This is an English version of an online French comedy series. I heard about it the other day on CBC — the guy decided to make stop-motion videos, but was too lazy, so superimposed his own eyes and mouth over the puppets, saving himself about 90% of the niggly little animation stuff.
His “Têtes à claques” series became a sensation in Quebec, then across the ocean in France, too, and now creator Michel Beaudet is making lots of money from his site, plus fending off TV and commercial directing jobs. Nice work! It’s a reminder that, for all the massive amount of English-language content on the Internet, there are these parallel Internets that hardly ever cross over, in whatever language you want.
Thankfully — because they’re hilarious — the “Têtes à claques” are crossing over. Check out this infomercial-style video for the Willi Waller.
Lots more on the website, tac.tv, though they aren’t all as funny as this one. I find many of them to be funnier in the original French, but “Willi Waller” works well in English. You can switch languages up at the top of the page, if you’re bilingue.
Oh, and “têtes à claques,” loosely translated, would be: “a person so ugly or annoying that you can’t help wanting to slap them.”
Grant Hamilton
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Juel