Chuckles, Guffaws and Some Yucks

Potty-Mouthed Toddler Got Will Ferrell's Comedy Web Site Up and Running

When Jason Biggs or Brooke Shields or Jenna Elfman makes a hilarious video and wants to post it online, he or she doesn't go to YouTube, oh no. What celebrity wants his or her work bumping up against plebeian videos of kitty antics, lame bands and sad Claymation? They go to fellow Hollywooder Will Ferrell's site: http://www.funnyordie.com.

The site, a collaboration between Ferrell and Adam McKay (director of Ferrell films "Anchorman" and "Talladega Nights" and a writer during Ferrell's years on "Saturday Night Live") launched in April. Mark Kvamme, a partner at Sequoia Capital, approached the two about creating a video-sharing site devoted exclusively to comedy. (Creative Artists Agency, the Hollywood talent agency that represents Ferrell and McKay, also has a stake in Funny or Die Inc.)

Kvamme got the idea with his teenage son, an aspiring stand-up comic. "We were sitting around saying that there are no good comedy Web sites on the Net," he recalls. "I looked around a bit, looked at YouTube, saw there was a lot of comedy up there, but it was kind of hard to find."

On Funnyordie, anyone can create an account and post comedy videos, but only videos from celebrities are guaranteed prime placement atop the home page. User-submitted videos are posted, then face peer review: "funny" or "die." With enough "funny" rankings, a few mere mortal videos can end up rubbing shoulders with those of A-list celebs.

WEBBY WARNING: If you don't find humor in a profane 2-year-old holding a beer, Funnyordie.com may not be for you.

You see, the site's first hit video, " The Landlord," featured Ferrell arguing with McKay's daughter, Pearl. Pearl played an angry, foul-mouthed, alcoholic landlord demanding that Ferrell pay the rent so she could buy beer. The punch line: Pearl is a cherubic 2-year-old.

The sequel, " Good Cop, Baby Cop," went up on the site Monday evening. This time, Ferrell is a criminal and Pearl is a menacing police interrogator who gives him a faux beat-down to extract his confession. (Although Pearl says things that might cause a parental spit-take if uttered by your local toddler, she doesn't curse in the new video.)

But will "Good Cop, Baby Cop" get the same response as "The Landlord"? When that video came out, so did the outrage, with commentators wondering whether this time Hollywood had gone too far. Asked Bill O'Reilly on Fox: "Did actor-comedian Will Ferrell damage a 2-year-old girl by putting her into an Internet comedy bit?" (The TV graphic accompanying O'Reilly: A picture of Ferrell with the caption "Child Exploitation?")

The "Today" show asked: "Does Ferrell video cross the line?" and featured a psychologist worrying that parents might make similar videos with their own children. (A mash-up of O'Reilly's response -- as if he's interviewing wee Pearl -- appears on Funnyordie.)

Regardless, it brought publicity to the site, the gag worked, and from amateur comedians to movie stars, people are jumping in on the action. More than 5,000 videos have been posted on the site, with more than 70 million views in total, according to Funnyordie Chief Operating Officer Mitch Galbraith. "The Landlord" has been viewed -- if the site's view tracker is accurate -- more than 36 million times, making it among the most popular viral videos ever posted on the Internet. (By contrast, YouTube's most popular video of all time, " Evolution of Dance," has been viewed more than 51 million times.)

At press time "Good Cop, Baby Cop" had received more than 360,000 views and was drawing mostly favorable comments on Funnyordie. Nobody has renewed the cries of child abuse. At least not yet. (O'Reilly didn't harp on the first video until more than a month after it went up.)

Rick Kahn, 45, of Toronto saw a copy of "The Landlord" that had been posted on YouTube. (Kvamme says the video has been posted multiple times on YouTube and received millions of views before it was yanked as a copyright violation.) But after seeing the video, Kahn checked out Funnyordie and became a fan: "I like the way it caters to comedy in particular; YouTube is all over the map," Kahn said.