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Archive for March, 2010

Funny Or Die Presidential Reunion Unites SNL Stars for Web Hit [VIDEO]

03 Mar

Comedy site Funny Or Die has brought together current and former stars of Saturday Night Live (plus Jim Carrey) to create a skit called “Presidential Reunion” that has racked up more than one million views in less than 24 hours.

The skit features Fred Armisen, who currently plays Barack Obama on SNL, Will Ferrell bringing back his George W. Bush, Darrell Hammond (Bill Clinton), Dana Carvey (Bush Sr.), Jim Carrey (Ronald Reagan), Dan Akroyd (Jimmy Carter), and Chevy Chase (Gerald Ford). Maya Rudolph plays Michelle Obama.

The video itself pokes fun of each president’s idiosyncrasies and stereotypes, offering current President Obama advice on how to fix Washington. The ending features an ad for Main Street Brigade, an organization calling for financial reform. Check it out below:

Tags: barack obama, funny or die, politics, saturday night live, snl, viral video

 

Roger Ebert gets his voice back: “Uncanny. A good feeling.”

02 Mar

rogerth.jpg If you haven't read the epic Equire interview, go do that before reading the rest of this post. Famed film critic and all-around awesome human being Roger Ebert has not been able to speak for four years, since undergoing cancer-related surgery. He's been communicating with hand signals, monotone text-to-speech software, and a wonderful ongoing stream of Twitter updates.

Today is a big day, though: on Oprah, he debuts his new voice, which sounds a lot like the old voice we all knew and loved. In the video above, his wife Chaz hears it for the first time. Yeah, I cried.

Scotland-based tech company CereProc create the text-to-speech voice using archived recordings of Ebert speaking (specifically, DVD commentary tracks). The result is amazing. More: Ebert's own blog, CNN, ABC News, Videogum