Channel Frederator Blog

Bonjour IM with Dan Meth.
10:46 AM
hey dan

hey jeaux

are you busy?

not really

i’m gonna interview you about Internet People via Ichat.
How long have you been on the Internet dan?
not in the sense of having a website…but more in the sense of when were you first introduced to the internet?

i first started using the internet in about 1998
here and there in college to check my email and download guitar tablature for Neil Young songs
it wasn’t until I got my own computer after college that i really started surfing the web alot

What was big at around that time period online that you remember? i gues pre viral.

well, it was the first big dotcom era and I was out in San Francisco trying to learn Flash quickly so I could get a job.
There was all these Flash cartoon sites like Icebox and Mondo Media
Viral things…. hmm, it’s hard to remember. I recall one cartoon about a grandad or something.
I guess Happy Tree Friends was about that time.
well, going back a bit to probably ‘97, I remember my friend showing me that first South park cartoon.
It probably took an hour to download.

yea i remember a friend showing me a copy of that on vhs, that he had gotten somehow.
vhs haha

10:55 AM
It’s weird I can’t really remember that many viral movies from back then

the frog in a blender was pretty big, i remember.

seemed like it was more about funny websites
sites themselves and not videos
oh yeah “Joe Cartoon” was big

If people wanted to check out some of your early flash work, etc. where can they go to do so?

my site danmeth.com
i have a page called “the animation graveyard” where they can see the real early stuff.

dig it up so to speak.

they’re all still .swf’s because i have no idea where the original flash source files are so i can’t make quicktimes and put them on youtube
that’s how old they are
i’m thinking of putting up a “hall of shame” page of just the worst cartoons i did for clients for a quick buck. There are some that i was so un-inspired while doing that they are kind of funny to watch now
Funnier maybe than the “good ones”

Well, sometimes, you have to make boring projects fun for yourself.
one of my animation teachers, used to do bg’s for warner bros. back in the day, it was for Wiley coyote and road runner, and he would draw cactai with penises and vaginas f*cking eachother. it would fly past so fast, no one would notice it. So the poor color stylist would color them pink, not realizing what was going on.

haha
nice

he was my favorite teacher.
how long have you been thinking about doing Internet People?
did the song come first?

I think the whole idea came together pretty fast in March or April
I wanted to do something about the internet. First it was going to be a spoof of different sites like Youtube, Myspace, etc.
But then I realized that characters are always funnier… so it went straight to internet people
I made a huge list of all the famous and forgotten viral characters… looked a lot of lists and asked alot of nerds to name internet people
then i started working them into rhyming verses
spent a day in my friend Micah Frank’s studio while he was putting together the music and I finalized the rhymes.
We finished the whole song in one day pretty much!
I recorded the vocals that night

wow

and that morning we had no music and i wasn’t even done with the lyrics
it was one of those magic projects that just comes together naturally

aligned with the cosmos, the internet cosmos

the same happened with my “Kosher.com” song (also made with Micah)
We did all the music and lyrics in a couple hours.
Come to think of it, it’s basically the same kind of list song, only about deli food instead of internet people

haha
11:10 AM
who’s your favorite Internet Person?
okay. top 5

wow. Well some of the ones I included because i love them more than them being real famous on the web
ok, my top 5:
(in no order)
Yacht Rock
William Shatner singing “rocket man”
K-Fed playing Popozao
Little Superstar

nice

and Gi Joe Public Service Cartoons
Those are the 5 that I go back and watch over and over and over
i love them

on youtube alone, currently: 1,186,562 views

yes

on myspace: 683,062

it is without a doubt the biggest and fastest hit I could have ever imagined making

how do you feel about all the views and loves and hates people are dishing out to you right now?
(it’s more love then hate.)

Well, thankfully, there really isn’t that much hating going on.
There’s some but whatever, that’s to be expected with anonymous comments
The love? It’s great, it feels great to know that it made millions of people laugh
that’s all i set out to do

it’s going to keep growing and getting bigger, my frend.
friend

i hope so… i already decided to do a sequel that will probably by one of the very last “Meth Minute 39″ cartoons
because the people out there are right when they say “Hey, you forgot _____”

SMOSH!

yes… smosh
and other stuff

might be funny if you got smosh to do a live action intro or promo for Internet people 2.

well, if they aren’t too mad at me for not including them in the first maybe they’ll do it
11:20 AM
Ottoman Humping guys. I can’t believe I forgot them
But truthfully, this is what’s just amazing about the web
Since I finished the cartoon we have Miss Teen USA and that guy “Chris Crocker”
every week it’s a new “Internet Person”
most of the time they are forgotten in three more weeks
it’s just a fascinating new cyber-Hollywood
and sometimes it isn’t even people who are trying to be famous. Just someone who gets filmed somehow. Like “I Like Turtles”

or that ninja turtle fanatic girl.

And it can be 3 seconds of film that becomes ICONIC. That chipmunk turning around?

very true.
I can’t wait til Internet People gets radio play.

Well, today we are releasing the mp3 to the public
to satiate the masses
11:25 AM

awesome.
Is there anything you want to say to all the Internet People out there? fans, internet celebs, etc.?

Well, I’d just like to say to the internet people: thanks for inspiring me. I think your are far more interesting and artisitic (intentionally or not) than all the network sitcoms and Hollywood movies put together
And to the fans; thanks for watching and “getting” what i was trying to do.
And stay tuned for “The Meth Minute 39″, my upcoming weekly cartoon which will hopefully become an internet hit of it’s own

[*ED.Note- Oct.4th is the release date.]
11:30 AM
If the laughter and acceptance it got when it was screened is a measure of it’s awesomeness, i don’t think you have anything to worry about Dan.

Thanks Jeaux

What are you doing for lunch?

(is this still part of the interview?)

haha

haha

Thanks Dan! Wait til you guys check out his show, I’ve gotten some sneak peeks, and it’ll rock your socks off atomic style!
-Jeaux Janovsky, Internet Person