Denis Leary joins the Hulu parade of aliens

The latest spokesman in Crispin Porter + Bogusky's ongoing alien-invasion series of commercials for Hulu is Denis Leary, in this Rescue Me-themed spot. His contribution to the cause involves advising us to embed Hulu videos on our "bliggity-blogs" and "facey-spaces." Not exactly a robust command of Web jargon, but to be fair, Denis has never been big on that sort of thing. After all, Bill Hicks wasn't.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Crispin Porter, Hulu
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Seth MacFarlane going giggity goo for Hulu

Hulu exposes another celebrity as an alien in this latest spot from Crispin Porter + Bogusky. This time it's Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy/American Dad fame. He's not telling us anything about Hulu that Eliza Dushku and Alec Baldwin haven't covered, but at least Seth has more voices with which to convey the same information. Using Roger the Alien's voice for Seth's gutworm was a nice touch, and shows an attention to detail that we wish Seth would apply to his other creative endeavors. Or failing that, he could at least bring back the olde-tymey weightlifters.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Crispin Porter, Hulu, Kiefaber, Television
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Eliza Dushku wants to eat your mushy brain

Dollhouse star Eliza Dushku is hungry for human brains. No, really. Her ad for Hulu.com, by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, picks up where Alec Baldwin's Super Bowl spot left off, admitting that the site was designed to give alien celebrities unprecedented access to our delicious mental matter. Of course, it took me a couple of views to retrieve this information, since her cleavage was jiggling right in front of the camera while she explained all this. There is a flaw in her plan, though. Once Dollhouse gets canceled after one season like every other Joss Whedon project that doesn't have "Buffy" in the title, she'll be back to square one.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Crispin Porter, Hulu, Kiefaber, Television
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Spencer Gifts throws fake dog poo at Hulu

Let's face it, despite the high-minded stuff, the Internet is mostly about finding new ways to waste time. The new ComScore rankings brought this to mind with its list of the fastest-growing Web sites. For some bloggers, the big news was the meteoric rise of Hulu. Not so fast. Sitting above the NBC U-News Corp. video site as the No. 2 fastest-growing site is none other than Spencer Gifts, redoubt of whoopee cushions, fart spray and "fundies." It turns out traffic has spiked from 2 million to 5 million visitors per month in the space of a year. I fondly recall strolling the aisles of Spencer's in Plymouth Meeting Mall as an adolescent, certain that I had found nirvana tucked next to Chil-fil-A. Good to see Spencer's is taking over the Web.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Filed under Hulu, Morrissey, Spencer Gifts
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Hulu hoping for a little hoodoo voodoo

Now we know: The eagerly anticipated online video channel from News Corp. and NBCU, the one designed to take on YouTube, will be called Hulu. I think it’s fair to say no one saw that name coming. You can almost feel the anticipation fading, like a test pattern on a pre-cable-ready Magnavox, to black. In April, Adweek’s “Just Asking” feature prodded industry execs to come up with names for the site. Some suggestions included tv.tv, Videus, NubeTube, HugeTube and WatchMe. At the time, those seemed pedestrian. But compared to Hulu, well, tv.tv and WatchMe don’t seem half bad. Oh! On a related topic, I just got it: Joost = Juiced! Sweet.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Hulu
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