JibJab Rocks Obama

JibJab Assembles All-Star Rock Band and Premiers Latest Video with President in Attendance at the 65th Annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner.

Washington, DC – June 20, 2009 – JibJab, a leader in digital greetings and online entertainment, premiered its first satire of the Obama administration this evening at the 65th Annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner with the President himself in attendance.

The 2-minute musical video, entitled “He’s Barack Obama”, features the 44th US President in a super hero suit battling the challenges of our times to a heavy metal rendition of the American Civil War song, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”.

He’ll use his super powers to win in Iraq, Then kung-fu chop the Taliban! Ka-chow! Ka-cha! Our image in the world he’ll mend, Then make the Jews and Arabs friends! He’s Barack Obama, He’s come to save the day!

In a departure from their banjo-centric musicals of the Bush era, JibJab assembled an all-star rock band to perform “He’s Barack Obama”. Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflet and Taylor Hawkins were joined by Chris Chaney, Jane’s Addiction, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Jellyfish and Beck, and Jess Harnell, renowned television and film voice actor, under the direction of composer, John Frizzell, whose film scoring credits include ‘Office Space’ and ‘Beavis & Butthead Do America’.

The video’s animation style also represents a radical departure from past JibJab productions, replacing simple collage animation with a combination of frame-by-frame character animation and live action video.

“With a new President came the opportunity to push into new creative territory,” said JibJab co-founder and Head Art Guy, Evan Spiridellis. “Our goal was to push the quality of made-for-the-web entertainment farther than anyone has ever pushed it before and we hope our audience enjoys it.”

The video can be seen for free at JibJab.com.

This is the second time JibJab has premiered a video for a sitting US President. In 2007, the company released a satire of the news media entitled “What We Call the News” for George W. Bush at the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner.

“We live in an incredible time when creators can get their work out to a mass audience without gatekeepers,” said JibJab co-founder and CEO Guy, Gregg Spiridellis. “When we started the company 10 years ago, we couldn’t have dreamed that we’d have the incredible honor of entertaining two sitting US Presidents. God bless the Interweb.”

Evan and his brother Gregg were recently recognized by the Producers Guild of America as “The Digital 25: Visionaries, Innovators and Producers of 2009”. The honor was extended for their pioneering personalized entertainment product, ‘Starring You’, which enables people to upload their photos and put themselves, family and friends into funny JibJab videos and pictures. In the past 12 months, users have created over 47 million Starring You videos and pictures.

About JibJab Media: JibJab is a leading provider of digital greetings and online entertainment. From its offbeat Sendables® eCards to personalized Starring You!® videos and irreverent Original viral videos, JibJab is on a mission to help more people share more laughs than any other company in the history of the world. With over 100 million visits to its website in the past twelve months and 6 million registered members, the company is well on its way to doing it. For more information, please visit http://JibJab.com/about.

JibJab® and Starring You!® are trademarks of JibJab Media Inc. in the United States and other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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