So, Chris Hardwick featured me on Comedy Central last night...

Not for the first time, not for the last, I am smacked with the realization that the rest of my life is going to be dogged by my being the man who ran for school board by blowing up a little red schoolhouse with the Death Star...

Yes, it's true: Chris Hardwick used my school board commercial - the one with the Star Wars theme - on his Comedy Central show @Midnight late last night/the wee hours of this morning.  The clip came during a segment called "Smeared Campaigns" and was one of three political ads taken from YouTube.

I would have missed it had good friend Aaron not spotted it.  I was hopped-up on Dr. Pepper and Swiss cheese, wrestling between sleep and stuff about my book, when I happened to get on Facebook and Aaron was blasting my timeline with the news.  Needless to say, I had to check it out.  And you can too: here's the link that takes you straight to the episode's stream on the Comedy Central site.  It comes on shortly after the first commercial break.  And it's pretty hilarious!  But I'm still shaking my head in disbelief that more than eight and a half years later, this commercial is still getting all that attention.

But hey, how often do I get to see myself and Chris Hardwick in the same picture?  And on Comedy Central?  So I guess I shouldn't complain :-P

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Once again this blogger makes Cracked.com ("5 Famous Online Copyright Crusaders Who Are Total Hypocrites")

At this point I've lost count. It's at least the fourth or fifth time that my shenanigans have landed me on popular humor site Cracked.com.

This latest appearance comes courtesy of an article titled "5 Famous Online Copyright Crusaders Who Are Total Hypocrites".  With a title like that I just had to scan and tear it down and analyze it to see what I was doing that was so hypocritical... but I honestly can't find anything about my own part in that very strange episode from the fall of 2007.  In fact, the entire article is about corporations - as Viacom did in that incident - who cry and crow about copyright laws protecting their assets and then steal and violate the assets of everyone else without giving a damn!!

Anyhoo, my situation, "Viacom Lays Claim to a County Board of Education Campaign Video", made #2 on the list.  And if you wanna see the commercial that started it all, from my 2006 campaign for Rockingham County Board of Education, click here to watch "Christopher Knight for School Board TV Commercial #1".

(Personally, I'm still more proud of Commercial #2 and Commercial #3.  In fact, Commercial #3 has always been my favorite of that batch of ads.)

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Worst. Timed. Commercial. Break. Ever.

Last night's The Walking Dead on AMC brought back the intensity after the past couple of weeks' relative calm (which was needed, after what happened to Lori). This series is consistently demonstrating why many consider it to be the finest show on television right now.

But that's not the point of this post. Instead I have to remark that what you're about to see is either gross negligence or brilliant marketing.

At the end of the next-to-last act of this week's episode "When the Dead Come Knocking" we find Rick and his team trapped in a cabin, nearly surrounded by ravenous walkers. To escape they have to throw a freshly-killed dude out the front door as a distraction. Rick and company flee through the back door while the walkers start munching.

That's the setup. That's all you need to know.

So watch the final few seconds of that act, then look at what AMC did with the commercial break!

Eeeeeewwwwwww...

Too bad KFC isn't using their "Finger Licking Good" slogan anymore, huh?

The accidental(?) scheduling of the ad has gotten lots of attention, including from folks who haven't seen The Walking Dead yet. So I'm wondering if there was method to the madness. If so: well played AMC, well played.

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io9 features sci-fi inspired political ads. Take a wild guess which one made the list...

Behold the 8 Weirdest Real-Life Science Fiction Political Ads as assembled by popular geeky/techy website io9.

And yes, that school board commercial of mine from 2006 is on the list.

But check out this ad - also inspired by Star Wars - that West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin aired when he successfully ran for re-election two years ago...

Hey, Manchin shot a TIE Fighter out of the sky with a rifle! That's a hella lot better shootin' than the Imperial Stormtroopers ever did.

But John Waite of Spokane, Washington blows away everybody with what he did when he ran for city council. The comic book store owner campaigned while wearing a full set of space marine armor from the StarCraft computer game series! Nevermind Spokane City Council: we should send Waite to Washington D.C.: that whole town is overrun with worse than the Zerg ever were.

Blast on over to io9 for more. And tip o' the hat to good friend Todd Williard for finding this!

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At #5 on Cracked.com's list of The 6 Most Baffling Political Ads Ever Aired...

...it's... me!

That was almost six years ago. I really am never gonna live this down, am I?

Well, it was a lot of fun running for school board. The entire experience, I mean! One that I would never trade for anything. I learned a great deal more about election laws and running for office than I had ever known before. I didn't win a seat but that's okay: it was a great run, I campaigned my own way and kept it positive, upbeat, and I wanted to present my beliefs in an enlightening and entertaining fashion. I wanted just ten people to vote for me, and wound up getting nearly forty-seven hundred.

But I didn't for once believe that this commercial was going to grab any attention beyond Rockingham County... and much less still be going strong more than half a decade later!

Well anyhoo, Cracked.com has my Star Wars-ish school board campaign ad at #5 on their list of The 6 Most Baffling Political Ads Ever Aired.

And if you haven't seen it for yourself yet, here's the link to "Christopher Knight for School Board TV Commercial #1".

Now, it would be really nice if the video that I spent most of the afternoon shooting got even a tiny amount of that kind of attention...

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It's dogs barking "Imperial March" from the Star Wars movies!!

This is a "teaser" for Volkswagen's commercial during this year's Super Bowl. Yes, Super Bowl commercials now have teasers for them. And even so this is already the greatest Super Bowl commercial in the history of anything...

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"Do dogs chase cats?"

Saw this GEICO commercial for the first time earlier this morning and I've been cracking up laughing about it since!

It's like "Toonces the Driving Cat" from Saturday Night Live meets The French Connection!

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I was featured on GRUEN NATION on Australian nationwide television last night!

Niall Doran, a regular reader of this blog from Down Under, e-mailed to inform me a short while ago that I was seen on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's hit show Gruen Nation last night!

Here's Niall's report...

As a regular browser of your blog, I was surprised to see you make an appearance on Australian television earlier tonight!

A regular part-humorous, part-analytical & highly popular program on our national broadcaster (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or ABC) is normally called the "Gruen Transfer", and unveils and discusses the techniques behind commercial advertising. However, we are in the final throes of a federal election, for which the "Gruen Transfer" has become the "Gruen Nation", with a series of specials focusing on the techniques of political advertising in particular. Tonight they showed your infamous Star Wars ad, although in the comments afterwards they unfortunately didn't raise the copyright issue that you fought and won.

I just can't believe that nearly FOUR years later, that my first campaign commercial for Board of Education is still making waves! That wasn't something that I saw happening at all :-)

Niall says that it's Gruen Nation Series 1 Episode 4 and that you can watch it here at ABC1's website for the next 14 days. Unfortunately I won't get to see myself on Australian TV 'cuz the site only lets you watch streaming vids if you're in, of all places, Australia! Gonna see if I can find a copy floating around the Internets to download via torrent or whatever.

Thanks for the heads-up Niall. And to all of y'all visiting The Knight Shift from Australia today: welcome! Hope y'all like what you find here :-)

EDIT 4:25 p.m. EST: Good friend Brian Fesperman reports that you can watch the show stateside! Click here to check it out and you won't have to wait long 'cuz it's the very first spot they run. They ran the entire commercial... including all of Melody Hallman Daniel's dramatically awesome voiceover!

And after seeing it at last I am chuckling too much for one's own good. Especially giggling at host Wil Anderson's line about "I really wish his favorite movie had been Boogie Nights!" and saying that Kevin Rudd "would have been more convincing if you'd been holding a lightsaber!" You can also download the whole show in MP4 or WMV format for later viewing.

What more can be said? I'm thoroughly delighted that I got to be a small part of Oz's political landscape this season... and that my ad brought some good-hearted laughter to Down Under from Rockingham County, North Carolina :-)

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Hey, don't I have a blog, or something...?

Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of The King and I came to a successful conclusion this past Sunday afternoon. We played three shows to a nearly sold-out house each time!

And as much as 'twould be nice to have some respite after the past several weeks of work that went into that, there's always something new afoot for The Knight Shift's eclectic proprietor.

Been busy the past few days with... work, on... stuff. Along with... new ummm, "equipment" that will soon be employed toward, errr... "projects". Got to do some field testing with it this week and so far I'm more than a little pleased with the investment :-)

Might be worth noting here that my blogging may be sparse during the next few weeks as I and others are engaged in numerous endeavors. When I am here though, I'll do my best to make it worth your precious time. And to make up for the last few days' absence I'll share this with you: a video from Japan, advertising something that I haven't a clue what it is...

Whatever they're selling, I'd buy it!

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YouTube called: I beat Comcast

Okay, YouTube didn't really call me, but you know...

Last month I reported that Comcast was giving me grief about how I posted a clip from E!'s show The Soup where they used MY commercial from the school board campaign in 2006... without asking me, but I was fine with that. I just expected the same courtesy from E! and its ownership that I have given them. That's not too much to ask, in my mind.

And of course, this whole thing is too much like that crazy situation with Viacom a little over two years ago. And just as I did with Viacom then I filed a counterclaim with YouTube, per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

A short while ago I received the following e-mail from YouTube:

Re: [#561937480] YouTube Support

Copyright Service to me

Hi there,
In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we've completed
processing your counter-notification regarding your video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51FpFrMVWOo

This content has been restored and your account will not be penalized.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

So for the third time now (first Viacom, then NBC which quickly acquiesced and retracted their claim against me for posting a clip of The Jay Leno Show that also used my commercial, and now with Comcast) my filing the DMCA counterclaim has been successful. And that's why I'm compelled again to discuss this. Because if an independent content producer like me can take on three multi-billion dollar corporations over DMCA abuse and win each time, then any small-time content producer can do likewise and come out on top.

None of us are without some pretty potent weapons. We just have to know how to use them... and use them properly.

So here it is again: E! Television's The Soup featuring my school board campaign commercial :-)

Glad that this got resolved. And I hope that it never has to happen again!

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Tommy Burst toy commercial ("From Mattel, it's SWELL!")

There is no way that a TV commercial like this would ever be made, much less allowed to broadcast, in 2009. But once upon a time when boys were allowed to play "cops 'n robbers" there were fewer toy weapons as kewl as Mattel's Tommy Burst arsenal. For three bucks you could get the revolver and for seven you got the Detective Set complete with handgun and holster, toy bullets, badge and one neat-o machine gun!

Behold the commercial from about 45 years ago...

And if that adult looks familiar, it should: that's Hal Smith as the thief and the commercial's pitchman. Smith will forever be known as that lovable town drunk Otis Campbell on The Andy Griffith Show.

I remember about two decades ago when every Toys R Us had an aisle devoted to toy guns. Seems like we had a lot less real-life crime then than we do now. Maybe we should let children be children instead of expecting them to be miniature adults, and allow them to live out the "good guy/bad guy" fantasy. That's the kind of thing that has gone on since time immemorial and it's only been in the past number of years that the "child experts" (who never seem to have children of their own, hardly) have done their damndest to change that.

Well, anyway: it's a "swell" commercial, I think. Especially that machine gun!!

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Creepiest doll commercial of all time

It's Baby Laugh A-Lot!

I don't know what's scarier: this ad's production values, or that once upon a time children and at least one too many adults found this toy even mildly amusing...

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Wanna see my appearance on THE JAY LENO SHOW?

Well, it was just "that Star Wars school board campaign commercial"... but at least I can now honestly brag about having made Jay Leno and a studio audience laugh on national television! :-)

I put the clip of The Jay Leno Show featuring my commercial (along with a few others from around the country) during this past Thursday night's broadcast on YouTube.  Click here to behold Yours Truly's visual effects and Melody Hallman Daniel's awesome voice-over entertaining the entire country in prime-time!

However I don't know how long it'll be up on YouTube, 'cuz as soon as I posted it the system told me that NBC Universal had already flagged it for possible infringement... which I'm thinking is just an automated response to the keywords I attached to the video.  But even so, after EVERYTHING that I've gone through in the past few years pertaining to copyright law (yeah I'm looking at you Sumner Redstone) there's no way I would have put this on YouTube had it not met the criteria of Fair Use.  So hopefully, this is just something minor that will be resolved quickly.  And hey, I'm giving free advertising for Jay Leno's show :-)

EDIT 8:24 p.m. EST: The infamous NBC lawyers must have let up, or something. Here's the embedded video!

We'll see how long it lasts though :-P

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My commercial was on THE JAY LENO SHOW?!?

I'm getting MULTIPLE reports that my school board campaign commercial from 2006 was featured on The Jay Leno Show on NBC tonight! I didn't get to see it: 'tis been a very busy evening, including auditioning for a community theater production and then grabbing some dinner. When I got back, the e-mail box had lit up like a Christmas tree.

Suffice it to say, I'm very interested in watching this to see how it played out :-)

Thanks to everyone who's been sending in the nice e-mails about it. And if you're just now finding this blog because of Jay Leno running my ad: welcome! Hope you'll like what you find here :-)

EDIT: Last night's The Jay Leno Show is now up on Hulu! Hit the link and go to about 36 minutes into the show.

The entire segment is hilarious! :-)

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WOOOOOO!!!

The TV commercial for the Ric Flair Scratch-Off from the North Carolina Education Lottery...

I'm sorely tempted to insert a "Space Mountain" joke in here somewhere :-P

EDIT 3:18 a.m. EST 09/23/2009: I am just now discovering that this game is not called "Ric Flair Scratch-Off" as I had originally thought. Instead it is officially known as... Wooooooo!

As if this state didn't have enough people imitating Ric Flair, heh-heh...

That's it. I'm definitely going to buy at least one of these tickets. Not to scratch off, just to keep and hold onto because, well... a Ric Flair-themed state lottery scratch-off game called "Wooooooo!" is just too clever to pass up on owning one.

This will be the hottest-selling scratch-off game since the lottery started up here almost four years ago, I would wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie on it. Maybe we'll see the entire Four Horsemen appear on a ticket sometime down the line :-)

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I'm speaking at SPARKcon in Raleigh this evening!

Just a friendly reminder that if you want to meet the blogger/proprietor of The Knight Shift in person and you're going to be in the Raleigh/Durham today, that you're in luck!

I will be at Artspace, located at 201 East Davie St in Raleigh at 5:45 p.m. this afternoon during the filmSPARK track of SPARKcon: a grassroots-organized four-day festival celebrating individual creativity around the Triangle area and throughout North Carolina. This will be the fourth annual event and this year SPARKcon will be held September 17-20. I'll be speaking about the bizarre "copyright infringement" situation that happened between Yours Truly and Viacom on YouTube two years ago.

Look! Event announcement!

The Dude Who Took Down Viacom: One Filmmaker's StoryEVENT LOCATION
Artspace

EVENT DESCRIPTION
Meet North Carolina filmmaker Chris Knight, a.k.a. "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom". In 2006, Knight made a campaign advertisement to help promote his running for a seat on Rockingham County's Board of Education. Knight did not win a seat on the board, but he did win some internet and media fame as his commercial was featured in The New York Times, on the Fox News Channel, every major newspaper in the state, on National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, by the Heritage Foundation, VH1's show "Web Junk 2.0", and E! Entertainment Television's show "The Soup". The major attraction of Knight's commercial was his creative use of Star Wars as an allegory for his strong commitment to reforming education practice. Life was good for Knight, until he loaded a few clips of his infamous commercial's featurette on "Web Junk 2.0" onto Youtube and was slammed with a copyright infringement claim. Come here the details of Knight's battle tonight as the filmmaker recounts his battle with Youtube and VH1's parent company Viacom firsthand.

SPONSOR
Artspace

And look again! There's also a Facebook page for "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom"!

Once again, I am compelled to note that I am very thankful to Nene Kalu, Kathy Justice and the rest of the good folks organizing the filmSPARK track for inviting me to take part in SPARKcon. Check out the SPARKcon website for more information.

And I hope to see you there! :-)

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INSANELY incredible HALO 3: ODST live-action commecial!

This is the closest I've ever seen anything to a bona-fide Halo movie. It's not only live-action, but... tonally this is just hitting on all the right cylinders.

Halo 3: ODST continues the legend on September 22nd.

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Rockingham County getz a Sheetz!

Sheetz opened its first (and hopefully not last) location in Rockingham County this past week, located in Eden at Van Buren Road and Stadium Drive (it's right next door to King's Inn Pizza for those of y'all familiar with local geography). I paid my first visit to the new place today and was delighted to get another of their scrumptious Italian sandwiches. Up 'til now I've had to go to Greensboro or High Point for the nearest Sheetz. Now there's one just 20 minutes away! And like all the other Sheetz stores it's open 24 hours, 365 days a year.

So since this is about Sheetz, like the other two times I've posted on this blog about this company here's that "Feel The Love" commercial that's been running all summer...

And then there's this other commercial from a few years ago for the chain, that shamelessly apes televangelism...

Anyhoo, if you're in the area there's a new place for great food whenever you get the munchies. Check 'em out!

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Meet "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom" at SPARKcon in Raleigh!

That commercial is going to haunt me for the rest of my life, isn't it? :-P

SPARKcon is a grassroots-organized four-day festival in Raleigh celebrating individual creativity around the Triangle area and throughout North Carolina. This will be the fourth annual event and this year SPARKcon will be held September 17-20. And I've been invited to speak that Friday night about the very crazy situation that happened between Yours Truly and Viacom two years ago.

Look! Event announcement!

The Dude Who Took Down Viacom: One Filmmaker's StoryEVENT LOCATION
Artspace

EVENT DESCRIPTION
Meet North Carolina filmmaker Chris Knight, a.k.a. "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom". In 2006, Knight made a campaign advertisement to help promote his running for a seat on Rockingham County's Board of Education. Knight did not win a seat on the board, but he did win some internet and media fame as his commercial was featured in The New York Times, on the Fox News Channel, every major newspaper in the state, on National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, by the Heritage Foundation, VH1's show "Web Junk 2.0", and E! Entertainment Television's show "The Soup". The major attraction of Knight's commercial was his creative use of Star Wars as an allegory for his strong commitment to reforming education practice. Life was good for Knight, until he loaded a few clips of his infamous commercial's featurette on "Web Junk 2.0" onto Youtube and was slammed with a copyright infringement claim. Come here the details of Knight's battle tonight as the filmmaker recounts his battle with Youtube and VH1's parent company Viacom firsthand.

SPONSOR
Artspace

And look again! There's even a Facebook page for "The Dude Who Took Down Viacom"!

I'm really exciting about doing this, and I'm very much thankful to Nene Kalu, Kathy Justice and the rest of the good folks organizing the filmSPARK track for inviting me to take part in SPARKcon. Check out the SPARKcon website for more information and hey, if you're gonna be around that evening I'd love to meet ya! :-)

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"Too funny!" Billy Bobb videos on YouTube

Holy cow!! Now I have seen everything.

Years ago there was a local television station called WGGT Channel 48, broadcasting from Greensboro. This was back when unaffiliated stations were extremely independent in their programming and such. Well, WGGT might have been one of the last to have what many people will fondly remember as a "horror host": a home-grown character who presented various scary movies and sci-fi flicks on Saturday afternoons.

Except that WGGT did things a little different. It's "horror" host was a goofy redneck named Billy Bobb, and his show was called Billy Bobb's Action Theatre.

And believe it or not, someone somewhere has a trove of old recordings of Billy Bobb from WGGT and is now putting them on YouTube.

Here's a set of promos for Billy Bobb's Action Theatre...

And here are some commercials featuring Billy Bobb for area businesses...

I wonder whatever happened to Billy Bobb's puppet sidekick Junior Prankster. Probably moldering away forgotten in a sock drawer somewhere.

What else can be said but "Too Funny!" :-)

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