Welcome up, listeners! J.C. Hutchins and Hey Everybody! returns with a fun interview with Chris Hanel, creator of what can be best described as the “Meta Hitler” video, the ultimate Downfall parody vid.
For years, geeks and creators have used a four-minute clip from the Hitler bioflick Downfall to skewer topics from Xbox to Twitter … but Chris’ video takes the meme out to the toolshed. The video recently went truly viral, appearing on BoingBoing.net, The Huffington Post, Kotaku, the Bad Astronomy blog, and other prominent online venues. Bad Astronomer Phil Plait hailed the video as “the transformative end-of-the-meme bringer. Anyone making a Downfall parody after this is basically an SEO professional getting a Twitter account now.”
Here’s Chris’ video:
In this interview, J.C. chats with Chris about the creative inspiration for his meme-slaying video, his years of experience creating “meta”-themed online content such as Star Wars fan films and his new online comic, The Daily Blink. It’s a fun chat with a true UltraCreative. If you want a front-row seat to witness how a video can go viral, this interview is a must-listen.
- Comment on the video at YouTube
- Learn more about The Daily Blink at TheDailyBlink.com
- Check out Chris’ blog
- Watch the revered Pink Five fanfilm series
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The anthem for Hey, Everybody! is “Chip Away” by Jane’s Addition, distributed freely via BitTorrent and the Nine Inch Nails/Jane’s Addiction tour site, Ninja2009.com.
Interview: Chris Hanel, creator of the meme-killing "Meta Hitler" video [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Dude, that interview was stellar! Hilarious video, but really cool to hear about Chris’s journey, as I too went to an animation school and majored in that. Great stuff Hutch.
Well, I’m a few interviews behind, and I was at home listening to this interview, paused it, went online to view the video, and found that its been pulled. Not only has THIS video been pulled, but as far as I can tell, ALL of the Hitler Downfall videos have been pulled.
Its sad. So many of them are funny, and they help keep this particular movie to the forefront of the public’s mind. If it wasn’t for these, I might never have wanted to go check out the original, and now that they’ve pulled this, their free advertising and evangelism has ended. They killed it.
Perhaps they had their own reasons. Perhaps they were worried about their artistic integrity. Perhaps they simply needed to enforce the copyright in order to maintain it. Whatever the reason, a meme is dead and the action seems awfully short-sighted.
Did some more digging. Guess they’re not all gone, but this one is a direct response to the loss of the videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBO5dh9qrIQ
Hey JC,
Just listened to this episode today. Very funny and just got finished watching the video, rolling on the floor. You remain awesome, dude.