Meet Melissa! Melissa Schneider is our new Director of Production, joining the My Damn Channel family with the experience, energy and cred we need to help produce over 30 new original series in the months ahead. She's also the lead producer for our new 2012 mega show with YouTube...
My Damn Channel: Live
Melissa expands our management team in the NY office where
Jesse Cowell (Director of Content) and
Molly Templeton (Director of Talent & Audience Development) work with
Rob Barnett (Founder/CEO) to oversee more killer original comedy and music than legally allowed on the Interweb.
"Melissa brings awesome experience, talent and spirit to our team as we prep to make 2012 the year My Damn Channel delivers more new original programming than ever before," said Rob Barnett. He added, "She's developed and produced over 30 original digital series and branded entertainment campaigns and over 30 independent music videos, commercials, and short films. She worked for David Chase for god's sake!"
Melissa graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and went on to work for The Public Theater / NY Shakespeare Festival during George C. Wolfe’s tenure. She left the theater to work in (wait for it) The Sopranos...in the writers' office for creator David Chase, and writers: Terence Winter (creator, "Boardwalk Empire"), Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess (creators, "Blue Bloods") and Matthew Weiner (creator, "Mad Men").
Melissa went digital...producing online content for Macy’s, XBOX, Vuguru, Nickelodeon, Swanson, Verizon FiOS, CJP Digital, and Summit Entertainment to name a few. She was the Director of Production at Digital Broadcasting Group (DBG) in New York City, where developed and produced digital series and branded entertainment campaigns.
More announcements on our new series, stars and launch info for My Damn Channel: Live hits this space soon.
Posted in
Maria,
Wainy Days with tags
Wainy Days,
David Wain,
Wet Hot American Summer,
new Jennifer Aniston movie,
Wanderlust,
new Paul Rudd movie,
Jorma Taccone,
The Lonely Island,
jorma,
Erinn Hayes,
Childrens Hospital,
Lizzy Caplan,
Party Down,
True Blood,
Ken Marino on 12/4/2011 9:15:00 PM by
Maria
It's back! It's back!
Wainy Days is back with all new episodes! Here are some reasons we're jumping up and down right now (Really. We are. Right now. We promise.):
1. David Wain knows how to bring the hot girls.
It's true. David Wain's past adventures have included Rashida Jones, Elizabeth Banks, Amanda Peet and Megan Mullally. If there's one thing we've been missing in our lives, it's a reliable source of HOT GIRLS.
2. Erinn Hayes and Lizzy Caplan.
Two ridiculously hot girls. This is different from number one because we're being specific. Okay, so maybe it's a subdivision of number one. What are you our English teacher? (
Seriously, is that you, Mrs. O'Neil?!)
3. Jorma Taccone.
A member of The Lonely Island, director of MacGruber, and probably one of the few men on the planet who can make this face in a song called "J--z In My Pants" and have millions of women think it's adorable:
4. David Wain.
We're so happy that between writing and shooting Childrens Hospital and making a movie with Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston and touring the country in honor of Wet Hot American Summer, David could find the time to get himself into a Fiat and drive around with old friends like Ken Marino, Thomas Lennon, Zandy Hartig and Steven Weber to entertain us and make us laugh and give us new videos to watch every Monday when we're supposed to be doing something else at work.
Thanks, David Wain. This Wain's for you:
In honor of Veterans Day, we thank all of the men and women who have served to help keep us safe and free.
May you all come home to someone who loves you.
It's also 11/11/11! In honor of this day, we turn to our Spinal Tap brothers and Turn It Up To 11 with our picks for our Top 11 Videos!
Today on Daily Grace:
It's raining men cameras.
Hallelujah! It's raining men cameras.
Hallelujah!
Seriously. She's giving three sweet Powershots away to three of YOU who helped make her King of The Web!
Hallelujah!
(PS: Now that song is stuck in your head, too. You're welcome.)
And that's really what it is, isn't it?
We're all sitting here, staring at our iPhones in disbelief. Finding comfort in one of the tens of thousands of songs on our iPod. Searching the internet to share in the mourning en masse on our MacBooks.
After we're done here, we'll edit some videos using Final Cut Pro. While we listen to a playlist we made on iTunes. When we get hungry later, we'll use an app on our iPhone to figure out a good place nearby to eat. When we get home, we'll iChat with our parents across the country and tell them what we've been up to. Hell, even one of our most popular videos took place in an Apple Store.
For so many of us who never even met the man, we can't imagine what our lives would have been like without him.
The real brilliance of Steve Jobs's vision is that he believed we all deserved to live the lives of our dreams, and he gave us as many tangible tools as possible to try and do just that. How many of us began vlogging because we were experimenting with our iSights? How many of us became interested in telling stories because of iMovie? How many of us now see the world refracted through Steve Jobs's lens?
We're not the first to post this video, but its message bears repeating, even on days when it isn't almost painfully poignant:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Thanks for believing in all of us, Steve. You have to have known that you made a difference.
(Image via Jonathan Mak)
(Intern Josh, wondering forlornly how he ended up here)
EDITOR'S NOTE: It's Josh's last day as an intern for My Damn Channel! I asked him to write up a post telling you what it was like for him this summer!
Coming into My Damn Channel as an intern I thought all I was gonna learn was how to file papers and fill out reports. Boy was I wrong! Friday will be my last day and I still haven't correctly filled out a single report. My boss is always saying that it drives him crazy how long it's taking me to get the hang of the office duties, but I can tell he's just joking. How I treasure that agonized look he gets trying so hard to hold back laughter.
What I learned though was way more valuable than any college education. I would say it was worth about $230,000, a couple hundred more than four years' tuition at Wesleyan. What I learned was the value of making the effort to gain the respect of your peers.
Before I ever set foot into that office, I had my work cut out for me. My future co-workers had already started gossiping that I only got the internship because of my family connections. After failing for three years to strike any gold, my great-great-grandfather started My Damn Channel during the California Gold Rush as a burlesque show designed to entertain entrepreneurs who had given up on trying to find gold and started companies catered to the needs of the gold miners. Grandpa Schmulie Meisel. I can't believe that was such a popular name back then — Grandpa.
My first day at work the guy sharing my cubicle got mad at me for unplugging his computer. "What do you need a blender for?!" he irrationally snarled. "How else are you gonna make computer smoothies silly? By hand?!" I chucked his computer into my oversized blender. He must've thought I was awfully spoiled, not making my computer smoothies by hand. I really had an uphill battle ahead of me if I wanted to gain anyone's respect.
A couple of days in I got the courage to pitch a show idea to the head of development. It was a parody of "Friends" called "Friends." He looked at me like I was an idiot. "You just handed me a bunch of "Friends" scripts. I think I know now why the printer's out of ink. Look, why don't you hold off for a bit before you make any more pitches." Apparently my scripts had gone right over his head. And "Friends" was a pretty accessible show. The guy I shared my cubicle was a rube, our head of development was dense as a neutron star, and my boss was an incorrigible prankster. My situation was less than ideal to say the least.
Halfway through the summer things had only gotten worse. I was miserable. My only friend was the janitor, and he was a Roomba! I'd cry myself to sleep every night, and when I wasn't feeling that sad I would get my butler to cry me to sleep. My job was a major disappointment. It wasn't at all like that show "The Office." We had TWO guys named Dwight, and the prettiest girl wasn't dating the most handsome guy (me), but instead this guy Jim who's so inexperienced with women that when I asked him to share some girlie stories he just laughed.
All I could do was trudge along until my five weeks were up, filing away papers wherever I could cram them (I may not get the job done pretty, but I'm damn fast). And just when I had given up on ever gaining a single ounce of respect from any My Damn Channel employee, a stroke of luck bolted me right in the face.
I'll always remember it like it was yesterday, even though it was only yesterday today. Jim's girlfriend (I think her name was Xamela) told him he needed to go somewhere to sign some forms. She couldn't give him a ride because she was busy. He asked if anyone else could take him, and I shot out of my chair like I was sitting on a lit match (which for the one of the first times I wasn't). Jim didn't see me at first; his eyes scanned the room for someone to drive him but everyone pretended to be hard at work because they were too lazy to take him. Finally he saw me and said "Fine let's go Josh." And fine it was. Everyone looked up at Jim and smiled at him. Their smiles seemed to say, "I'm really happy for you that you get to go on a fun/crazy/cool ride with Josh." But the smiles had a little menace behind them that signified jealousy.
When I got back my boss laughed with mirth, patted me on the back, and said, "Good job sonny." All I ever wanted was for my boss to think of me as a son, but life isn't easy. I had to put in my time to get what I wanted — let's just say I don't think I could've earned the luxury of being treated by my boss like his own flesh and blood if I hadn't given Jim that ride. And now, in these last couple of months before my summer ends and I have to go back to hitting the books trying to eventually earn my GED, I can look back at my time at My Damn Channel atop my pool float, computer smoothie in hand, and know that that one lesson I learned was well worth all my trifles. Plus it helped that I was making more than the rest of the office combined.
Thanks, Josh, er, Sonny! We will miss you! We know it will be tough going back to Stanford to get a world-class education, but it's better you than us!
We fully intend to continue stalking following you and your writing as @artsypriest and as a writer for The Stanford Chaparral.
PS: If any of you, dear readers, for some strange, maddening reason, would like to be an intern for My Damn Channel, please send an email to info@MyDamnChannel.com, and be sure to include links to your blog, Twitter and Tumblr accounts, or any other writing samples you might have! In the immortal words of the Jersey Shore kids in Italy, "Arrivederci, summer!"
Posted in
Josh Meisel,
My Damn Channel,
That Ain't Right,
Twitter with tags
twitter,
my damn channel,
that ain't right,
indignance,
josh meisel,
social networking,
search,
out of context on 8/12/2011 9:30:00 AM by Josh Meisel
On August 2 we introduced the world to "Searching for 'My Damn Channel,'" a feature on our blog in which we enter "My Damn Channel" into a Twitter search and post tweets tweeted by tweeters who've probably never heard of us! They're pretty much all mad at something, and that ain't right!
Like @Mr_Primetime24:
Bullshit indeed, @Mr.Primetime24. That ain't right.
@cantbNO1_butMe was NOT happy with DIRECTV:
That simply ain't right. I'm impressed she was able to remember her "please's" and "thank you's" in the midst of these wrongdoings.
Our next "my damn channel"er,
@ExTREordinary_J, also cares deeply about politeness:
That ain't right, @ExTREordinary_J. I don't even want to know who "she" is.
@_ThePilot was more explicit about the source of his anger:
Words can't describe my sympathies @_ThePilot! Unless those words are "that ain't right!"
Twitter won't display older results.
That ain't right.
According to the LA Times, this man has already started camping out in front of a London Apple Store to ensure he is first in line whenever the new iPhone comes out.
Let us take a moment to note that as of this writing, Apple has NOT EVEN ANNOUNCED THAT THERE IS A NEW IPHONE RELEASE, let alone a prospective release date.
And, whatever. We bet this guy doesn't even
have a goat.
Some intrepid fans have launched an online campaign to get
Gigi and Book of Mormon star Josh Gad a hosting gig on Saturday Night Live, and we have to say, that sounds like a pretty good idea to us.
The site
Brobible says, "Gad's one of the funniest, quick-witted young actors around, and his big
frame and mop of curly hair belie his intelligence and comic timing.
The ironic part about this campaign to get him to host 'SNL,' in my
opinion, is that if he were a cast member on the show, he'd instantly
become its biggest star. Think Will Ferrell meets Chris Farley.
Seriously, he's that good, and it's apparently his lifelong dream to
appear on 'SNL.' Isn't it everyone's?"
Wow. So
LIKE the page, support the campaign, and help Josh Gad live the dream, man. Uh, we mean, "my mans."