JibJab Personalized Videos Infuse Humor into Presidential Campaign

Unlike a New Yorker cover, one doesn't have to think too hard to see the political humor at JibJab (jibjab.com) - a website whose claim to fame is an animated spoof of President Bush and Senator John Kerry singing a rendition of Woodie Guthrie's, "This Land is Your Land." JibJab sports a new 2008 hit, "Time for Some Campaignin", a rendition of a Bob Dylan song, starring McCain and Obama --with a supporting cast that includes Bill and Hillary Clinton.

What is JibJab?

A PG-13 website, jibjab.com allows visitors to view or modify humorous animations from a variety of genres by cropping photos and importing them into well-crafted, Flash-based video productions--deemed Starring You technology. According to a JibJab press release users have "uploaded over 12 million heads" to date for their viewing pleasure or to craft ecards.

It's difficult to get too serious with jibjab.com. Yet, a marginal number of visitors will find JibJab a bit offensive and the etiquette levels of comments are sometimes questionable.

Otherwise, while some enthusiastic Obama and McCain supporters are overheating their laptops as they count the jabs and calculate which presidential candidate is dissed the most, most people on jibjab.com just wanna have fun.

Alternatives not necessarily better than JibJab

If a dancing McCain and unicorn-riding Obama offers too much slapstick or motion, try say-it.com for funny photos and static images to edit. Unlike JibJab, say-it.com does not offer a social networking component. Beware of what you send though as the church sign text looks realistic and at least one person I know had to backtrack and inform people their e-mail was a joke and that she was not the divine speaker of the week.

Political humor videos, cartoons and more

For non-interactive political humor, About.com offers a comprehensive collection on the latest presidential campaign spoofs, satire and a dash of New Yorker-style humor at politicalhumor.about.com. Unlike, JibJab.com there is more variety to meet variable intellectual and satirical demands, however, your laughter mileage will vary.

Metacafe and YouTube videos versus JibJab

Obviously, YouTube leads the pack with political humor videos. Yet, unlike the animations at JibJab these tend to be more hard-hitting and less fun, and accompanied by a slew of hate speech in the comments section. Videos like Obama Brings Sexy Back is one of the lighter political comedies in the bunch.

JibJab.com is a new kind of comedy, whether about the 2008 Presidential Election or otherwise --and not for everyone, especially those who detest slapstick. Yet, the New Yorker Obama cover critics may have a valid point about the impact of visuals.

When it comes to JibJab, I know that I wish I could erase the image of an older male friend donning a hula skirt and singing like a Hawaiian girl out of my mind, one of the first JibJab ecards I received.

Humor, even when combined with the best of artistic talent, is obviously subjective.

Source:
PRNewswire
(http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-15-2008/0004849797&EDATE=)