Best News Ever!

How's Your News?, the television show from Arthur Bradford and the HYN crew, is going to air! Pictured: Sean Costello and Bobby Bird. Here is Arthur's email:

Hi Friends of How's Your News...

Happy 2009! Some of you may already know this, but I want to pass on official notice that our new series will begin airing on mtv Sunday Feb. 8th at 10:30pm. It will play for the next six Sundays at the same time and probably some other times as well.

This is very exciting news for all of us after a long road towards this goal. Please watch it and pass the word on to your friends. We're all really proud of how the show came out. We've worked hard to keep the spirit of the original shows intact in this new series and I think it's paid off. For the next month all of us at HYN headquarters are doing what we can to spread the word right.

Thanks for supporting the show this far. There's never been a show like this on television and there can be many positive outcomes if it succeeds. Of course, just seeing it on television feels like success to us, and we hope you'll join us in feeling happy about that...Arthur

- Please get in touch if you want to learn more about how you can help us spread the word, and check out the new videos on http://www.howsyournews.com/

- NY'ers, we'll be in town Jan 5-7 - get in touch if you want to hang! LA, we'll be there Jan. 7-9 - Hit us up, yo!

- oh yeah, we'd like to become your "friend" that magical place known as facebook! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hows-Your-News/18204788315?ref=mf

Hook it up, get in touch, become a fan, and set your Tivo! This is going to be the best thing that ever came out of your television.

Merry Christmas

Art by Gwen Barba who kicks ass.

Comic Con

It went like this.

International Documentary Association

Thomas Rigler was kind or misguided enough to invite me to participate last night on an International Documentary Association panel on alternative techniques in documentary storytelling. Everybody else on the panel was making or had already made interesting documentaries:

The moderator was Eddie Schmidt, a really smart guy who made the movie This Film Is Not Yet Rated about the boners at the MPAA. He also showed some excellent re-enactment footage of cavemen wagging their dongs at one another in a threatening manner. Dana Berry showed clips of the refurbished 25th Anniversary Cosmos he produced and directed for broadcast. It was like jellyfish in space. Steve Anderson showed a clip from his film Fuck, some really cool animation by old school animation supermaster Bill Plympton. Steven Boe showcased animation from the film he and his wife and partner are making, Mythic Journeys.

Since I hadn't made anything, I played Through the Eyes of the Pueblo, an episode of BBtv World. Xeni Jardin handed out Flip and other semi-disposable video cameras to kids in Guatemala, then used their footage to put together a multiple-first-person look at life in a rural village. And when talk turned to re-enactment in documentaries, I got to show an assembly clip of Heather's Ren Faire doc Huzzah. She spazzed out in the back row and tried to make me not show it right before it rolled, but it was awesome.

Super good times, and thanks to everyone involved. We're definitely going to the open IDA panel tomorrow night (at Kodak in Hollywood) on how to finish projects.

Thomas Rigler Is Clearly a Genius

Because he just posted this incredibly incisive and intelligent review of The Royal Nonesuch on his Broadband Jungle Blog. You can find out more about him at http://rigler.tv. Also: quite the looker!

Code Monkeys #1 on Xbox Live

Woah. Our promo-premiere episode "The Story of 420" is the number one TV download on Xbox Live. Thanks, nerds!

This Is How We Roll

Enjoy a brief tour of the Monkey Wrangler office where "Code Monkeys" is made, set to Jonathan Coulton's great song of the same name.

Code Monkeys Season Two

Season two of "Code Monkeys" premieres tonight on G4 with a very special 420 episode. Tommy Chong guest stars. Burn 'em if you got 'em, stoners.