Word on the street

So Sesame Street is gearing up for its 39th season, which starts on August 11. (Who knew the show even had a season, right?) And from the looks of this trailer – who knew it had trailers? – it’s going to be a very clever, entertaining and fresh season. (This blogger’s optimism might just be a side effect of the detritus passing as “original” and margin-managed programming this summer.) According to its press kit – who knew it had a press kit? – this season will feature: Will Arnett, Feist, Jessica Alba, David Beckham, Heidi Klum, Brian Williams, Neil Patrick Harris, Sandra Oh, Jack Black and Jenny McCarthy.

Also lined up is a parody of NBC sitcom 30 Rock entitled: 30 Rocks. Its leading lady? A lemon named Liz Lemon. There’s a game-show spoof called: Are You Smarter Than an Egg Layer? (Its host looks a lot like this guy.) And beating the Disney Channel at its own game, there’s – wait for it, wait for it – Pre-School Musical. Rounding out the offering, the Children’s Television Workshop is debuting a redesigned sesamestreet.org on August 11 as well.



Also making the rounds is a musical number from the upcoming season. Leslie Feist reworks “1-2-3-4,” for the pre-school crowd. The Sesame Street version even pays homage to the choreography and the one, long camera take of the original video, directed by Patrick Daughters. (No sequined jumpsuit, though.) The lyrics might even be better than the original. “It’s one less than five and one more than three. Whoa-oa-oa. Counting to four. Whoa-oa-oa. Let’s cou-ount some more.”

Seeing all these chipper muppets twisting pop culture into something fun and useful, makes this blogger wonder if it’s time to bring back The Muppet Show in some shape or form. Probably not a full 22-episode season. Maybe just a 30-minute episode once or twice a month – to keep the content sharp and the concept special. The property is owned by Disney, which has plenty of broadcast and rebroadcast outlets – its namesake channel, ABC or even ABC Family. Think about it, Bob Iger. Just think about it.

Tous les memes

So Weezer packed their latest video with some of the Internet’s biggest memes. Making the greatest hits list are: Diet Coke & Mentos, the Numa Numa kid, Chris “Leave Britney Alone” Crocker, Dramatic Chipmunk, Will It Blend?, Chocolate Rain, the Evolution of Dance shoe-obsessed Kelly and even “All your bases are belong to us.” Matthew Cullen of Motion Theory directed this video equivalent of a stuffed burrito. And Weezer has posted some super-casual behind-the-scenes clips on its YouTube page.

UPDATE: In an oddly unsportsmanlike move, Weezer's official YouTube channel disabled the embed function for this video. Talk about a meta buzzkiller.

Light fantastic

Let there be light. Some interesting things are going on with light nowadays. One technique uses flashlights and a long exposure to paint images, and it's currently being used by a few folks right now. There's an engaging, new commercial for Sprint on the air. There's the work by the Japanese performance group Pika Pika. And light illustrates the lyrics in a video by The Willowz.

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the Sprint commercial, which was directed by Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris (of Little Miss Sunshine) and shot in L.A.'s MacArthur Park. Post house Brickyard explains what was tweaked, "The spot, shot entirely in-camera, was created from a series of still images linked together to achieve a live action effect...some compositing to bring the various layers of imagery together."

Below are several projects that Pika Pika put together in 2006 and the first couple months of 2007.

The Willowz video for "Jubilee," directed by Toben Seymour and released January 2007.

And of course, Picasso painted with light nearly 60 years ago. More images from a light graffitista in Germany here.

Meanwhile, Graffiti Research Lab brings together taggers, hackers, geeks and gawkers with open-source code and tips for light-projected graffiti on office buildings and bridges. Get the how-to here. Or just watch below.


In France, two VJs (known collectively as Uruk Videomachine) project images onto buildings and bring the architecture to life. Below is a clip from a performance they put together in Dijon. (It gets really good at 3:32 in.)

And back in Paris, Diesel used holograms in the runway show for its Spring/Summer 2008 line.

Dramatic chipmunk & friends

Five perfect seconds. Does anyone know what the soundtrack is? Here's a link for the original clip. (The chipmunk was an animal segment on a Japanese TV show.) Now there's even a t-shirt and a Facebook application.


French D.J. combo Justice serves up some great CGI on t-shirts in this video to their catchy single. It seems even the Old Grey Lady has a bit of crush on them in this profile. (The NYT has moved the article behind a paid firewall. Click here for the same article republished in a Scottish newspaper.)


Some clever performance art with the iPhone. There's a company behind it that sells software for "electronic" magicians.

Double takes for U2

One song. Two incredible videos. Director Jonas Odell (with skilled assistance from Nexus Productions and FilmTecknarna) turns flat photographs into a three-dimensional journey through iconic landscapes reminiscent of the group's early album art. Watch Odell & Co.'s video for U2's "Window in the Skies" here.

Now for something completely different, Gary Kroepke and his crew at ad agency Modernista! (their exlamation point, not mine) team up with post-production and effects house The Mill. The result? Other musicians -- from Frank Sinatra to Jimi Hendrix to Nina Simone to Thom Yorke -- bring the song to life. Watch their video. (An ambitious blogger breaks it down scene by scene, guest star by guest star, here.)

The Sound of (Gwen Stefani's) Music

Ran across this video of the Gwen Stefani track "Wind It Up" and was struck with the number of references to "The Sound of Music." The song, produced by the Neptunes, opens with a sample from "The Lonely Goatherd" and even has some yodeling. Director Sophie Muller reinterprets Alpine skies, a nun's habit, the von Trapp estate, scary thunderstorms and playclothes made from drapes. Watch the original goatherd puppet show from the 1965 Robert Wise film here. This isn't Stefani's first foray into borrowing from musicals. Earlier, she teamed up with Eve to rework a "Fiddler on the Roof" song as "Rich Girl."