Heavy.com

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heavy.com is a broadband entertainment website founded in 1998 in New York City. The site was founded by David Carson and Simon Assaad in the wake of the popularity of their first series of video shorts, Behind the Music that Sucks.^[1] Heavy emerged intact from the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001 and is still helmed by Carson and Assaad, both of whom also helped Cablevision found the Fuse Network in 2003.^[2] Heavy.com is wholly-owned by Heavy Inc. of New York, NY.

Heavy is primarily responsible for creating and producing largely comic programming for the Internet. Original titles include "Behind the Music that Sucks," "Blisster," "American Suck Countdown," and several Machinima series (based on GUN, God of War, and Tony Hawk's American Wasteland). Some of these programs have been aired on cable television networks worldwide, and gone into syndication as well. Heavy has also produced several noteworthy online flash games including "Iron Stomach," "Bitchslap a Rockstar," and "Psycho Bondage Bunnies" (1 & 2).

In addition to creating its own content, Heavy features many internet cult video series such as the Fensler Films infamous "G.I. Joe" parodies, "Tourettes Guy", and the "Star Wars Kid" parody series, as well as providing a forum for thousands of other viral videos.

[edit] Original Programming

American Suck Countdown is a weekly current-events animation series which began life a parody of American Bandstand for the cable music network MuchMusic USA^[3]. During its run on cable, viewers were able to vote for the worst videos of the week, but after the series moved to its permanent home online, its focus widened from music to pop culture as a whole. American Suck Countdown has a snide comic tone, featuring irreverent, often vulgar, commentary on pop culture figures, objects and news events. The shorts run approximately three minutes each and employ cutout animation based largely on celebrity photographs and stock images. Each weekly piece is presented as a "Top 10 list", and is (appropriately) narrated by a Casey Kasem sound-alike.

Archibald of Uranus: A three-part machinima based on the skateboarding video game Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland. In the story, the game’s nameless protagonist plays the role of the titular character, a skater with "sweet skills", visiting earth in a quest to destroy French-Canadian pop singer Celine Dion, save the skaters of the world from the wrath of the game’s heavily-tattooed villain, and hook up with "easy Earth bitches." The shorts feature much wordplay on the term "Uranus."

Behind the Music that Sucks: An ongoing series of comic pieces conceived as a parody of VH1's popular biography show Behind the Music. Behind the Music that Sucks has a snide comic tone, featuring irreverent jabs at pop stars and celebrities. The shorts run approximately three minutes each and employ cutout animation based largely on celebrity photographs and stock images.

BLISSTER: Clip reels of Warren Miller-style extreme sport stunt footage and odd-ball pranks, set to a skate punk soundtrack.

Dr. Philpra, The Colossus Whisperer: An ongoing machinima series based on the medieval action-adventure game Shadow of the Colossus. The game’s protagonist, Wander, portrays Dr. Philpra (a portmanteau of the names of self-help icons Dr. Phil McGraw and Oprah Winfrey), a talk show host who confronts the game’s various villains in an effort to get them to face their self-esteem issues. The series’ title is also a play on the 1998 Robert Redford tearjerker, The Horse Whisperer.

The Fun Nugget Variety Show: A series of self-contained machinima skits based on the futuristic game "Ratchet and Clank."

G-Nanny 911: A machinima based on the urban adventure game "True Crime: New York City." The game’s protagonist, Marcus Reed, portrays the title character, an occupational therapist and motivational expert with a foul mouth and a violent streak, confronting cases of workplace graft, inefficiency and low morale.

Hardtack Montana: The Tourette's Cowboy: A three-part machinima based on the Old West game "GUN." The game’s protagonist, Colton White, portrays the title character, on a quest to avenge the murder of his Canadian sidekick Pico. The series features a lot of colorful swearing.

HeavyNews: An ongoing series, focusing on recent news events or comically spinning footage into new fictitious stories. The tone of the series is consistent with Heavy's other original content: irreverent, snarky and pop culture-obsessed. The segments are typically, but not always, hosted by a talking sock puppet (fittingly named “Sock”), stationed behind an upturned cardboard box. Heavy generally generates a new HeavyNews piece daily.

Pimp My Weapon: An on-going series of machinima skits based on the action video game "God of War." In the series, the game’s hero Kratos - originally based on a character from Greek mythology - portrays Ron Johnson, one-half of a handyman duo hosting a segment on weapon use and maintenance for the fictitious "How-To" Network. Both Kratos / Johnson and his equally fierce-looking, sword-wielding sidekick Stan Grossman speak with heavy Minnesotan accents. Pimp My Weapon was created in conjunction with Sony, the game’s creator, for both entertainment and marketing purposes in 2005, becoming one of the first machinima created to serve both purposes.