JibJab has news: “It’s Time for Some Campaignin’!”
Borrowing the melody and the refrain of the Bob Dylan song, “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” JibJab has launched its first flash animation video of the non-primary, presidential season.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map 
Like its breakthrough 2004 political videos lampooning the George Bush vs. John Kerry race, the video pokes fun at Republicans and Democrats alike.
This isn’t The New Yorker’s cover, and there’s no way a viewer can miss the point. The silly season is upon us and JibJab couldn’t be happier.
The video opens with a banjo-strumming George Bush jumping on the John McCain bandwagon, sort of.
“Forget he’s a jackass who’s liberally prone, it’s time for some campaignin’!” Bush exhorts, leading urging Dick Chaney, et. al, to get aboard the Straight Talk express.
After Bush, the video switches to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who urges her supporters to move on.
Her main supporter, former president Bill Clinton, then appears and at 40 seconds into the video we get the obligatory Monica Lewinsky cigar joke, followed by Hillary Clinton’s promise that she’ll run again in four years.
About 55 seconds into the 2-minute video, McCain’s character rides in driving a tank and calling Obama a “liberal wuss,” no doubt a reference the 2004 video in which Bush called Kerry a “liberal sissy.”
Tough talk aside, McCain is next pictured in a hospital gown telling people to forget his skin cancer and swollen left gland.
Obama follows as a suited, cheerful fellow in a Disney forest, singing a nonsensical song about change. (“I really like change. Have I made myself clear?”) He leaves the scene riding a unicorn.
The video ends with Obama, McCain and a chorus of thousands reminding us it’s time for some campaignin’.
Actually, it doesn’t quite end there. An Arnold Schwarzenegger-like voice comes on to remind viewers that they can upload images into the video, becoming part of the action.
In an interview with Newsweek.com, Gregg Spiridellis, who co-founded JibJab with his brother Evan, stressed that the only purpose of the video is to make people laugh.
“When we produce political content, we’ll literally sit down and count the gags to make sure they’re even-handed,” Spiridellis said.
The brothers started JibJab in 1999, building the company as a creator of e-cards, advertising campaigns and online videos.
The 2004 Bush/Kerry video made a name for JibJab and it has worked with Yahoo.com, Anheuser Busch, MSN Video, V Cast and other companies.
In 2006, JibJab received an undisclosed amount of funding from Polaris Venture Partners of Waltham, Mass. Jon Flint, a Polaris’ managing general partner, joined JibJab’s board.
Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter
0 Comments
There are no comments yet, be the first by filling in the form below.
Leave a Comment