Archive for April 7th, 2009
An Ode to The Lonely Island
Posted by dandriffill in Posts on April 7, 2009
The Lonely Island, or TLI, is a comedy group comprised of Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Andy Samberg, AKA “The Dudes”. They all met in middle school in Berkeley, CA before relocating to New York City where they currently work. They did various shorts and even landed a deal for a television pilot on Fox called Awesometown before finally catching the attention of comedic overlord Lorne Michaels, who promptly brought the group to Saturday Night Live.
All of these videos are probably NSFW, so if your job sucks either wait till you get home or pop in the headphones for a few minutes.
Uncertain if Michaels would approve of a wacky pre-recorded skit on the show, TLI borrowed a video camera and filmed a fake lettuce commercial starring Samberg and Will Forte, a fellow SNL cast member. They presented the finished product to Michaels in December 2005, who liked the short and agreed to air it. It was first of what would be come a regular feature of the program, called SNL Digital Shorts.
Once on the show, they wrote ‘Lazy Sunday’, only the third Digital Short, which was similiar to the group’s past writing and work but with better production quality. The video quickly became one of the internet’s most viral hits ever and probably spurred NBC/Universal to finally keep their content private by launching the uber successful Hulu.com.
Incredibad is The Lonely Island’s debut album, released on February 10, and is currently the #1 album on iTunes. Think about buying it, this new blend of creative humor really deserves critic and consumer accolades.
