If you dont have email, watch TV or read a newspaper, then you probably havent encountered by now the hilarious animated political parody at JibJab.com, thats equally insulting to President George W. Bush and the Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry. You can catch the creators, brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis interviewed about it on THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO, tonight, July 26 at 11:30 pm on NBC.
Set to the tune of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," the two-minute cartoon lambastes "the right-wing nut job" (Bush) and the "liberal wiener" (Kerry) with simple cutout animation and off-color lyrics. The candidates, pictured with large heads and mouths like marionettes, go at each other. Bush says Kerry has more waffles than a house of pancakes while Kerry finds it scary that the president can't pronounce "nuclear."
The site, www.jibjab.com, registered five million hits in the week after the short first appeared July 9 on the Internet, reports the L.A. TIMES. The traffic is often more than the site can bear, especially since the national news media started featuring it and animators and regular folk have been spreading it via e-mail around the globe.
Their site, produced at Jib Jab Media Inc., is located in Santa Monica, California. The brothers are the only permanent employees. In addition to LENO, Gregg, 33, and Evan, 30, have already appeared on NBC'S TODAY and THE EARLY SHOW on CBS.
Their other political parodies include a 90-second cartoon titled "Arnold for Governor, made for the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, that was shown at this year's Sundance Film Festival. They also did an animated rap battle between presidential candidates Bush and Al Gore in 2000.
The Web shorts dont make money but are aimed at attracting advertising business from corporate clients. They are also in production on an independent feature based on their best-selling children's book, ARE YOU GRUMPY, SANTA?
