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Jack Black's TV Attack
Jack Black is getting ready to launch HisTube.
The comic actor and half of acoustic heavy metal duo Tenacious D is joining forces with VH1 to executive produce The Department of Acceptable Media, a weekly comedy sketch show that will feature user-generated content as well as short films occasionally starring Black.
On board as coconspirators for The Department are Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab, who teamed with Black in 2003 to cofound Black Channel 101, a Website dedicated to screening digital shorts made by novice filmmakers in a competitive forum.
Aiming to capitalize on the mammoth success of YouTube and to tap the do-it-yourself spirit of the Web, the VH1 series will pick up where Channel 101 left off. Each week, The Department will showcase six three-minute clips of would-be TV shows that viewers will vote on via an online poll at acceptable.tv, launching in February.
The three "acceptable" series tallying the most votes will be renewed for another episode airing the following week, while the shows receiving the fewest votes will be "canceled" and replaced by three new pilots. Eventually, producers intend to showcase the best of the shorts as a full-blown series on VH1.
"I am proud to be a producer of this breakthrough television series. This is the first show in TV history to be programmed by the audience," Black says in a press release. "For their brave choice to put this on the air, the executives at VH1 should be applauded, and then fired."
Black noted the success of such Channel 101 alums as Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, who collectively dubbed themselves the Lonely Island. They hatched hilarious short films for the site that eventually landed them gigs on Saturday Night Live, where they scored a hit comedy sketch with the popular Lazy Sunday video (otherwise known as the "Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia" rap).
Per Variety, the Nacho Libre star and his compadres will write and produce most of the sketches on The Department and will appear on air to introduce the flicks. However, at least one of the shorts will be chosen from user-generated video submissions from the Website. Depending on the quality, producers note that more amateur videos could be added as the show evolves.
"It's not anything goes. Digital shorts now have to meet a bar of execution and humor," VH1 programming chief Michael Hirschorn told the trade. "It could turn out that a whole bunch of the viewer-created content is good enough to air. We'll have to see."
The first of eight episodes of the sketch comedy series is scheduled to premiere on VH1 next spring.
Black, meanwhile, will next be seen in theaters in Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny, a big-screen version of his HBO Spinal Tap-like comedy series sending up garage bands, due out Nov. 22. He then teams up with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet for the romantic comedy The Holiday, unspooling in December.
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