The Best Part of Halloween?

Think about it. Each Halloween we pulverize pumpkins to stick candles in their hollowed-out gores and put them on our front porch so that people know that we're friendly people with candy.

This ritual also marks the beginning of the most gastronomically wonderful time of year.
How so? Let us count the ways:

Pumpkin Bread


Pumpkin Scones


Pumpkin Soup (Trust us. So good.)


Pumpkin Pie

And of course, America's favorite weird obsession:


The Pumpkin Spice Latte.

We've seen people trample small children to get to this drink. Get it together, people.

If all of these things made you really hungry, but you're still unsure how to get this pumpkin-slaughtering ritual started, here's a little "How-To" from Slacktory:



Happy Halloween!

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YouTube and My Damn Channel: Breaking News

Today, Google made a major announcement setting the stage for new programming on YouTube. We're honored that My Damn Channel is working to create a new YouTube original channel as part of this initiative.

We launched www.MyDamnChannel.com back in 2007 - dedicated to giving the most talented people in entertainment a studio and distribution platform where they can co-create, produce and showcase the best original video programming. We've made thousands of videos and many of the most watched and awarded comedy series like “Wainy Days,” “You Suck at Photoshop,” “Horrible People,” “Daily Grace” and political satire from the great Harry Shearer. We've been supported by major advertisers who partner with us to reach engaged, loyal fans online with media campaigns and branded entertainment that break through the noise.

In addition to running our own site, we've always syndicated to other outlets and YouTube has been a powerful partner since we launched our first channel there in 2007.

In February, 2012, we’re expanding our YouTube relationship to give you MY DAMN CHANNEL LIVE: a hosted, 30-minute, weekly comedy show featuring world premieres of our original videos and series. We'll bring you stars you love and new talent too.

MY DAMN CHANNEL LIVE will also invade your screens daily with 10-minute, interactive blasts from our host. You'll see our new live show on a dedicated channel on My Damn Channel, on a new channel on YouTube, and in syndication.

We'll keep you plugged in on the birth of our new baby with fresh updates about all the artists we’re signing and the new series we’re producing from now 'til launch. I want to give HUGE thanks to everyone who's supported My Damn Channel. A few short years ago, Warren Chao and I were two crazy fools with a power point presentation and a dream. The fact that one of the most revolutionary companies in the world just tapped us for their new adventure blows us away and we're counting on all of you to be watching.

Rob Barnett
Founder/CEO, www.MyDamnChannel.com

Sizzle Reel: 2007-2011 HERE

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Mary Lynn Rajskub has some advice for Lindsay Lohan.

Wow. What do you think the Dicki star would say to "Dicki"?

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Last Minute Halloween Costume: "Gigi"

So it's the week before Halloween and you can't go as a ghost again because your mom is pissed you keep cutting holes in her sheets. What to do? We're here to help. All this week we're going to tell you how to dress up like your favorite My Damn Channel stars.

First up, How To Dress Like Gigi:

What you need:

• hat
• button-down shirt
• striped tie
• cargo shorts
• glasses
• old-timey suitcase

Most of these items are probably lying around your parents' house somewhere or can be purchased pretty inexpensively at any second-hand store.

Once you get the look down, get the character down by walking around all day saying "shakey peachy" and pretending not to understand English. We predict this will go over particularly well with your girlfriend who already complains that you don't understand her.

If you do it correctly, you should resemble our friend Smokybanjo here, whose head has been poorly 'shopped onto Gigi for no reason other than we watched an old episode of YSAP and learned about the path tool. Happy Halloween!

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I Want To See Paula Deen On Daily Grace.

Seriously.

She could be on one of Grace's cooking segments, don't you think?

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Daily Grace Reviews Britney Spears' "Criminal"

"Sweet back tattoo, bro."

Exactly, Grace. Exactly.

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Meet "Dicki".

Everyone's so uptight about what they can put on the Internet. It's like, "Come ON, everybody!"

Meet Dicki.

She's 40. She lives with her parents. In the middle of nowhere. She makes a living doing...uh... something... we think. And in Episode One she's trying to get her Facebook profile picture juuuuuuuust right, which we totally understand since we've all held the camera at arm's length in a weirdly lit hallway, trying to make it look like it's a candid shot of us out at some ridiculous party having extraordinary fun, instead of just standing in our parents' hallway hoping they don't ask us what we're doing.

If we were Dicki, we'd probably just take a photo that made us look as much like Mary Lynn Rajskub as possible, since most people who know her work as "Chloe O'Brian" or "Gail the Snail" are pretty enamored of her.

Oh, well, to each their own, we guess. And in Dicki's case, we don't think that will be a problem.

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Mary Lynn Rajskub Is Our Newest Series Star.

Meet "Dicki."

She's fortysomething. She lives at home with her parents. She's "artsy." She likes Double Gulp sodas. She's looking for love.

And she's played by Mary Lynn Rajskub, whom you might know from 24, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Mr. Show with Bob and David and The Larry Sanders Show.

But Dicki is special. You'll get a chance to see HOW special she is this Thursday at www.MyDamnChannel.com/Dicki.

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David Wain is SEXY.

David Wain is a sex machine.
He dates the hottest women that you've ever seen.
It seems unlikely but it's totally true
If you don't understand it we'll explain it to you...

Way back in August of '11 we went to Just For Laughs in Montreal and did "Wainy Days LIVE" with David Wain, Rob Corddry, Reggie Watts and a bunch of their super-talented friends.

Two of those friends were Garfunkel and Oates aka Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, two of the sweetest, funniest, most talented, adorable people you could ever hope to meet in your entire life. In Montreal, they wrote a song about how sexy David Wain must be since in every episode of Wainy Days gorgeous women are falling over themselves to be with him. When we all returned home, everyone thought it would be a shame to keep the brilliance of that song limited to a few hundred people in French-Speaking Quebec, so we filmed it and are sharing it with the world.

Watch it and share it with your friends. It's like a little bit of joy right on your computer screen.

And Kate and Riki have both been on television and in film so they would know what sexy is, right? They're like comedic rock stars, right? The LA Times wrote a feature about them! They would know what would make a pretty girl want to lick an average 42 year old body!

Could it be they find David Wain that sexy because he told them that Season 5 of his groundbreaking web series Wainy Days is returning to My Damn Channel this Fall?! Yes. That's it. That's very much what it must be. For sure.

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Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

And that's really what it is, isn't it?

We're all sitting here, staring at our iPhones in disbelief. Finding comfort in one of the tens of thousands of songs on our iPod. Searching the internet to share in the mourning en masse on our MacBooks.

After we're done here, we'll edit some videos using Final Cut Pro. While we listen to a playlist we made on iTunes. When we get hungry later, we'll use an app on our iPhone to figure out a good place nearby to eat. When we get home, we'll iChat with our parents across the country and tell them what we've been up to. Hell, even one of our most popular videos took place in an Apple Store.

For so many of us who never even met the man, we can't imagine what our lives would have been like without him.

The real brilliance of Steve Jobs's vision is that he believed we all deserved to live the lives of our dreams, and he gave us as many tangible tools as possible to try and do just that. How many of us began vlogging because we were experimenting with our iSights? How many of us became interested in telling stories because of iMovie? How many of us now see the world refracted through Steve Jobs's lens?

We're not the first to post this video, but its message bears repeating, even on days when it isn't almost painfully poignant:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Thanks for believing in all of us, Steve. You have to have known that you made a difference.

(Image via Jonathan Mak)

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