The JibJab Blog

Stick Your Face In It!

Cardboard Counterparts

Last week was bittersweet as two of our staffers set sail from the JibJab offices to work for us remotely in locations outside of Venice, CA. We were sad to not have Johan and Amanda’s smiling faces around the office, so a few weeks ago we tricked them into posing for some full body photos and quickly had these cardboard cut outs made without them knowing.

At their going away party Friday, we unveiled the cardboard counterparts that would be stationed around the office in their absence. Though photo-accurate, they’ll never replace the real things! 😦

Afterwards, we drowned our sorrows with a keg. Thanks Johan and Amanda!

April 5, 2010
Easter Bunny Variations

As we roll into Easter weekend, here is an up-close look at the clay bunnies we created for our stop-motion piece, with a pear for size reference. We like to stay healthy. The ears and arms were reused for the squished version of the bunny, while the eyes had to be molded to bug out when he was eventually taken away. Teeth are little painted strips of paper and the eggs are meticulously painted little specks of clay. Happy Easter everyone!

April 2, 2010
JibJab Roulette

Big sites have been changing this week, Digg revealed a new layout, YouTube updated it’s design and we’ve added new features to our community that we’ve been working on for a long time to make reality. JibJab now supports webcams for birthday greetings! For now, we haven’t figured out exactly how to connect you with your friends and family, so using our webcam service will end up connecting you to someone you don’t know.

We’re dividing users into two groups, those currently celebrating their birthdays and those who are not. You can log onto our site, specify your birthday and either start receiving birthday greetings from strangers by webcam or start giving out birthday greetings to strangers by webcam!

Check it out by clicking the “Get Started” button below!

April 1, 2010
April Foolin
For April Fools this year, we kicked around a bunch of ideas before landing on JibJab Roulette…

Announcing a flash-compatible tablet computer for accessing our website… and nothing else

Introducing “Starring You Sympathy eCards for Funerals”, featuring a breakdancing Pallbearer

Redirecting the homepage to and old incarnation of our site via the Way Back Machine

In the end, JibJab Roulette won out and we had some fun with screen captures, trying to create exactly what JibJab Roulette would entail. Of course, this meant Dan taking his shirt off.
April 1, 2010
Lost Lost Matzahmatic

The Matzahmatic below reveals our original plans for Matzah, along with some deleted scenes and verses. Compare it to the final video embedded further below!

March 31, 2010
Behind the Matzah

As a Passover treat, we dug up our photo albums and production files from 5 years ago to expose all the really cool, really hard work that went into the awesomest Pesach rap to grace the internet. Click here to check out our production art, and click here to compare to the final product!

March 30, 2010
Cleveland Rocks!

We caught a Facebook fan last night posting about a JibJab mention on The Cleveland Show and we had to hunt it down. Apparently Cleveland Brown is a fan of our work. *huffs fingernails* Thanks for the shout out Cleveland!

By the way, we added in the “spinner” with Cleveland’s voice.

March 29, 2010
Busting Bunny Moves

The majority of our stop motion animations start with hand drawn animations that are impressive by themselves. Devin told us that the most integral part of getting the animation right on this one was to practice all the dance moves in person. Now there’s a video we wish we had.

Send “Easter Dinner” by following this link!

March 26, 2010
Not that kind of love…

While creating a postable inspired by our chocolate cravings, we quickly realized that the family-friendly concept we were going for could go awry quite easily. A quick image flip and we were back on track… close call.

March 25, 2010
Rocking Lunch with NELSON!

Our staff has an addiction to rock star lifestyle, we’re willing to admit it, especially looking back at all the guitar shredding moments that we’ve had over the last year. So when legendary rockers like the guys from Nelson call us up, we heed the call. We were excited to find out that they were fans of us (especially considering that we’re fans of them) and had them down today for a studio tour and lunch. Discussions are afoot, we may be doing something rockin’ with the boys in the near future!

March 24, 2010
Keep An Eye Out…

Anthony has been testing out webcam technology for a new super secret project we have in the works. Using a camera hooked up to your computer, pretty soon you should soon be able to take a facial photo for a “Starring You” video right at your desk! We’ll be announcing the massive project next month so keep your eyes on this blog. Or at least one of your eyes

March 23, 2010
Concept Cotton Tails

Romney came up with these little guys when he was assigned to design a bevvy of bunnies for an upcoming Easter animation. We ended up going with the tall rabbit on the right and made a clay model out of it for stop-motion animating.

March 22, 2010
Live with Regis, Kelly & JibJab!

Have you tuned into Live with Regis and Kelly this week? If you have, chances are you’ve seen JibJab’s animated dances featured on the show, a cameo we are extremely excited about! The people at Regis and Kelly were radical enough to approach us about providing some background animation for their *takes a deep breath* Spring-Fling-Trivia-A-Go-Go. Through the next few months we should be making regular morning appearances on the show along side Regis & Kelly’s trivia questions!

How do you play? Send them a snapshot of yourself and the duo may call you up with a trivia question that could win you any number of ridiculous prizes ranging from trips to vehicles, cruises, cash or gift cards. Check out their site for how to enter and a funny video where Regis is flabbergasted by the animated dancing. Thanks to the crew at Regis & Kelly for getting us involved, and stay tuned for even more dances headed your way soon!

March 19, 2010
The Conversation with Scott Kirsner

Newteevee just posted up a video interview of interest featuring JibJab founders Gregg and Evan. Conducted by Scott Kirsner of Cinema Tech, the chat covers all sorts of JibJab stories from days of yore, from the challenges of streaming singing animations over 56k connections to today’s plans to cover our production costs. Check it out below and get to know your pals at JibJab a little better.

Scott also wanted us to spread the word about his grass-roots gathering called THE CONVERSATION. We attended the 2008 incarnation of this digital distribution discussion and found it most intimate and enlightening. If you’re interested to learn more about the ever evolving state of digital media, social media and making content for the Web. THE CONVERSATION is taking place on March 27th at Columbia University in New York City. Read about how you can register to hear from the people of the Webby Awards, the Sundance Festival, HBO, Sony and many more.

We might even be there too!

March 18, 2010
Follow the Rainbow to Facebook Photos

We just posted up some concept art on Facebook from our two new videos this year, the Breakdancing Leprechaun and a Few St. Paddy’s Pints check them out by clicking this link or the picture below!

Bonus goodie: The animatic to our Stop Motion short!

March 17, 2010