Hey Kids,
Just a quick note to plead (beg? threaten? bribe?) you to sign-up for the Zanzibar19 newsletter. We’ve got some big plans ahead, and we like to honor our biggest fans by making our announcements in the newsletter. It’s where you hear about us first. And with some more annoucements coming in just a few days… Just go to Zanzibar19.com, and click on the NEWSLETTER button on top and enter your email.
Thanks for reading, and watching.
Signed onto iTunes today to spend a few more of those gift cards, and do a vanity check on SNOWMEN HUNTERS, and what do I find? You can now buy Season 1 of the original STAR TREK on iTunes now. How did I not know this was coming? And how many episodes will I buy? One so far (I’m a geek like that).
And how long until I buy an episode of VOYAGER? Check back when Hell freezes over, and I probably still won’t have bought one.
See you in a few hours with the new episode.
C
So it’s finally happened. We feared it would. Suspected it would. We warned against it. But now it has happened.
The first person has supposedly been arrested for emulating SNOWMEN HUNTERS shinanigans. He’s one of our fans, and let us know through our YouTube account. We’re not sharing his name because, well, he might officially be a criminal now, and we’re not squealers. We don’t know nothin’. Also, we’re small-boned and delicate, and wouldn’t survive in prison. We can’t afford cross powerful people.
Now we don’t know if he was actually shooting at other people’s snowmen, but whatever. The upshot of this missive is, don’t actually use guns to shoot at snowmen. Unless they’re your snowmen, on your land, and it’s already legal to shoot guns there.
Also, we have an update on Episode 16: Shotguns vs. Teddy Bears. It’s another episode in our ‘What Snowmen Hunters do in summer’ collection. It’s funny. It’s great. And it’s now on a hard-drive that is broken. That means it’ll be up next week, on January 3rd, but those of you who are in the know already realize you can find it on YouTube late Tuesday nights usually.
Now to keep our loyal viewers sated, we’re giving an encore of Episode 4: Fart Tank Fiasco. It’s a ridiculous (threre’s that word agtain) high point in the show. Enjoy.
Also, don’t forget to join the contest. Details can be found here.
Thanks for watching,
C&R
Creators, SNOWMEN HUNTERS
As someone who’s likely seen an episode of SNOWMEN HUNTERS you might be shocked to know we actually, well, kind of write the show.
To be honest, the writing we do is pretty damn loose. Pardon our delusions of grandure, but we take the CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM track with our show, sketching out a plot and moments, but improving almost everything.
But all that is going to be put on hold for our first SNOWMEN HUNTERS contest. We’d like you to help us write an upcoming episode.
Here’s what you do: Email us your best break-up stories here Click to Email. Tell us everything about the bitter end. What he/she/it said, and what you said back right as the final fight got nasty and the relationship exploded. If we choose your detail/story/line/anecdote, we’ll give you a credit in the end of that episode.
So come to Zanzibar19.com, and sign-up for our newsletter. We’ll be announcing the winners there in January.
Now get writing. The SNOWMEN HUNTERS need your help.
C&R
So with the holidays upon us, we had a brief moment to catch up on our SNOWMEN HUNTERS paperwork and get some answers from the snowman hunter, Sherman Rance.
A lot of people have been asking us here and at our website, Zanzibar19.com, what the ranks of the Snowman Army of America are, and if they can join.
The simple answer is yes. Simply sign up for the newsletter, and you’re in as an apprentice snowman assassin. Get your friends, family and neighbors to sign-up, and you can rise in the ranks. Do a video response to us on YouTube, and up you go. Who knows? You rise far enough, and you could be commanding the hunt for snowmen.
So, after a lot of screaming and yelling, and bribing with beer (it’s Sherman’s weakness) we’ve been able to find out the ranks in the Snowman Army of America. So as you join the army, and bring glory and honor to it’s ranks (not hard, given where it’s starting) you and your friends can rise in the ranks.
So, here are most of the ranks of the Snowman Army. Try to contain yourself.
Commander-In-Ass-Kicking-and-Name-Takin’ – Rank Held by Sherman Rance
Chief Wolverine
Chuck Norris
[Approximately 15 to 42 Classified Ranks Here]
Black belt bad-ass mother fucker
Shit-kicker
Mean sum’bitch
Tsar
Chancellor
Emperor
Minister
Praetor
Prince
Rambo
Proconsul
Regent
Five Star General
Admiral of the Fleet
Admiral
Four Star General
Governor
Commodore
Consul
Three Star General
Major General
Grand Nagus
Brigadier General
Commander
Colonel
Lieutenant Colonel
Dohlman
Major
Lieutenant-Commander
First Lieutenant
Lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Sub-Lieutenant/Master’s Mates
Sergeant Major of the Army
Command Sergeant
Sergeant Major
Master Sergeant
Sergeant First Class
Staff Sergeant
Sergeant
Master
Corporal
Nagus
Surgeon
Purser
Boatswain
Carpenter
Gunner
Midshipmen
Chaplain
Private First Class
Private
Uhlan
Assistant Snowman Assassin
Apprentice Snowman Assassin
Thanks for watching.
C&R
So yes, obviously, the headline above is a flaming lie. But we’ve got James Bond fever as we prepare to run out to see CASINO ROYALE.
In honor of the longest running film series going (it’s one of the series which inspired us to go into film) we thought we’d spill our take on the James Bond movie we’d make if given the chance. But we’ll never need that chance now, because it seems MGM and EON Productions (who’ve produced all 21 ‘real’ Bond films) have snagged our idea and run with it.
How’s that? How can they steal something they already own, from two tiny filmmakers they’d never met? They can’t, but it’s a case of great minds thinking alike.
Back in the early 2000s, we were lamenting the state of the Bond series. Yeah, Pierce Brosnan had taken the role and he’d been everyone’s fanboy choice since Roger Moore left the series. But the movies were mediocre. If you can tell me the difference between THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, DIE ANOTHER DAY and TOMORROW NEVER DIES I’ll… well, I’ll yell NERD!
Back about that time, you may have heard about Quentin Tarentino’s hope to make a 1960s set CASINO ROYALE, so we weren’t the only one-time-Bond fans unhappy about the state of things.
In addition to a lot of stale situations, stunts, etc, a lot of weirdness had crept in to the movies over 40 years. Here was Brosnan, supposedly the same character Sean Connery played, who in ‘reality’ was pushing 80. He was supposed to have been married, and still be carrying around the baggage of his slain wife from ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, but that was 30 years ago. Bond had entered the weird comic-book world where he can have a huge history of adventures, but remain the same age.
Or had he? We spit-balled the hope EON would begin the series again, ala the reboot movie BATMAN BEGINS (which still hadn’t come out), but didn’t think they had it in them, as they’d let the series go so stale. How could they break out some new thinking now?
Then we wondered how can you reboot a series without rebooting? By changing the nature of who James Bond was.
What if, we thought, James Bond wasn’t really a man, but a character the British Government created to throw fear and paranoia into the world of espionage. What if a new up-and-coming agent took on the ‘Bond persona’ every few years, ala Dread Pirate Roberts from THE PRINCESS BRIDE or Keyser Soze from the USUAL SUSPECTS. He’d be the ultimate head-fuck to MI6’s enemies. It would explain whey every few years he looks different, but reports to the same boss, gets equipment from the same Q…
Then we wondered how you’d introduce this idea into the series. How great would it be to have the world sit down to a new Bond movie with Pierce Brosnan and kill him in the first five minutes! Then, the rest of the movie would be the first adventure of the new James Bond who tracks down the guy who killed the previous 007.
We then wondered who’d you get to play the bad guy who kills Bond. How cool would it be for a former ‘Bond’ to have gone bad and need to be terminated? How cool would it be for Sean Connery to be that guy, i.e. to be the ultimate James Bond villain?
Very we thought. Then we had to get back to our day jobs, and put the fantasy to bed.
So tonight we get ready to go to CASINO ROYALE, the reboot movie we never thought we’d be lucky enough to see. And watching the preview, we realized Judi Dench is playing M, the boss of Daniel Craig’s Bond. The same actress playing the same character who was the boss of Brosnan’s Bond (say that fast five times). If this was a reboot, why was it the same boss? Did the ‘official’ James Bond series take this idea on?
Was EON listening?
No, but like we said, great minds think alike.
Thanks for watching.
C&R
So no, we’re probably not gay.
What the hell are we talking about? Keep reading. We’ll explain.
It’s been a big week for our tiny little media concern, Zanzibar19.com.
It began by pushing out our first holiday episode of SNOWMEN HUNTERS, (that’s the Halloween flavored Episode 10: Sherman Jacked-My-Lantern). It ends with a hell of a lot of shotgun shells being blasted into a bunch of jack-o-lanterns. Good fun.
The week peaked with us getting criminally lucky and being the chosen as the Number 1 featured video on YouTube last night.
After about a year of work, thinking, episode and website making, we’ve gotten the internet comedy series hit we’ve been working for. The grassroots media revolution continues! Viva YouTube! Viva la revolusion!
But since premiering SNOWMEN HUNTERS on September 6, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about what/how/why we do what we do, so here’s our first FAQ. It’s for our fans, for our viewers, and for the vocal minority that hates our guts. More on those soon.
Q: “WTF?!”
A: This is far and away the most common question we get when people see an episode of SNOWMEN HUNTERS. What can we say? We like ridiculous humor, and we’re tired of bland, safe, smoothed-over humor. We’ve said it before: we don’t want another FRIENDS clone. We’re tired of living in a world where SNL is synonymous with what is awful in American comedy. We want people to stop pulling their punches.
We refuse to pull ours. We love the industry that gave us CHEERS, MASH, SEINFELD and the SNL of John Belushi/Bill Murray/Chevy Chase and Phil Hartman/Jon Lovitz/Dana Carvey. But TV has strangled itself, and internet shows are where the best stuff is being done. We’re just stupid/ballsy/confident enough to say SNOWMEN HUNTERS is going to be part of this revolution.
Which brings us to the next most asked question we get.
Q: “Are you guys f***ing retarded?”
A: I… I… I don’t think so. [scratching head, thinking, looking shocked/horrified, trying to hide it] Probably not. No, definitely not. We’re not retarded. Ha! Thought you had us, didn’t you?
We like ANCHORMAN/AIRPLANE/THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY craziness, and that’s what we shoot for. Sometimes, that ends in one of our characters getting a tape recorder crammed up his bum. If there’s some clever ‘Frasier’-like word pun we could go for, or a joke about a man making love to a stick he thinks is his wife… well, we go for f***ing the stick.
Q: “What are you doing to do when you run out of snow?”
A: Show you what Sherman and Everett do in the summer months. We’ve already shot these episodes, and they’re almost funnier than the snowmen slaughtering episodes.
Q: “How long are you going to do SNOWMEN HUNTERS?”
A: Until at least February 2007. We’ve had a lot fun and interest, so we’ll keep making them as long as we can and as long as people want to see them.
Q: “Are you gay?”
A: No. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But we don’t like kissing/stroking/knowing-in-a-’biblical’-way/giving rim jobs to men. Probably. You know what? Ask us after we’re in an elevator with Brad Pitt alone, and we’ll see if these strange urges we feel inside for him come to anything. But we’re probably not gay. But man, he’s pretty. Know what I mean. I… uh no. We’re not gay.
Q: “No, really, are you gay?”
A: No. Didn’t you just ask this?
Q: “Come on. You gotta be gay. Just say it. Come on.”
A: Hey! That’s not even a question! Leave us alone!
Q: “Who the hell are you guys?”
A: We’re Christopher Allan Smith and Ryan Neisz. We’re cousins and friends, and we’ve been making movies together since high school. In the early 2000s, we nearly came within an inch of writing for sitcoms in Hollywood, but then the sitcom industry was strangled by WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE and SURVIVOR and now the greats who wrote for SEINFELD, THE SIMPSONS and CHEERS can’t get work, so there’s little chance we’ll see any of that. Besides, but best stuff in TV-style American comedy is now being done on the web.
Q: “Your stuff looks professional. Aren’t you just professionals posing as grassroots video guys? It’s obvious someone is bankrolling you. Why don’t you just be honest about it?”
A: Boy, we wish. This one really flatters us, and really kind of hurts. We’ve worked hard to hone our filmmaking skills. Yeah, we know our way around a camera and mic set. And yes, we’re trying to get people to go to our website, Zanzibar19.com. We want to build it as a place to come see good stuff, mainly our stuff. It’s something we’ve seen a thousand other short filmmakers online do. That means we have a Zanzibar19.com burn-in, and a logo we worked hard to make look pro.
Because of that, a few vocal vlogers/YouTubers cop an attitude that we’re pros coming to horn in on the homebrew video internet thing. We’re not.
We just bust our ass and push hard to polish our stuff. We do what we’ve seen other successful internet entertainers do (ASK A NINJA for one, PUPPET RAPIST for another). There’s the old saying that if you do something for 5 years, you become an expert at it. Well, we’re not experts at anything, but we’ve make comedy videos for a long time. When you make films/videos/skits as much as we have for as long as we have, you become skilled by accident. And besides, all this has resulted in us shooting snowmen with shotguns. How professional can we really be? Honestly?
Q: “What the hell is Zanzibar19 anyway?”
A: Zanzibar19.com is a new site we’re trying to create as a place where people can come to watch fun stuff. Eventually we’d like to figure out a way to get paid to do it without having to ‘clean it up’ or ’sell out’ or whatever. We’ll be up front and honest about that. We can make more comedy if all we do is get paid to make comedy. That’s why we want to get paid, and the only reason we want to get paid. How is that going to happen? There we’re in a little bit of a grey area. How grey? Charcoal.
But right now everything we do for Zanzibar19 comes out of our free time and our own pockets.
Q: “Aren’t you just trying to build up Zanzibar19 to sell off?”
A: No. No matter how we get paid, if we do, (if only, if only…) we can’t imagine a scenario where we’d sell Zanzibar19 anyway.
Q: “How do we get more info on Zanzibar19 anyway?”
A: Quick answer is come to Zanzibar19.com, and sign up for the newsletter. That’s the first place we’ll be making all the announcements about upcoming SNOWMEN HUNTERS news, as well as the new show we’re working on. And remember to come to Zanzibar19.com every Wednesday for new episodes of SNOWMEN HUNTERS.
Q: “Can we get a SNOWMEN HUNTERS T-Shirt? DVD?”
A: We’re considering things along those lines now. Shoot us an Email, and tell us if you’d like to buy some. If enough people want them, we’ll make them and get them to our viewers at a best-friend price.
Q: “Really… We’re not trying to be a dick, but really… are you gay?”
A: NO! Wait, is this Brad Pitt asking?
In this week’s holiday episode of SNOWMEN HUNTERS we see just how far Sherman Rance will go to get info from spies… jack-o-lantern spies! Turns out Sherman hates the Halloween mascots almost as much as he hates snowmen, and he’s letting his shotgun do the talking.
So here’s SNOWMEN HUNTERS Episode 10: Sherman Jacked-My-Lantern. Enjoy.
And be sure to tune in next week for the season finale of SNOWMEN HUNTERS where Everett finds the snowman what done him wrong!
Brought to you by the fine, damaged people at Zanzibar19.com.
Enjoy, C & R
Come on over here and check it out. . . Zanzibar19.com.
This week’s episode of SNOWMEN HUNTERS promises to rip your eyes right out of your head from amazement. We finally find out why Everett Van der Sloot left his life as a pro golfer to become Sherman Rance’s idiot sidekick in his snowman hunt. It’s a revelation that’ll break your heart. And you’ll laugh your face off.
So here’s SNOWMEN HUNTERS Episode 09: Snowballing (Google It). Enjoy. And be sure to watch in the next few weeks, as we close in on a season finale you flat out won’t believe.
Brought to you by the fine, damaged people at Zanzibar19.com.
Enjoy, C & R
Come on over here and check it out. . . Zanzibar19.com.
So it turns out Sherman Rance and his bloodless snowmen enemies have one thing in common. They both love musical theater. And knife fighting.
In this weeks’ episode, SNOWMEN HUNTERS Episode 08: Michael Jackson F@#*s Boys, we see Sherman’s a Jet, because when you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way.
What does this mean? And what the hell does it have to do with Michael Jackson’s unnatural love for boys? Tune in and find out.
Brought to you by the fine, damaged people at Zanzibar19.com.
Enjoy, C & R
Come on over here and check it out. . . Zanzibar19.com.
