Team Unicorn

Team Unicorn is a multi-media production team formed in Los Angeles, California in 2010. Its current members are American actresses Clare Grant (Walk the Line), Rileah Vanderbilt (Hatchet), Milynn Sarley, and Alison Haislip (Attack of the Show) who replaced Michele Boyd in 2014. The group released their debut parody song "G33k & G4m3r Girls" a.k.a. the "Geek and Gamer Girls Song",^[1] online in September 2010. The music video, spoofing Katy Perry's "California Gurls"^[2] was filled with geek cultural references ^[3][4][5] and pays tribute to women who love gaming, manga, and science fiction.^[6][7] The video reached 1 million views in its first week online^[8] and stirred controversy over its sexy portrayal of geek girls.^[9] Team Unicorn has since released the spoof 1950's industrial "A Very Zombie Holiday", a comedic eHarmony parody commercial entitled "superHarmony", a 50's "Beach Blanket Bingo" parody with an alien invasion twist called "Alien Beach Crashers", a parody of the Starship Troopers promo called "The UniCorps Wants YOU!", an original song set in a post-apocalyptic world, filled with geeky references called "For the Win", and their biggest hit to date, a Star Wars/Meghan Trainor parody called "All About that Base".^[10] All can be found on their website and YouTube channel.

Team Unicorn is also well known for incorporating cameos from existing popular figures in genre culture, including Seth Green, Katee Sackhoff, Stan Lee, Weird Al Yankovic, Aisha Tyler, Grant Imahara, Caprica's Magda Apanowicz, Derek Mears, Rachael Leigh Cook, James Gunn and Ashley Holliday. They also often utilize directors and writers already involved in the geek and genre community, including The Guild's Sean Becker, Zeb Wells from Robot Chicken and Marvel Comics, and Colton Dunn from MADtv. Popular culture references to the group include rare unicorns in the "Whimsyshire" level of Blizzard Entertainment's video game "Diablo III," named "Killaire," "Miss Hell," "Maulin Sorely," and "R'lyeh."

In 2013, Adult Swim announced that a Team Unicorn live action/animation hybrid pilot called "The Team Unicorn Saturday Action Fun Hour!" is currently being developed for the network with the creators of Robot Chicken,^[11] which introduces Alison Haislip as the new Blue Unicorn, and stars Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Tara Strong and Kevin Shinick.^[12][13]

Group history

Vanderbilt is largely given credit to bringing the four women of Team Unicorn together.^[14] She & Grant became friends in 2005 and began producing geek videos together, even winning two awards at the 2009 Star Wars Fan Film Awards^[15] for their short "Saber".^[16] Vanderbilt became friends with Sarley in 2009, introducing her to Boyd in January 2010,^[17] whom she'd met the same year, and the two became fast friends. All four women became friends when Vanderbilt, Sarley & Boyd decided to cosplay together as Sailor Moon characters at Comic-Con 2010, and asked Grant join them as Sailor Moon. Shortly after, while hanging out with Boyd, Sarley came up with the idea for "G33k and G4M3R Girls", and together they wrote the original lyrics, bringing Vanderbilt and Grant on board to finish the lyrics and produce the video. After the overwhelming response to the first video, more ideas quickly came and "Team Unicorn" was officially born. In 2011, the women became friends with Alison Haislip, who replaced Boyd as Blue Unicorn in 2014.

Television/Internet

Awards and nominations

References

1. ↑ Break Media (2010-09-10). "G33k & G4m3r Girls Song". Break.com. Retrieved 2013-07-25. 
2. ↑ Fox 5: Meet the Geek Girls
3. ↑ "MTV Splash Page: Katy Perry's 'California Gurls' Parodied In Awesome 'Geek And Gamer Girls' Video". Splashpage.mtv.com. 2010-09-15. Retrieved 2013-07-25. 
4. ↑ "Star Wars Shout Outs in "G33k & G4M3R Girls" Music Video | Star Wars Blog". Starwarsblog.starwars.com. 2010-09-10. Retrieved 2013-07-25. 
5. ↑ Wallace, Lewis (2013-03-28). "Spot the Geek Refs in ‘Geek and Gamer Girls’ Song". Wired. Retrieved 2013-07-25. 
6. ↑ Winda Benedetti (2010-09-11). "MSNBC.com: Look, a unicorn! Music video pays tribute to geeky gals and gamer girls". Technolog.msnbc.msn.com. Retrieved 2013-07-25. 
7. ↑ Flick, Action (2010-09-17). "Team Unicorn Interview". Actionflickchick.com. Retrieved 2013-07-25. 
8. ↑ Flick, Action (2010-09-17). "Interview: G33K & G4M3R GIRLS (Geek and Gamer Girls Video) 1 Week, 1 Million Views". Actionflickchick.com. Retrieved 2013-07-25. 
9. ↑ Flick, Action (2010-09-22). "G33K & G4M3R GIRLS Fangirl Furor: Should Geek and Gamer Girls Go Sexy, Sexless, Something Else?". Actionflickchick.com. Retrieved 2013-07-25. 
10. ↑ O'Neil, Lorena. "'Star Wars' Parody of 'All About That Bass' Is Out of This Galaxy". www.hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved 6 November 2014. 
11. ↑ ANDREEVA, NELLIE. "Adult Swim Announces New Series & Pilots". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 10 May 2013. 
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 The Deadline Team. "Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk Among Cast Set For Adult Swim’s ‘Team Unicorn’ Pilot From Robot Chicken Duo". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 28 May 2014. 
13. ↑ Goldberg, Lesley. "Adult Swim Sets Cast for 'Team Unicorn' Pilot". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 28 May 2014. 
14. ↑  Posted by FcoD at 2:02 pm. "The RadNerd Show:Episode 3.4 with Team Unicorn". Meltcomics.com. Retrieved 2013-07-25. 
15. ↑ "Official Star Wars Fan Film Challenge Web Site"
16. ↑ "IMDB Page for SABER"
17. ↑ Bagged and Boarded 83: For The Win
18. ↑ Break.com, September 10, 2010, Geek and Gamer Girls Anthem.
19. ↑ ANDREEVA, NELLIE. "Adult Swim Announces New Series & Pilots". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved May 10, 2013. 
20. ↑ Ohanesian, Liz. "Best Online Video: "Geek and Gamer Girls Song," by Team Unicorn". LA Weekly. Retrieved June 9, 2011. 

External links

• Official website
• Team Unicorn at the Internet Movie Database