Meet Melissa! Melissa Schneider is our new Director of Production, joining the My Damn Channel family with the experience, energy and cred we need to help produce over 30 new original series in the months ahead. She's also the lead producer for our new 2012 mega show with YouTube...
My Damn Channel: Live
Melissa expands our management team in the NY office where
Jesse Cowell (Director of Content) and
Molly Templeton (Director of Talent & Audience Development) work with
Rob Barnett (Founder/CEO) to oversee more killer original comedy and music than legally allowed on the Interweb.
"Melissa brings awesome experience, talent and spirit to our team as we prep to make 2012 the year My Damn Channel delivers more new original programming than ever before," said Rob Barnett. He added, "She's developed and produced over 30 original digital series and branded entertainment campaigns and over 30 independent music videos, commercials, and short films. She worked for David Chase for god's sake!"
Melissa graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and went on to work for The Public Theater / NY Shakespeare Festival during George C. Wolfe’s tenure. She left the theater to work in (wait for it) The Sopranos...in the writers' office for creator David Chase, and writers: Terence Winter (creator, "Boardwalk Empire"), Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess (creators, "Blue Bloods") and Matthew Weiner (creator, "Mad Men").
Melissa went digital...producing online content for Macy’s, XBOX, Vuguru, Nickelodeon, Swanson, Verizon FiOS, CJP Digital, and Summit Entertainment to name a few. She was the Director of Production at Digital Broadcasting Group (DBG) in New York City, where developed and produced digital series and branded entertainment campaigns.
More announcements on our new series, stars and launch info for My Damn Channel: Live hits this space soon.
Posted in
WTF with tags
Marc Maron,
WTF,
podcast,
Adam Carolla,
My Damn Channel on 11/9/2011 7:28:29 AM by Rob Barnett
I started my career in radio and I started My Damn Channel as a response to getting tossed out of radio in 2006.
Podcasts are not new, but in the past few years, a number of brilliantly talented people with brains and balls decided to head to their garages and go punk - bringing new shows to the masses on the Internet - without any of the soul-killing, corporate execs able to stop these brave rebels from creating completely original "radio" that puts the "F" back in Freedom.
I created Free FM back in 2004 to give awesome talent like Adam Carolla a radio show that harkened back to the earliest days of freeform radio....a form never done better than the way it's still being done today by Howard Stern.
When I got "shit-canned" as Adam loves to say - and could no longer protect him from the devils - he got "shit-canned" too. Adam took to his garage to build a monster audience for his podcast and My Damn Channel continues to put our cash where our heart is as a paid sponsor.
Today, we pony up again to become a proud sponsor of
WTF with Marc Maron. If you know this show, then you simply need to know that I could no longer sit back and cheer for Marc without jumping in to support him. If you're uninitiated, then his words will be better than mine and I encourage you to watch the video of Marc's recent keynote speech given at the premiere comedy festival,
Just for Laughs in Montreal.
Like with Adam Carolla, you'll hear My Damn Channel artists and comedians on WTF with Marc Maron. From time to time, Marc will tell you about the good shit we're doing here to premiere original series with great talent and without any of the corporate red tape that used to get in our way.
And we've now got a whole new Marc Maron channel to check out regularly when you're on My Damn Channel, featuring his podcasts, videos, extras and excerpts with a link to subscribe and donate like we did to a rare talent taking the truth by the horns.
Rob Barnett
Founder/CEO,
www.MyDamnChannel.com
www.MyDamnChannel.com/WTF
www.MyDamnChannel.com
www.MyDamnChannel.com/SizzleReel
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.
(Stuff You're Looking For On This Blog)
You guys search for a lot of info about
Daily Grace and
Mememolly. And that's cool.
But I'm not Grace or Molly. Sorry. My name is
Maria.
(Sorry. Not blonde.)
I am My Damn Channel's "Social Media Voice," which means I write My Damn Channel's
Twitter,
Tumblr,
Facebook and
House Blog, among
other things. Yes, it's my fault that the
photoshop is bad and
the jokes aren't funny and
no one comments. So, if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm pretty good at my job.
What other kinds of things would you like to see here? What other things would you like to know?
Tell me. Let's TweetTumblFaceBlogSquare together. Leave some comments. Talk to me on Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook and stuff. I posted a picture of myself with a
light switch, for God's sake. If that doesn't scream "you can
talk to me" I don't know what does.
(Intern Josh, wondering forlornly how he ended up here)
EDITOR'S NOTE: It's Josh's last day as an intern for My Damn Channel! I asked him to write up a post telling you what it was like for him this summer!
Coming into My Damn Channel as an intern I thought all I was gonna learn was how to file papers and fill out reports. Boy was I wrong! Friday will be my last day and I still haven't correctly filled out a single report. My boss is always saying that it drives him crazy how long it's taking me to get the hang of the office duties, but I can tell he's just joking. How I treasure that agonized look he gets trying so hard to hold back laughter.
What I learned though was way more valuable than any college education. I would say it was worth about $230,000, a couple hundred more than four years' tuition at Wesleyan. What I learned was the value of making the effort to gain the respect of your peers.
Before I ever set foot into that office, I had my work cut out for me. My future co-workers had already started gossiping that I only got the internship because of my family connections. After failing for three years to strike any gold, my great-great-grandfather started My Damn Channel during the California Gold Rush as a burlesque show designed to entertain entrepreneurs who had given up on trying to find gold and started companies catered to the needs of the gold miners. Grandpa Schmulie Meisel. I can't believe that was such a popular name back then — Grandpa.
My first day at work the guy sharing my cubicle got mad at me for unplugging his computer. "What do you need a blender for?!" he irrationally snarled. "How else are you gonna make computer smoothies silly? By hand?!" I chucked his computer into my oversized blender. He must've thought I was awfully spoiled, not making my computer smoothies by hand. I really had an uphill battle ahead of me if I wanted to gain anyone's respect.
A couple of days in I got the courage to pitch a show idea to the head of development. It was a parody of "Friends" called "Friends." He looked at me like I was an idiot. "You just handed me a bunch of "Friends" scripts. I think I know now why the printer's out of ink. Look, why don't you hold off for a bit before you make any more pitches." Apparently my scripts had gone right over his head. And "Friends" was a pretty accessible show. The guy I shared my cubicle was a rube, our head of development was dense as a neutron star, and my boss was an incorrigible prankster. My situation was less than ideal to say the least.
Halfway through the summer things had only gotten worse. I was miserable. My only friend was the janitor, and he was a Roomba! I'd cry myself to sleep every night, and when I wasn't feeling that sad I would get my butler to cry me to sleep. My job was a major disappointment. It wasn't at all like that show "The Office." We had TWO guys named Dwight, and the prettiest girl wasn't dating the most handsome guy (me), but instead this guy Jim who's so inexperienced with women that when I asked him to share some girlie stories he just laughed.
All I could do was trudge along until my five weeks were up, filing away papers wherever I could cram them (I may not get the job done pretty, but I'm damn fast). And just when I had given up on ever gaining a single ounce of respect from any My Damn Channel employee, a stroke of luck bolted me right in the face.
I'll always remember it like it was yesterday, even though it was only yesterday today. Jim's girlfriend (I think her name was Xamela) told him he needed to go somewhere to sign some forms. She couldn't give him a ride because she was busy. He asked if anyone else could take him, and I shot out of my chair like I was sitting on a lit match (which for the one of the first times I wasn't). Jim didn't see me at first; his eyes scanned the room for someone to drive him but everyone pretended to be hard at work because they were too lazy to take him. Finally he saw me and said "Fine let's go Josh." And fine it was. Everyone looked up at Jim and smiled at him. Their smiles seemed to say, "I'm really happy for you that you get to go on a fun/crazy/cool ride with Josh." But the smiles had a little menace behind them that signified jealousy.
When I got back my boss laughed with mirth, patted me on the back, and said, "Good job sonny." All I ever wanted was for my boss to think of me as a son, but life isn't easy. I had to put in my time to get what I wanted — let's just say I don't think I could've earned the luxury of being treated by my boss like his own flesh and blood if I hadn't given Jim that ride. And now, in these last couple of months before my summer ends and I have to go back to hitting the books trying to eventually earn my GED, I can look back at my time at My Damn Channel atop my pool float, computer smoothie in hand, and know that that one lesson I learned was well worth all my trifles. Plus it helped that I was making more than the rest of the office combined.
Thanks, Josh, er, Sonny! We will miss you! We know it will be tough going back to Stanford to get a world-class education, but it's better you than us!
We fully intend to continue stalking following you and your writing as @artsypriest and as a writer for The Stanford Chaparral.
PS: If any of you, dear readers, for some strange, maddening reason, would like to be an intern for My Damn Channel, please send an email to info@MyDamnChannel.com, and be sure to include links to your blog, Twitter and Tumblr accounts, or any other writing samples you might have! In the immortal words of the Jersey Shore kids in Italy, "Arrivederci, summer!"
Posted in
David Hunt,
Maria,
My Damn Channel,
Patricia Heaton,
Versailles with tags
Dodgers,
Diamondbacks,
Los Angeles,
baseball game,
name in lights,
name on the scoreboard,
LA Dodgers,
MLB,
Patricia Heaton,
Versailles,
The Middle,
sweepstakes winners on 8/2/2011 3:00:00 PM by
Maria
Anyone happen to be at the Dodgers-Diamondbacks game last Friday night at Dodger Stadium? Did you see our name up in lights? (Yes, we know what attendance is like these days at Dodger Stadium, so we're going to guess that not many of you did.)
We're in LA!
We're here to take the winners of the Versailles Sweepstakes to meet Patricia Heaton and David Hunt!
We're using exclamation marks at the end of each sentence because we really are THAT EXCITED about everything!
Stay tuned for more pictures of the winners and their prize...
We're still recovering from a raucous weekend in Montreal. We were there for Just For Laughs and much laughter was had, indeed.
There was an amazing speech from Marc Maron that The Comic's Comic has in its entirety:
Fearless leader/Founder/CEO Rob Barnett spoke on a bunch of panels:
We gave away a bunch of t-shirts:
And then David Wain got a bunch of his friends together and they did a live Wainy Days show:
So, you know, good times. Thanks to Jeffrey Ross, Garfunkle and Oates, CEO Rob Barnett, Rob Corddry, Zandy Hartig, Jon Stern, Reggie Watts (unpictured) and, most of all, David Wain for making Montreal a little more Wainy for one weekend.
Posted in
Wainy Days with tags
Wainy Days,
Just For Laughs,
David Wain,
Rob Barnett on 6/29/2011 12:28:01 PM by Dubs
Join us at Just For Laughs in Montreal to see Wainy Days LIVE and pitch our Founder/CEO, Rob Barnett, for a development deal - he's guaranteed to select one out of all the pitches he receives during the course of the festival. We like your odds.
Check out the Just For Laughs schedule
here, and click
here for live Wainy Days info.
Posted in
Filmmakers,
Gigi,
Hollywood,
Josh Gad,
Live Shows,
Matt Warren,
My Damn Channel,
New Series,
The Book of Mormon,
The Lost Nomads with tags
Josh Gad,
Book of Mormon,
Gigi,
My Damn Channel,
Tony Awards,
Broadway,
MattheW,
bonus material on 6/9/2011 10:25:44 AM by Matt Warren
Season One of My Damn Channel's hit show Gigi: Almost American may have come to an end, but that doesn't mean everyone's favorite pie-eyed foreigner is MIA. On the contrary, each Wednesday will see the debut of new Gigi-related bonus material. Sort of like a DVD extra, except, you know, on your computer. You can stretch your throat muscles with a little Gigi theme song karaoke, or bop along to Episode 2's bouncy, '80's-inspired "Squirt Gun" (free download included!). There are also outtakes, promos, and interviews galore—everything you need for your Elks Club's next Gigi: Almost American theme party. And look out for more in the weeks to come.
And since we're talking about Gigi, we'd like to take this opportunity to wish our pal Josh Gad good luck this Sunday at the Tony Awards. The Gigi creator/star is up for Best Lead Actor in a Musical for his awesome work in Trey Parker & Matt Stone's The Book of Mormon. BOM is also up for Best Musical, Best Original Score, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Direction, Choreography, Orchestration, Scenic Design, Costume, Lighting, and Sound. I mean holy shit, right? That's a lot of nominations. Break a leg, Elders!
Posted in
Gigi with tags
gigi,
book of mormon,
broadway,
south park,
matt stone,
trey parker,
josh gad,
sweepstakes,
winner,
sharon,
cruz,
nichols on 4/19/2011 7:11:02 AM by Dubs
And the winner of the 2011 My Damn Channel "The Book of Mormon" Ticket Sweepstakes to see "The Book of Mormon" on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre including airfare and hotel to fabulous New York City AND will meet the star of the show, Josh Gad, is none other than...
...I'm sorry these envelopes are always so hard to open...thanks to everyone that entered, we'll have more giveaways soon...
...and by the way, have you seen new comedy that Josh Gad stars in right here on My Damn Channel? Gigi: Almost American?...
...Why is that guy giving me the light? Oh, right!
The winner is: Sharon Cruz-Nichols!!!
Congratulations to Sharon and thanks again to everyone that entered.