Splitsider is thrilled to offer our first digital download, The Exquisite Corpse Project, a fantastic film from the former members of legendary sketch group Olde English. I recently sat down with the guys to look through some of their classic Olde English sketches. Here, the group looked back at another viral hit, made for short-lived comedy video site Super Deluxe.
Caleb: So, Akon Calls T-Pain was our first foray into professional, actual animation. So we got an animation studio, Puny. Dave Segal sort of helmed this one, the idea was just to have Akon and T-Pain, who basically sound the same, coming and having lunch together.
Raphael: It’s all vocoder.
Adam: This was about a year before auto-tune was everywhere. It was Dave noticing that, these guys have the same shtick, vocal-wise. It was before T-Pain released his own iPhone app that let you be T-Pain. Which is weird, if you’re a singer, like, “Hey it’s so easy, anybody can be T-Pain!” [They all laugh.] To just devalue yourself like that.
Caleb: That was also a big deparature for us in terms of style, and we were trying as hard as we could to take different forms and play as much as we could with things that weren’t “Olde English.” Olde English can we do whatever the hell we want.
Adam: And that’s probably ultimately our most popular video. Maybe it’s up to like 10 million on YouTube, and it did have more than that, because Super Deluxe posted it on YouTube, and then it got a couple million hits, and then they accidentally deleted it. They sent a copyright takedown notice to their own video. They were like, “Someone’s stealing our video. Take it down!” And then YouTube was like, “Alright, we’ll take it down.” Then like, “Whoops, that was our video.” [They all laugh.] That’s what happened. And then we had to repost it ourselves.
Caleb: A friend ours was working with T-Pain in Atlanta [on] Adult Swim and he actually got a video of T-Pain listening and laughing in the studio to that video.
Chioke: So basically, if you ever want to meet someone famous…
Raphael: Make fun of them.
Chioke: Just make fun of them. And then put it online.
Adam: If you can get people in a way that they find entertaining, for sure.
The Exquisite Corpse Project is available for download for $5 from Splitsider Presents.
