It’s hard to believe it’s been four years since JibJab launched This Land, its first presidential campaign parody starring Dubya and John Kerry. The parody was as viral as anything that has spread across the internet since Hotmail defined the category when it launched back in the day. Well hold on to your banjo, ’cause JibJab just launched its most recent parody, Time For Some Campaignin’, on the 2008 presidential campaign starring today’s cast of political characters. While I still think “This Land” is funnier, “Time For Some Campaignin’” is LOL.  

What is somewhat disturbing to me is that our presidential candidates and their BFFs provide us endless material and opportunities to make fun of them. I’m sure JibJab’s biggest challenge was deciding what — out of hundreds of ridiculous things — they should include in the parody. What does this say about our country? Simmer down now, I am not going to turn this into a political discussion, but it is really unbelievable that our leaders and their actions can be so laughable. One may argue that it’s JibJab creative genius that makes the clip so outrageously funny. While I believe this to be partially true, I think the sheer volume of parody topics our political icons generate is the real source of entertainment. Both Jib Jab videos are at least two minutes long which is considered “Gone With The Wind” in today’s viral world, yet I’m sure editing it to only two minutes was excruciatingly difficult for its creators.

Let’s look at Sarah Silverman’s “I’m F***ing Matt Damon” video — yet another “Gone With The Wind”-like production. While there were many different funny scenes in the video, there was only one comedic thread and it was around her f***ing Matt Damon. In JibJab’s latest video, the comedic threads are so vast you could weave a rug big enough to cover Karl Rove and Dick Cheney’s asses (or heads) and that’s no small feat. Seriously, the points used to amplify humor range from war to recession to bad mortgages to infidelity to dozens of other serious topics. And although it’s been eight years of sliding down the slippery slope, you gotta love the fact that we all still laugh. Why? War and the economy aren’t funny. Do you think it’s the Boiled Frog effect – after years of hearing things like Bush’s quote on “using the google” to Al Gore telling Wolf Blitzer, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet” (yikes!), we are all just unfazed by today’s political dopiness? Let’s face it, these are serious topics that are not inherently funny, yet we still laugh.

What’s your perspective?

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