There's more to watch. Check out the following shows:
Diggnation
The Bannen Way
Know Your Meme
The Totally Rad Show

The 2010 Streamy Awards

Felicia Day of The Guild, Winner Best Actress in a Web Series 2010
(Photo circa 2009)

You know that an awards ceremony is going badly when audience, nominated guests and crew are tweeting as if they're being held hostage. "I'm tweeting from inside the building. So many hours. Can't remember the last time I saw daylight."

The Streamy Awards are to honor those whose online work was worthy of attention. Sadly, they may have taken a step back after last night. The show had lots of technical problems. There was bad audio (the online audience could hear host Paul Scheer when he was off stage). Problems with timing and some very blue comedy that pissed off some people online. Oh, and streakers. Hello 1970's, your naked penises are back!

One can hope that it didn't anger the sponsors of the event - Kodak and Trident - two titans that probably hoped for something better than what they saw last night.

I don't want to dwell on the negatives. They're obvious. Plenty of people are talking about the bad on Twitter #streamysfail and #streamys. Here are the positives. Scheer did a remarkable job of holding down the awkward silences caused by frozen graphics and wrong video clips. His improv survival skills kicked in, and some of the funniest jokes of the night were told by him off script. Rob Huebel's bit as the pimp guy who headed up an internet porn site was hilarious. It got the biggest laughs of the night. It was great to see Zach Galifianakis' Between Two Ferns and Ileanna Douglas' Easy to Assemble take home some prizes.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Here is a short list. All winners and nominees can be found at Mashable.com.

Best Comedy Web Series: Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis

Nominees:
Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis
Easy to Assemble
The Guild
The Legend of Neil
Wainy Days

Best Drama Web Series: The Bannen Way

Nominees:
Angel of Death
Compulsions
OzGirl
The Bannen Way
Valemont

Best Hosted Web Series: Diggnation

Nominees:
A Comicbook Orange
Diggnation
Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show
Know Your Meme
The Totally Rad Show

Best News or Politics Web Series: Auto-Tune the News ()

Nominees:
Auto-Tune the News
Rocketboom
The Tomorrow Show with Mo Rocca
The Young Turks
VBS News

Best Animated Web Series: How It Should Have Ended

Nominees:
Eli’s Dirty jokes
Happy Tree Friends
Homestar Runner
How It Should Have Ended
Zero Punctuation

Audience Choice Award: Agents of Cracked

Nominees:
Agents of Cracked
Anyone But Me
Dorm Life: Semester 2
Elevator
Noob
Star ()-ving
The Guild
Legend of Neil
The Totally Rad Show
The Young Turks

There's some interesting commentary online about the execution of the show. There's some positive here too. Hopefully, producers can learn from this and do a better job next year.

Jace Hall Show
Mashable.com
Tech Tremor
The Streamys.org
Tubefiler News
End of Show

Paul Scheer to Host the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards

Get ready web followers and original content people: It was confirmed last week (Okay, I'm late) that comedian Paul Scheer will be hosting the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards on April 11th. The ceremony will stream live online at 5pm (PT) from the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles at Streamys.com, Mashable.com and UStream.

Just add this to the pile of Scheer goodness. First, he's about to embark on a second season of FX's The League. He's also featured in HBO's Funny or Die Presents in the comedy short "Designated Driver". In March, he co-hosted the incredibly successful charity event for Haiti - Night of 140 Tweets, and as an uber Lost fan, lived out his dreams by moderating a panel of cast and crew at the Paley Festival in January. He's also a pretty damn awesome improviser who can always been seen at Upright Citizen Brigade in LA and New York.

Scheer is super funny, and already has a strong internet presence on Tumblr, Twitter and FunnyorDie.com. This promises to be an awesome presentation.

Congratulations, Paul!