aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Sunday, October 02, 2005

SNL’s “Creative Commons Comics”

These three are a model I’ll point to when working with students:

Live from New York, it’s—three comic talents who first made a name for themselves on the internet.

Andy Samberg will become a performing member of Saturday Night Live’s 31st season cast debuting Oct. 1, while Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer have joined the show as writers.

But all three got their first big break online, thanks in part to the viral popularity of video shorts they released on the net.

In a move that may have helped fuel rapid grass-roots distribution, the comics released their work under Creative Commons licenses, which essentially let anyone copy a given work for free provided that person doesn’t try to profit from it.

Here’s Xeni Jardin’s Wired article on the three.

Last night a group of friends got together to eat pie and watch SNL. The consensus was that the show was “not so great.” I recall doing that same thing 30 years ago. That the show has lasted that long, that’s what’s so great.