Totally New Site and Totally LIVE Show

We've rebirthed!

My Damn Channel has a totally new site with HUGE thanks to everyone on our team who worked 'round the clock for months. And eternal thanks as always to my Co-Founder/COO Warren Chao, without whom life would hold far fewer smiles for us all.

We wanted to give you a better experience with My Damn Channel.

Please take a full tour of your new home. We've got a totally new design. You can log in with Facebook and share and comment much easier than before. We will be launching a totally new mobile site in the days ahead. And we've got more new sites launching in the My Damn Channel Blog Network.

We made a mondo announcement today with all the details about MY DAMN CHANNEL LIVE.

We're taking some of the best ingredients of late night TV andbringing them kicking and streaming onto the Internet.

MY DAMN CHANNEL LIVE is the first, daily, live comedy channel on YouTube and here on our site every weekday at 4 PM Eastern.

Our shows start next Wednesday, 3/28/12.

We're counting on you to be there with us. We'll be here for you every afternoon with celebrity guests, live interaction, and the premieres of more than 30 new My Damn Channel original series!  (not kidding)

Here's our host and the newest member of the My Damn Channel family: MEET BETH HOYT!
 
We love Beth and love every one you of who have helped us build My Damn Channel since 2007. The real world doesn't seem to get much easier out there, but we're in love with the idea of giving you as many happy good times as possible.

Today it all begins again.

Yours,

Rob Barnett
Founder/CEO, My Damn Channel

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Subway Fresh Artists Featured Filmmakers Returns!

You know when you have an emotion so powerful inside you that the only way to express it is to break out in song?  I do that a lot, and you know what?  Nobody around me is happy.  I sing about as well as I dance.  And this dog dances better than I do.

Lucky for you, my voice had absolutely nothing to do with “Frat House: The Musical,” an awesome new web series that just happens to be one of the winners of this year’s “Subway Fresh Artists™ Featured Filmmakers” competition!

 

Filmmaking students at USC and NYU—two of the top film schools in America—submitted short films for consideration.  Two teams from each school won the top prizes, which means their series are getting the star treatment!

 

First up is “Frat House The Musical,” the story of a plucky college freshman with pipes of gold and abs of steel. 

 

He wants nothing more than to join his father’s fraternity.  Sadly, the Sigma frat doesn’t want him… until they realize they need him to survive.  Drama!  Dancing!  Singing!  Subway!  What more could you ask for?

For you to watch it.

 

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Butt Touchdown For The Win!

Ahem.

The New York Giants won Super Bowl XLVI with a "butt touchdown:"

(Image via SB Nation)

We would like to go on record to say that we believe this "butt touchdown" may have been inspired by Daily Grace's special Super Bowl cheer:

(image via)

But our FAVORITE part may have been Madonna's halftime show because it felt like her costume was an homage to someone very familiar:

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Founder/CEO Rob Barnett on the Online Video Space

At CES 2012, Founder/CEO Rob Barnett gave JWT Worldwide Chairman and CEO Bob Jeffrey a little insight into his perspective on the online video space and My Damn Channel's strategy:

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TOP 11 of '11

It's the 5th year we get to thank you and wish you Happy Holidays from the heart (no joke).

We honestly love you for watching & sharing My Damn Channel original videos.

We promise to deliver the goods again in '12‚ and we'll be launching our new daily live show with YouTube, strangely titled: MY DAMN CHANNEL: LIVE


The staff took an informal poll and picked 11 faves from the past year‚ they're all HERE for your holiday dining and dancing pleasure:

1. WAINY DAYS - Kelly & Arielle (Part 1)
David Wain returns in the triumphant Season 5 of our longest-running hit comedy series with a killer new cast & a new sponsor: FIAT!

2. GIGI: ALMOST AMERICAN - Donate Good Cause
Josh Gad stars as "Gigi," an awesome, original character that infected our fans on My Damn Channel and on YouTube.

3. GARFUNKEL & OATES - David Wain is Sexy
Garfunkel & Oates created this chart-topper to honor WAINY DAYS with David Wain guesting on vocals and guitar.

4. DAILY GRACE - Official Sexy Friday song with Rebecca Black
Rebecca Black recently told YouTube that our My Damn Channel goddess, Daily Grace was one of her favorite people on YouTube. Grace invaded Rebecca's studio for the surprise awesome duet of the year.

5. HARRY SHEARER - Touch My Junk
Our patron saint and in-house hero has blown our brains with original videos since day ONE back in 2007. Here's his musical love note to airport TSA pat-downs.

6. MARK MALKOFF - Apple Store Challenge
MARK MALKOFF - Big Wheel vs. Bus
Every Malkoff adventure captures our imagination, lotsa video views and tons of well-deserved press. He tied for #6 with two videos that tapped the zeitgeist in 2011.

7. VERSAILLES - Episode #7
David Hunt created one of the most original series on My Damn Channel this year with an amazing cast joining him including Patricia Heaton, William H. Macy, Eve Gordon, Martha MacIsaac & the great Fred Willard.

8. SLACKTORY - Slackgeist 2011: The Year in Stupidity
We launched a new My Damn Channel Blog Network this year and Nick Douglas is running an awesome new site for us called Slacktory. Their blog posts are toooo good and they make videos tooo. Here's their year-ender.

9. WAINY DAYS - Kelly & Arielle (Part 4)
Thomas Lennon reunites with David Wain in this new episode from Season 5.

10. SAUL HERNANDEZ - Molecular (from our music channel produced by Don Was)
Don Was is one of the greatest musicians and music producers there is. He's been running our music channel here since day one in 2007 & we all fell in love with one of this year's original songs by Saul Hernandez, lead vocalist and songwriter for the Mexican bands Caifanes and Jaguares.

11. DICKI - Making Friends
We're in love with Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe from "24"). She's a new member of the My Damn Channel fam with an original character comedy, DICKI.

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IAWTV Awards Nominations!

It's Awards Nomination Season: Golden Globe nominations! SAG nominations! Oscar nominations! IAWTV Award nominations!

Yes, the International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) created these Awards to "provide a venue for celebrating original entertainment distributed on the open Internet by honoring the best in web television programming and recognizing the achievements of online content creators."

And that's US!

We scored FOUR nominations and couldn't be prouder:

Best Writing (Non-Fiction): Daily Grace



Best Animated Series: The World of Bruce McCall



Best Variety Series: Mark Malkoff



Best Comedy Series: Gigi: Almost American

Congrats to all of our fellow nominees! We're honored to be among you. Can't wait to see all of you in Las Vegas in January, at the IAWTV Awards Ceremony!

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My Damn Channel Director of Production: Melissa Schneider

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.

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Marc Maron and My Damn Channel: WTF

I started my career in radio and I started My Damn Channel as a response to getting tossed out of radio in 2006.

Podcasts are not new, but in the past few years, a number of brilliantly talented people with brains and balls decided to head to their garages and go punk - bringing new shows to the masses on the Internet - without any of the soul-killing, corporate execs able to stop these brave rebels from creating completely original "radio" that puts the "F" back in Freedom.

I created Free FM back in 2004 to give awesome talent like Adam Carolla a radio show that harkened back to the earliest days of freeform radio....a form never done better than the way it's still being done today by Howard Stern.

When I got "shit-canned" as Adam loves to say - and could no longer protect him from the devils - he got "shit-canned" too. Adam took to his garage to build a monster audience for his podcast and My Damn Channel continues to put our cash where our heart is as a paid sponsor.

Today, we pony up again to become a proud sponsor of WTF with Marc Maron. If you know this show, then you simply need to know that I could no longer sit back and cheer for Marc without jumping in to support him. If you're uninitiated, then his words will be better than mine and I encourage you to watch the video of Marc's recent keynote speech given at the premiere comedy festival, Just for Laughs in Montreal.

Like with Adam Carolla, you'll hear My Damn Channel artists and comedians on WTF with Marc Maron. From time to time, Marc will tell you about the good shit we're doing here to premiere original series with great talent and without any of the corporate red tape that used to get in our way.

And we've now got a whole new Marc Maron channel to check out regularly when you're on My Damn Channel, featuring his podcasts, videos, extras and excerpts with a link to subscribe and donate like we did to a rare talent taking the truth by the horns.

Rob Barnett
Founder/CEO, www.MyDamnChannel.com

www.MyDamnChannel.com/WTF

www.MyDamnChannel.com

www.MyDamnChannel.com/SizzleReel

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It's WAINing again - Wainy Days shoots Season 5

Ken Marino, Jon Stern, Rob Barnett, David Wain

WAINY DAYS first launched on day 1 of My Damn Channel: 7/31/07. David and I knew each other a lil bit from the salad daze at MTV. He saw the future when he and the Michaels created STELLA shorts...back when it took a year and half to buffer a 3-minute clip.

I promised David he could do the original series he wanted without the typical network interruptus, "notes" and meddling. We'd deliver cash, massive promotion and distribution to reach his fans and make WAINY DAYS the premiere series of our (almost) TV network of the future.

David pitched a show where his character would make out with the hottest women in Hollywood and have every date go horribly wrong. I said 'yes.' We locked the right price for the first season of 10 episodes. And I asked David to promise to cast this show as well as he casted his latest feature film back then, THE TEN.

32 official episodes, 4 years, and 4 seasons later, you've watched and shared WAINY DAYS to make it the longest-running, most-popular comedy series in the new world.

This week, we're filming an all-new season 5 with another killer cast including David & Ken Marino, who co-wrote the new episodes and Exec Produces with David & our beloved series producer, Jon Stern. This year's cast also features Steven Weber, Zandy Hartig, Jorma Taccone, Erinn Hayes, Lizzy Caplan, n' more.

We have a brand new sponsor: FIAT !

We'll post more updates and pics and announce a premiere date sooner than you think.

While I have you for this too-happy-too-long post: please n'joy the trailer for David's brand new feature film: WANDERLUST - opening FEB 24 2012 !

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The Best Part of Halloween?

Think about it. Each Halloween we pulverize pumpkins to stick candles in their hollowed-out gores and put them on our front porch so that people know that we're friendly people with candy.

This ritual also marks the beginning of the most gastronomically wonderful time of year.
How so? Let us count the ways:

Pumpkin Bread


Pumpkin Scones


Pumpkin Soup (Trust us. So good.)


Pumpkin Pie

And of course, America's favorite weird obsession:


The Pumpkin Spice Latte.

We've seen people trample small children to get to this drink. Get it together, people.

If all of these things made you really hungry, but you're still unsure how to get this pumpkin-slaughtering ritual started, here's a little "How-To" from Slacktory:



Happy Halloween!

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