The new Stephen Colbert video challenge is up, and though it’s for no prize, it’s fun to do so I’m doing it. This time the challenge is to debate Stephen Colbert himself. I put on my pink suit, did my hair up fancy, and did my best.

Stephen vs. Happyjoel

I’d totally embed the video but I don’t think I can, so feel free to click it. Here’s a couple fun trivia facts about the video:

1) I bought my first set of lights, so even though the sound totally needs work, I’m really happy with the lighting. You can actually see me unlike many of my other videos filmed previously.

2) I’m not wearing any pants. I do have pants. I even have pink pants that go with my pink suit, but I’m not wearing them.

After a lot of hard work, and focusing exclusively on the Doritos contest (like I assume is happening for a lot of other contesters right now) I’ve got the entry finished, loaded onto the site and ready to share.

Lessons in Love (visit, watch, feel free to leave a nice comment.)

I’m extremely happy about this entry, not least of all because I like how my hair looks. But obviously, the selling point is Dan who did a phenomenal job of having his body slathered with orange and spending the day in a speedo.

I entered last years contest and I think learned a few things, as all of us who entered probably did, about what they are looking for and what would work, and I tried to pick an idea that would fit that. And while I’m not sure exactly what they are looking for, I came up with a list of things they definitely AREN’T looking for.

1) Shitty quality camera. Normally, I’m content to use a regular home video camera and throw something together. But, and this should have been obvious to me since it’s got to air on national TV, it’s got to have the production values. I didn’t get that last time, this time, working with my new found production friends in Hershey, PA, I think we nailed it.

2) Branding. They don’t want it peripherally about the product like a lot of Superbowl commercials (think the bud light commercial where the zebra is playing the referee to the horses playing football), they want the Doritos featured heavily, plenty of screen time, and for it to be mentioned. I think I did that this time.

3) Sound and lighting. Same as number 1. Good mics. Good lights. Didn’t have any lighting options in Antarctica, but these Hershey folks knew what they were doing.

4) They don’t want 30 seconds building up to a single punchline. They want multiple jokes for the millions they are going to spend to air it.

Now on to some conjectures:

I have no idea about the following, but these are some guesses I made about them.

1) They don’t want a video that just features some hot girl showing how hot she is.

2) They want something that stands on it’s idea, with solid production to support it. As opposed to something that stands on it’s special effects or production values. The winning entry from last year wasn’t one of the big crazy budget ones. It was a simple joke, effectively produced.

3) They want afros on white guys. I know this is a stretch, but I’ve been watching a lot of TV. Commercials love big hair on Jewish white guys, but none of them seem to have quite pulled off the full, white guy afro. I’m banking on that being the thing that puts it over the top.

I just got back from a two day trip to Harrisburg, PA to film our Doritos entry. I saw the rough draft today and it’s good – not quite there yet, but I think it’s a strong concept with a few good jokes, and it’s really visual.

That said, I’ve also been picking around the Doritos site to see what else is happening with entries. I don’t know exactly what it’s going to take to win this thing, but I have a feeling this isn’t it:

ABCDG’s

That’s something, isn’t it?

So this year, I am going to try something different for this Doritos contest. It’s already been covered all over the internet but in a nutshell, here’s the contest:

1) Make a Doritos video. If it’s the best, it goes in the superbowl.

2) If the general public picks it as their favorite of the whole superbowl ad thing, then it gets a shitload more money. Like a million bucks or something.

Anyway, last year, I entered my typical kind of thing – it was me, pretending to be a coach dressed in a penguin costume surrounded by live penguins in Antarctica. I thought it was hilarious, but it had literally nothing to do with Doritos, and the quality was not good.

This year, I’m tweaking my approach, and hoping to fix the problems.

1) I wrote an ad that is all about Doritos. It doesn’t feature them incidentally, it features them prominently, because it looks like that’s what they want.

2) I am partnering with some people who know how to actually make a commercial that a company wouldn’t be embarrassed to show on national TV. I realize you need an actual camera, actual lighting, and actual editing to win this one.

3) I’m probably going to put on a Tuxedo.

That should solve it right there. Haven’t filmed yet, but should be filming next week since it’s due on November 8th (happy birthday mom and stephen).

And to see what they picked last year, check it out below:

My friend Jon S. has just brought up the point that I have been asking too much and giving too little back recently. Please accept my apologies. I appreciate you and am sorry for the heavy load of requests.

I get caught up in making videos and trying to win contests – his suggestions were twofold:

1) Host a contest for your fans

2) Do a video that’s funny that we can just enjoy and don’t have to fucking vote on. Something that’s not for a contest.

I will get started on 2 asap, but in the meantime, I wanted to start something today. So I sent out a message to members of my facebook group. The 60th person to formally accept my apology by sending me a facebook message that says “yes I accept your apology” or something like that gets a $60 Quizno’s gift card. If I don’t get 60 responses, then the 6th person who sends it will. If you aren’t a member of the facebook group yet, you are invited to join, but I don’t think you need to be to send me a message there.

(The reason I’m doing it only through facebook and not through email too is so I can keep track timing wise to accurately reward number 60.)

Thank you for your time, patience with me, support, help and your apologies.
Joel

I hosted a contest and I didn’t even get enough entries to give out all three prizes, but that’s okay. I gave out the two real prizes. I picked the Indian guy first prize, and the lady second. You might wonder if that is biased because I wrote all the jokes for the Indian dude. It is not. Objectively, that video is the funnier of the two, though I enjoyed both efforts. Judge for yourself.

Either way, I am happy with both entries and appreciate them taking the time to enter. I will come up with a better idea for my next contest to increase participant turnout.

Winning Video:

Runner Up:

Congratulations to all our iTunes gift card winners.

Now vote for me on this contest -

www.ommcontest.com/vote/

This morning I received two emails, about 2 hours apart, that I am a finalist in two contests. Both require votes, which reminds me – I’ve got to stop entering contests that require votes because I think I am really starting to annoy people.

The first one is for $1000, and I think the video is cute. I definitely think it’s the most entertaining of the 6 finalists. This contest requires you to make a video about Stacey Mayo’s “One Minute Meditation” and how it works for you. NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED so please vote for me below:

Joel Levinson – One Minute Meditation

The second contest, I honestly only entered for the consolation prize to the first 100 entries, and never expected to win, but apparently my painfully fake sneeze cuts it, and I am a finalist in the “side-splitting sneeze” contest. The prize is a spa-weekend getaway, and I want you to see something. First, the little amount of work I put into my video:

Now, the mind-blowing amount of pyro-technic work used in this other finalist entry (why these two dudes want a spa-weekend getaway so much is beyond me, but here it is)

Feel free to vote for either video by visiting the  Side-Splitting Sneeze Contest (registration required to vote).

They just made a post on their page of the winning video entry, and the two runners up. I am happy with my video, but more happy because I did my best to make a video that is something they would like, and they liked it, and then it won the prize, so I am very happy about that.

Here is a link to that page – Link to that page I was talking about.

Also, they called me “Mr. Joel Levinson” which makes me feel like a total grown-up, which I am now. Also because I am married, that is another thing that proves I’m a grown up.

I like Singapore because the people are nice and the food is very nice and everything is green and very clean and they keep the streets clean and it’s safe to walk down them not like in my home when I lived in Hollywood where the streets have a lot of people who get sick and make a mess from either their mouths or they make BM’s and just leave it on the streets for everyone to walk by. Singapore is much cleaner than Hollywood.

Here are some things I learned about Singapore:

* Singapore has the highest per capita rate of millionaires in the world (approx 10%)

* Singapore was originally a small fishing post until about 200 years ago, when Stanford Raffles and the British East India realized it was a very good place for a port town

* Singapore means “Lion town” because an old Sultan said that he once saw a Lion there but since Lions don’t live anywhere Tigers live, everyone agrees that he either dreamed it or was a-lion about it! (That was a pun.)

* In Singapore, you can go to the zoo at night on a “Night Safari” and see all the nocturnal animals, and it makes a lot of sense because normally when I go to the zoo in America all the animals are exhausted because it is hot and they always tell you “most of these animals don’t have sweat glands that’s why they play in the mud” which seems mean to keep them out all the time in the hot sun so kids can poke sticks at them and bang on the glass, but in Singapore, it is nighttime so the animals are all eating and moving around and this one animal called a “Tapir” came right up to the tram and I think it was because he liked how I smelled.

All in all I highly recommend a trip to Singapore because it is awesome!!!

Randi and Joel with Singapore Skyline

Originally uploaded by happyjoelmoss

First the bad news:
After weeks of bothering everyone we know, and my first ever sincere attempt at a nice, loving video – I found out today that we lost the “Invest in Your Love” contest to win a trip to Tahiti.

Now the good news:
I haven’t said where I was for the past few days because I didn’t want it to ruin our chances at winning Tahiti – but right now Randi and I are on an all-expense paid trip thru Singapore thanks to the video I made for the F1 race! Makes it a lot easier to take the bad news when you hear it halfway around the world in an incredible new city!

More on the Good – this trip has been incredible. I’ve never been to a formula 1 race before, and it is very loud. Also, this city is clean as hell, the tourist board put us up in an awesome hotel, is feeding us like royalty, and packing our short trip here with TONS of stuff (more pictures to follow in a few days when I’m back in the states to upload them.)

It is illegal to not flush the toilet in a public bathroom here which is tough for me because I’m all “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” environmentalist, but I’m happy to oblige. I’m also trying to read as much as possible about Singapore while I’m here to study up for Jeopardy try-outs this fall. Hope it helps!

Oh, and apparently chewing gum isn’t TOTALLY illegal. You just have to have a doctor’s prescription!

More on the bad – just got the email this morning, and they were very sweet in saying they liked the video and the work I put into getting votes, but it wasn’t the judges favorite. Since there are still future rounds to enter, I think I’m going to make another video that goes back to my normal style – singing, goofy, fun instead of serious, and see if that increases my chances next time around.

I was just telling Randi – normally, when a contest is over and you lose, that’s it. Last chance. I’m really excited that for the Tahiti contest, I can try again, make another video, and use it as a chance to improve and learn, and hopefully earn another awesome trip!

Check it out, new entry to the Rodney contest!

There’s still 2 weeks left in the contest, so be sure to get your entries filmed and in soon by posting them as a response here:

My Car Can’t Get No Respect