May Is The Month For Brad Neely’s New Miniseries, CHINA, ILLINOIS

You may already know about it from Brad’s announcement on Creased Comics. If not, here’s the story: Mr. Neely has just put the finishing touches on his first ever multi-part miniseries. It’s called China, Illinois and it stars just about every character he’s ever drawn (for Super Deluxe, at least) including Baby Cakes and the Professor Brothers. We can’t give too much away, but we will say that it is a musical of sorts involving a dead woman and it revolves around a community college in China, Illinois (more on that psuedo-fictional town in a moment).

Now for the premiere schedule. Every Monday in May, a new episode will premiere here on Super Deluxe. And then, in a wacky twist of cross-pollination synergy, the entire 11-minute miniseries will be broadcast on Adult Swim the night before the final episode AND entire 11-minute miniseries appears here.

To review:

• Monday May 5th – Episode One of China, Illinois debuts on Super Deluxe 
• Monday May 12th – Episode two of China, Illinois debuts on Super Deluxe
• Monday May 19th – Episode three of China, Illinois debuts on Super Deluxe
• Sunday May 25th 11:45 PM EST – Entire 11-minute miniseries of China, Illinois debuts on Adult Swim
• Monday May 26th – Episode four AND the entire 11-minute miniseries of China, Illinois debuts on Super Deluxe

 

As for the peculiarly named municipality of China, Illinois, wethinks it may just be yet another invention born from the mad brain of Brad Neely. A lil’ dot does show up in Google map searches…

…but upon further investigation, no such place exists. There once was a China Township in the Land of Lincoln. But apparently, they renamed themselves. We called the County Clerk and Recorder’s office in Lee County, Illinois and this is what they had to say:

Them: It’s now Franklin Grove. It used to be China Township. But it’s now Franklin Grove Township.

Us: Oh, because we found a China, Illinois on Google Maps.

Them: There is a Chana, Illinois. I don’t know about China. Chana, Illinois is in Ogle County.

Us: Chana?

Them: C-h-a-n-a.

Us: So, China, Illinois…

Them: Got changed to Franklin Grove Township.

Us: OK. You know any reason why?

Them: I guess, years ago, it was Franklin Grove. And they changed it. I don’t know why. And then about 3 years ago, they chose to change it back. They went through the proper procedure to have it changed back.

Us: Did it have anything to do with the nation of China?

Them: I don’t know.

Us: Do you know if there’s a community college there?

Them: No.

Tim And Eric NOT LIVE And DVD Giveaway Special!

[Update: dear readers, this giveaway has reached its dramatic conclusion. We have our winners. A special thanks goes out to all of you who responded so quickly. First 5 responders: keep checking your inboxes because we’ll be getting in touch with you soon to send you your free DVD and pound of marijuana. 6th responder: can we interest you in a back massage?

You read that right. It says “NOT LIVE.” This Tuesday, Tim and Eric are returning to Super Deluxe. But instead of doing their “NITE LIVE” show from Los Angeles, they’ll be debuting the first in a series of “NOT LIVE” videos from the road.

Which may be the closest you’ll be able to get to them these days if you haven’t already bought tickets to their Awesome Show, Great Job!™ Tour 2008. As you can see from this helpful MySpace calendar, they’re selling out everywhere.

Except Asheville. And Lawrence. And Seattle. And Los Angeles. They haven’t sold out in those cities.

OK, now for the DVD giveaway part. We have 5 copies of Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Season One that we want to rid ourselves of.

Seeing as our other DVD giveaway is going so well (only 2 people have responded), we’ll make this one a bit easier: all you have to do is write a short essay in the comments below explaining why you should receive a free DVD. That’s it. Type up a persuasive lil’ paragraph for us and it’s yours. Easy.

Pope Benedict XVI: “Happy 4/20, America!!”

     

Look at that guy. Look at his hat. For Christ’s sake, look at those eyes! Dude is baaaaaaaaked. Super high. And you know it’s not because he’s got glaucoma. So, don’t feel guilty about sparking up this year, Catholics. Because it seems Pope Benedict the XVI is more than willing to dip into an eighth of Vatican City chronic this April 20th. Just listen to the man…

[SUPER DELUXE VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE]

Win A Wack Magic DVD Featuring Lots O’ Brad Neely!

What? You haven’t heard of Wack Magic yet? Apparently, you weren’t in Austin for SXSW this year. Because that’s the only place in the world where we’ve given it away so far.

We’re proud to announce that Wack Magic is our first-ever promotional DVD. And it’s quite the collectible treasure, if we do say so ourselves. Especially for fans of Brad Neely. Not only does it feature a healthy hoard of I Am Baby Cakes and Professor Brothers videos (as well as some other assorted Neely gems), it also comes with this two-sided mini-poster which Brad drew specifically for this project:

But that’s not all! Wack Magic also has a sampler platter of other Super Deluxe videos on it from geniuses like Devin Flynn, Dave Willis, Louis Katz, Dave Hill, The Post Show, Team Tiger Awesome and Nick Goossen. And they’re all viewable on a DVD machine.

Now for the contest part : we’ve got 10 copies of Wack Magic that we want to give away. Free. Gratis. Sans the filthy lucre. All you have to do to win one is show us your best and most creative “wack magic.” What does that mean? We’ll give you an example. Here’s something we did around the office here with the blog’s ombudsman and resident wizard, David Levin:

Got it? Now, once you make your wackical magical creation, here’s what you do: upload it to Super Deluxe, make sure to title and tag it WACK MAGIC CONTEST, and then paste the URL in a comment on this post. That way, we can’t miss it. When we get 10 good videos from you (or even 5 decent ones), we’ll post them all here on the blog, announce the winners and send you your free DVDs. Just like that.

Voila!

T-Pain, Olde English On “Akon Calls T-Pain”

OE has done outdone themselves this time with their new video, Akon Calls T-Pain.

We’re officially premiering it today on the home page, but already, it’s been making the rounds on the Internets to plenty o’ rave reviews. Including T-Pain’s. That’s right. Somehow, we got the Auto-Tuned rapper to sit down and watch Akon Calls T-Pain. And guess what? He loved it.

We love it, too. So much so that we decided to call Olde English and ask them all sorts of unnecessary questions about it. OE’s David Segal happily obliged us.

So, where did the idea come from?

Just listening to these guys’ songs everywhere. There was a point I checked the Billboard charts, and they had, like, 7 out of 10 songs on it that were either theirs or featured them. And they sound pretty similar. And then I found out that T-Pain got signed to Akon’s label because he did an impression of Akon. He did a parody song that Akon heard, who must have been like, “I’ll also have this guy on my label and then I’ll be able to get twice the money from twice the amount of songs.” They’re just funny guys. The [vocal] effect thing is hilarious sounding. And they kind have become charactertures of themselves with all the news stories about Akon throwing people off stages and T-Pain in the videos with his wacky hats. I think people just love them as characters and we thought it would be fun to play with that. Originally, the joke was just going to be that it’s really hard to tell sometimes whether you’re listening to Akon or T-Pain.

You claim the video is based on “actual audio from cellphone conversations between” Akon and T-Pain. If that’s so, how did you obtain it?

We never came up with that part of the story as to how we could have possibly obtained the cell phone audio. I always think there’s something funny about claiming something is real that’s so clearly not. I think people always enjoy at least one moment of “Oh, you had me for a second,” as long as you can follow it up with something worthwhile.

Who in Olde English did the voices for this?

I did T-Pain. One of our good friends who works with us on our musical stuff, Jesse Novak, did Akon. He also did the Auto-Tuning for our voices and made the music for the “butternut reduction” part. He’s the brother of B.J. Novak from The Office. Another friend of ours, Richard Sodik, did the Snoop Dogg voice.

We can’t help but have noticed that T-Pain and Akon agree to meet at 1:15 but then T-Pain shows up at 1:47. Are you implying he’s on R.P.T.?

::pause::

What? No, certainly not. I would never, ever imply that. We just thought that T-Pain is the more fun-loving and relaxed version of Akon. Akon sounds like he’s mad about stuff sometimes. He throws fans off stages. He’s a tough guy. T-Pain is just loving life. And wherever he ends up is fine with him. At least according to the characterture of him in my mind.

How did you hook up with Puny? They did an amazing job with the design and animation.

They were really good to work with. Ben [Popik, Olde English founder] just went through a bunch of different animators and came across their stuff and loved their work. So, we got in touch with them. And they knew of our stuff and liked us. We’re actually working on another thing with them that hopefully will come out soon.

Will it be like this last video?

Don’t want to give anything away but it has to do with Jay-Z recording a new album.

Some are calling this the best Olde English video yet. Do you see a spin-off or a long-term project from this?

We’re open to hearing any offers people come with. I personally love the characters that Puny came up with in terms of the drawings. And I think Akon and T-Pain would be happy to have several more adventures. The problem is, you don’t want to do worse than you did the last time. So, you’d have to have them do some bigger adventures together. Have them solve crimes together…

Auto-tune something together.

Yeah.

Stills courtesy of Puny’s blog.

Ladies And Gentlemen, Emmanuel Lewis Is Now On Super Deluxe

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Mark your calendars and remember where you were when you read this. Because with today’s debut of Cooking With Jazze (produced by our very own Daniel Weidenfeld), Super Deluxe has attained yet another pop cultural benchmark: we have a show guest starring Webster.

Just saying.

Gee, Wonder If Anybody Will Make An Online Spoof About…

              

Attention, online comedy video makers: this is an official acknowledgment by the Super Deluxe blog that Lindsay Lohan starring in Manson Girls is indeed a “timely and topical” satire subject now open for lampooning. Should you choose to do so, making a spoof about said subject could result in prodigious video views and/or a “viral video.”

Thank you.

Diet Super Deluxe #3 – Now With Rollover Viewing!

This week’s installment comes courtesy of Louis Katz’s new video, SurgyTech, which is quite the bittersweet viewing experience. On the one hand, you’ve probably never seen bad CGI of a toddler with breast implants before. Not that you’d ever want to, you freaking weirdo. But on the other hand, you may spend the rest of your days staring into the sun in a misguided attempt to burn said image out of your retinas forever.

Rollover to enjoy!

Finally, 3 Of Our Favorite Things About SXSW 2008

Here’s hoping this is our last post about “South By” (believe us, we don’t like using that abbreviation anymore than you enjoy reading it). We can’t guarantee anything, but after more than a week of this stuff, we kind of feel like it’s time to move on. After all, there are other things in this world to blog about besides 1) comedy, 2) rock muzik and 3) random people in Austin, Texas. But before we shuffle onwards into the remainder of March, we’d like to leave you with our personal favorites from each of the aforementioned categories. Enjoy.

1) Comedy = Hari Leigh
She may have kept a SXSW diary for Comedy Central Insider, but Hari saved her hot dance moves for our eyes only. All stand-up aside, the L.A.-based comedienne exhibited the most “fun” we actually saw any one person have at the festival, harkening back to yesteryears when people actually frolicked and acted silly at public events. Parish the thought.

2) Rock muzik = Mr. Free & The Satellite Freak Out
Showcase? This group of miscreants from Tucson, Arizona didn’t need any stinkin’ SXSW showcase. They just pulled up outside of MESS WITH TEXAS 2, and started playing their Captain Beefheart-meets-G.G. Allin-blend of hippie-rock in their very own venue: a big, empty bus. And that’s not to mention the lead singer’s glorious sock wear.

3) Random People = Paul Challenger
He’s got a rock star name. But this festival goer is all man-on-the-street crazy. And we love him for that. Screw Vampire Weekend. Paul Challenger was on a mission to see Aleister Crowley at SXSW 2008.

Podcast Wednesday: Jonah Ray Interviews Human Giant At SXSW 2008

<![CDATA[Hey, did you guys hear? We went to SXSW last week. We didn't want to make a big deal about it, what with the 30 some odd blog posts we did from Austin. But it's true. We went there. And we even got to film Jonah talking to Aziz Ansari and Rob Huebel of Human Giant.

Paul Scheer was allegedly on location somewhere "making a movie." Allegedly.

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