The JibJab Blog

Stick Your Face In It!

New Starring You Movies and Dances Galore!

We just launched a few wacky and useful Starring You videos that are far too funny to let slip under the radar.

First up, we’ve got a new graduation Starring You that answers the question “what now” with “who knows?”

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Then its a new Arabian Nights Starring You dance that’s more than definitely the wackiest thing we’ve ever put on the site. This one is a bit exotic and more than a bit hairy. We figured American Idol finalist Adam Lambert’s exotic hair was a good match.

Vodpod videos no longer available.
Finally, back by popular demand is our Silent Film Starring You, which we premiered around Valentine’s Day. Now it can be used separate of the holiday, just to say “I love you” to the person you “pine” for! Enjoy and spread virally!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

May 20, 2009
Showing Some Serious Support

Some venture capital investors write checks, attend board meetings and make strategic business introductions for their companies. Our lead investor, Jon Flint, who is co-founder and managing general partner of Polaris Venture Partners, takes it one steps further. He gets down to the grass roots level, making Starring You pictures and videos and sharing them on Facebook. So, in addition to the capital, guidance and relationships Jon has provided to help us build a great business, he is also busy generating referral traffic for us. Thanks for everything Jon!

May 19, 2009
BARACKN’ROLL!

We’re happy to announce that we’ve been hard at work on our next big political satire! Our skewering of Obama is set to be our most rocking piece yet, literally. We’ve assembled an all star band of legendary rockers to craft a new song of epic proportions. Gaze upon their rock, mortals…

On lead guitar and drums, Foo Fighter’s very own Chris Shiflett and Taylor Hawkins! On bass guitar, Chris Chaney, of Jane’s Addiction and Alanis Morissette fame! And on keyboard, Roger Joseph Manning Jr, core member of the Jellyfish as well as session keyboardist Beck, blink-182 and Johnny Cash!

The song is in it’s final stages and animation is now underway. Stay tuned for more updates!From left to right: composer John Frizzell, Evan Spiridellis, Gregg Spiridellis, Roger Joseph Manning Jr, Chris Shiflett, Taylor Hawkins, Chris Chaney and Freddy “The Fredster” Wiedman.

May 19, 2009
A Funny Guy, eh?

Andy, our brilliantly funny writer and Director of Development, works with artists and editors to produce dozens of projects for the site at a time. Pitching projects and writing scripts all day keeps him perennially buried under piles of outlines and half-baked ideas. Literally. You can see his comedic mark all over the site, he’s even done a little acting for us, though we won’t tell you how many Starring You videos he’s lent his body to. Here are a few snapshots from the daily routine. Lookin’ good, Andy, keep the funny coming!

See the full album on our facebook page!

May 15, 2009
We’re Workin’ On It!

What are we working on? Here’s a face you might recognize…

Big updates within the next week!

May 14, 2009
Your Graduation Station

Graduation ceremonies are traditionally sprinkled throughout May and June, so in preparation we’ve revamped our collection of graduation eCards to include a bounty of new material. We’ve packed each congratulation with smart humor for that smart grad, including a new song, some funny remixes and some great new castable art. By the way, you can get the castable pictures printed on cards and mugs in time for those graduation parties this summer. Here’s a JibJab staffer’s soon-to-be graduated brother, with the two big pieces of paper every graduate receives.

Click and make your own!

May 13, 2009
iJibJab?

Our product team has loaded up the development pipe with more new web features than you can shake a stick at. That means if you saw our Director of Development’s to-do list, you would want to crawl under a blanket and call out for your mommy. Does Chris do that? Heck no! In his spare time (which, trust us, is minimal) he taught himself how to develop software for the iPhone and then built a prototype for an awesome JibJab iPhone app. There’s nothing we prize more here at JibJab than passion and inventiveness and Chris has both in spades. As a result, a very cool iPhone app is in your future. Stay tuned…

May 11, 2009
JibJab Moms

In tribute of our moms this Mother’s Day, we asked our staff to share some pictures of their moms to be honored in true JibJab style. Here’s to you, moms! You made us funny and we hope we’ve made you proud!

All of these postables are up on our site, with loads of Mother’s Day videos and images. Check em out!

May 8, 2009
Shaking Up Starring You

Scribbling on the back of a napkin to express an idea is so 2008. Here, Phillip uses a napkin, sugar packs and salt and pepper shakers to express some thoughts he has on how to make casting Starring You a better user experience.
(Of course, there was beer involved).

May 7, 2009
Mas Margaritas Por Favor!

Those familiar with the blog know that every Wednesday, we get a wagon full of treats at the JibJab offices. It’s pretty much the only thing that keeps the funny flowing. Yesterday however, we were surprised with a special Cinco De Mayo treat. The wagon came a day early and it came bearing chips, dip and margaritas! We set up a not so hidden camera to capture the wagon’s grand entrance.
Vodpod videos no longer available.

May 6, 2009
Mom’s Day is On!

Mother’s Day is sneaking up on everyone this weekend, even us. This year we’ve added loads of stylized content to our vast array of funny Mother’s Day eCards, but with a few interesting changes. We did some research and found that the majority of people have a hard time getting a hold of a nice clear digital picture of their mom. With this in mind, we decided to make a Starring You that features her favorite person; you! After all, your mom does love seeing that face of yours. We hope.

Vodpod videos no longer available.Check out the rest of our Mother’s Day eCards starring both you and her over at our spruced up Mother’s Day category where you can make one today and schedule it for delivery on Sunday!

May 5, 2009
Jokes and Spokes

Working out of Venice beach, at least half of our staff bikes to work every day, riding down the shoreline or through the colorful neighborhoods. This has lead to a massive bike room, with six racks, spare tires, helmets and pumps strewn everywhere. And a scooter. Evan rides the scooter.

Some of the bikes are really tricked out, we’ll do a spotlight on some of our bike enthusiasts and the sick tricks they can do as the summer heats up!

May 4, 2009
That Mexican Thing Sweeping the Nation

The taquitos are bought, pinatas are strung and the cervezas are chilling for Cinco De Mayo partying this weekend! But before we could get in the mood for a fiesta, a certain pandemic started sweeping the nation that we couldn’t ignore.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Happy Cinco De Mayo weekend, everyone! Make sure to check out the our YouTube channel and our new Mexican hat dance!

May 1, 2009
The Make of the Week

Beginning this week, we’re going to start featuring our favorite fan made Starring You creations! We’re always amazed to see how many pets make their way onto our dancing videos, in fact we’ve been kicking around ideas for a pet based Starring You for a while now.

This week we found this dancing dog version of the La Cucaracha posted by twitter user Frugal Dougal (who appears to be a dog that tweets). Once you look past the initial weirdness associated with two dancing anthropomorphic dogs, one comes to realize how ridiculously funny this is. Call it our Cinco De Mayo spirit, but now we want to cast some canines on here, with Chihuahuas this time! Good dog, Frugal Dougal, you’re the best dog to ever tweet on twitter.

Vodpod videos no longer available.Feel free to leave your best makes in our comments section or post them up on our facebook wall. Let’s see if you can out weird today’s entry!

April 30, 2009
This one goes out to all the moms out there…

11 days until Mother’s Day and our design team has their nose to the grindstone, filling up our Mother’s Day category with pictures and videos that a wide variety of moms will appreciate. Most of our new videos are up, and this week you’ll be seeing a mess of new pictures go live. Justin is pictured here, putting finishing touches on some of the new art and waiting on text from our writers. His wall of crayon drawings is the biggest and best here at JibJab, itself worthy of it’s own blog entry!

Hit up our Mother’s Day section where you can schedule eCards today to send on Mother’s Day. And don’t forget to keep checking back for new content all this week… we’re confident that we’ve got the best tributes to mom on the net!

April 29, 2009