Chuckles, Guffaws and Some Yucks
Potty-Mouthed Toddler Got Will Ferrell's Comedy Web Site Up and Running

By Joshua Zumbrun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 27, 2007

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.

"The second video was great -- although not as good as the first one, it's like a one-trick pony. Baby saying bad words," Kahn said. "But it's still funny."

Funnyordie is fighting to distinguish itself amid a growing horde of well-funded companies trying to steal away some of YouTube's eyeballs: Google Video, MSN Soapbox, Yahoo! Video, MySpace Videos, AOL UnCut and an entire army of upstarts such as DailyMotion, Flurl, LiveVideo, Revver and Veoh.

This is why you need an A-list celebrity arguing with a foul-mouthed toddler to even get noticed.

"Literally, Pearl got offered a movie off of it. Somebody came to CAA with a project with Jackie Chan and wanted to attach Pearl to it," says the starlet's proud father, McKay.

"She doesn't remember any of it. She never said any of it again. She doesn't know what 'Get your drink on' means," McKay says. "We know what we're doing as parents."

McKay was initially bugged by the criticism. "Do I write a piece on it, in Huffington Post or the New York Times, about how pathetic broadcast news has gotten?" he recalls asking himself. ("Good Cop, Baby Cop" will be Pearl's last acting gig. A release from Funnyordie "quoted" Pearl as saying, "My ventures as an actor on the Internet have been rewarding and spiritually fulfilling, but now I must look to broader challenges as I approach my 26th month.")

Luckily, other stars keep bringing it.

Jack McBrayer, who plays the hapless page Kenneth on NBC's "30 Rock" and who worked with Ferrell and McKay in "Talladega Nights," found out about "The Landlord" video like most people: "It was forwarded to me," he says. "I didn't even realize it was those fellows doing this Web site."

Then McBrayer ran into an old friend from his days doing comedy with the Upright Citizens Brigade who works on the site. His response when the friend suggested he post a video: "Are you kidding? I would walk over hot coals if those boys asked me to."

"It's funny, when you just come across people who are like, 'I'm working on something for Funnyordie.com,' you say, 'Oh yeah, you're in the club,' " says McBrayer, whose video has not yet been posted.

In addition to McBrayer, future confirmed participants include Bill Murray, Eva Longoria, Li'l John, Danny DeVito, John C. Reilly and Sally Jessy Raphael. They will join Ferrell, Ed Helms, Jimmy Fallon, Brooke Shields, Jeremy Piven, Jenna Elfman, Michael Cera, James Franco, Rob Corddry and Jason Biggs.