CanCult.ca

I’ve posted a few viral videos by Canadian comics here, such as Car Dance Party Moscow and The Waldo Ultimatum. Now the Star says this may be the way of the future for comedy acts.

In what has become the newest wave of comedy, troupes are hunkering down with digital video cameras and the cheapest editing software they can find. Propelled by a copious supply of video-sharing websites like YouTube, MySpace and Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die, laughs are moving online faster than Canadian sketch legends Kids in the Hall could crush heads.

“You don’t have to wrangle somebody into a comedy club; you can literally watch it wherever you are and that’s it,” said Toronto comic Jared Sales, whose mastery of viral video has seen his production company Mind Control Media’s work viewed upwards of 10 million times.

“People are becoming instant celebrities, literally overnight, because of it. Because on the Internet, once somebody knows about it, the whole world can know about it in 10 minutes.”

In a sketch called “Everydave Life,” two roommates named Dave (played by the Sketchersons’ Gary Rideout Jr. and Pat Thornton) wake up to discover they drunkenly signed a contract allowing a camera crew into their house to film a reality show. The bit tickled hundreds of thousands who voted it “Funniest Video in Canada” in a contest coinciding with the Canadian-version launch of funnyordie.com. Sales said they shot it in an hour in his basement.