It's a Very Runaway Box Christmas!

Happy Holidays, gang. Did you check out our cool new Runaway Box logo at the end of our videos? Yeah, it's a (runaway) box with a ribbon around it. How rad is that?

I just wanted to point out a few things if you haven't noticed them. We've got two very special musical takes on the way Runaway Box views the holidays. They are heartwarming. Here they are:

Daddy Home for Christmas

Lazy Christmas

Throw this shit on low, get on your holiday jammies, pour some egg nog, and you've got yourself a merry little Christmas, if I do say so myself. I think we have some songs here that knock "Gramma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" right out of the ring in the battle of "Funny Christmas Songs". By the way, does the image in the link seem incredibly wrong to anybody else?

Look forward to more musical holiday cheer later this month with Marty... But not in the way you'll expect.

Hope you guys are enjoying our new series! Which do you like best so far? Let me know in the comments section! And also, if anybody can tell me what wassle is AND explain why it exists, I'll give you five dollars. Not really, but pretend.

LIVE CHAT A SUCCESS!

So the first Runaway Box Live Chat has happened. We spent a thrilling two hours answering your questions from 8:00pm to 10:00pm EST last night.

Missed it? No worries! We'll be conveniently recapping the entire event in video form! Yay, less reading for you! See, we had been prepared because we knew you would either a.) forget, b.) remember but fail to figure out what time zone you're in, or c.) remember, but then quickly forget again when faced with the newest viral video of the day! If any of those apply to you, you are welcome. You can be expecting that soon, perhaps as a Christmas Present... or Hannukah, if that's your thang.

You'll have to excuse the brevity of this blog, I typed for the Live Chat last night for Woody and Andrew, and my fingers got quite the work-out. I think my fingers are in their best shape since my fingerpainting days, which is not saying a lot, I guess. Oh well.

Leave comments for prizes!

Coming Soon To Runaway Box

You know what's exciting? New Series. Don't you think so? We don't have any or anything, I was just saying. Wondering what you thought. I think it'd be pretty cool if we had one, though, but don't let my answer influence you. If new series aren't your thang then, fair enough, what can I say. But really, if we had one, you know you'd love it. How could you not? I mean, how cool would that be?

We really don't have one.

Seriously, we don't have one.

Ah, woah, he bolded and italicized the word "one". Now what are you thinking? You're thinking we have two new series. Yeah, you're not dumb. You can read between the lines.

THREE. Three new series. I did it, I dropped the bomb. Three new series debut next month. Are they good? I don't know. They might suck, they might be great. That's for YOU to decide! Read on if you're intrigued!

Good, you're still reading. Anyway, here's the important part to remember. We need YOU GUYS to COMMENT as much as possible. Let us know what you think! What you like, what you hate! And tell us why! It's crucial to what we're doing. So get pumped! We wanna hear all your thoughts.

I love you.

What's Your Top Six Things to Be Thankful For?

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Runaway Box Live Chat?

That's right. You read correctly. A Runaway Box live chat. However, that question mark at the end there... That's not a typo. We'd love to do it, but we're just wondering what the specifics will be: how long we'd be on, who you guys would want to talk to, and what we would talk about... Eventually we realized we're just too lazy to figure out all that crap ourselves, so we decided to let you do it. Afterwards, we also have a fence you can whitewash for us... it's really fun!

But really, take a look at this here video. Woody explains it all. And if you have answers to the above mentioned questions, leave them either under this post here, or on the comment section of that video! We'd love to hear from you.

We've never done something live before so this is kind of a big deal for us. We need you guys to help us along. It's like we're little birds learning how to fly..... but live, in front of a studio audience.

Help us spread our wings. Help us soar.

Candy Hangover

Hey, Gang. I imagine you are all too busy to do anything save gorge yourselves on baby-hippopotamus-sized sacks of candy from the recent holiday. I know at times you may get weary, maybe even a little sick, but you must press on. You can't let the candy defeat you. It's a matter of pride. I still have candy left over from a Halloween outing in '92 and I've never been able to live it down. Good news for you, though: I've got a few videos that were MADE to eat candy by.

If you haven't realized, Runaway Box was feeling quite festive this Halloween and made about 4 billion Halloween videos. Here are the five that came out good:

The Marty Show featuring Elvira
Thad's Halloween
Man in the Box - Halloween Boss
Man in the Box - Costumes
Elevator - Three Part Halloween Mini-series!
Part 2*
Part 3

*OKay, so to those of you who have paid attention... Yes, my character, creatively named "Paul", did get eaten by zombies in Part 2 of the Elevator Halloween Mini-series and re-appear in a later episode, entitled "Would you rather?", apparently non-zombified. If you watch closely though, you'll notice that I do make an appearance AS A ZOMBIE in Part 3 of the Elevator Halloween Mini-series, ultimately being sent back to the 13th Floor with the other zombies inhabiting the Elevator. Clearly, from there, my character Paul became King of the Zombies, being closest to life and therefore possessing the most powerful brain. The zombies slaved beneath Paul's iron fist for months (remember, time goes by differently on the 13th floor). Finally, Paul, growing bored of pointless dull conversation, simply walked to the elevator, pressed the down button, got on, and went straight to a dermatologist. Dr. Rubinstein cleared up all the bloody abrasions, sores, and decaying skin, as well as Paul's pale undead complexion. So basically in subsequent episodes Paul is still undead, he's just had a lot of work done. THANK YOU, DR. RUBINSTEIN!!! You guys couldn't figure that out? Shit, learn to read between the lines.

Anyway, enjoy! And for the record, my advice is to get through the candy corn sooner rather than later. You hit that in the final stretch and you're blowing chunks.

Dave Hill Sighted on 'Elevator'!

You can usually find Dave Hill interviewing celebrities on his Instant Talk Show.

Well, F that! We brought him into the Elevator for a little taste of his character "Randy", the impassioned crooner who's got a song for just about everybody who needs to change floors.

Dave coming in for this filming was actually the first time I got to meet him in person, and let me just say, he is just as charming and debonair as he is on screen. He was great to have around, and an awesome addition to the "Elevator" series. Hopefully he'll be around more often.

Below: Dave Hill, although it looks like his name should be something like... Skip McPerv here. Took this from his blog, which you can read here.

More Elevator Bloopers

You guys asked for them so here they are!

Bloopers for last week's Elevator episode -- "Don't Be a Drip".

Classic.



Post comments!

Felicitaciones a Spanish Mike... y el tigre azul!

I just wanna take the time to point out just how successful our "One Semester of Spanish Love Song" video has been.

Mike is now inexplicably an authority on first semester Spanish. The DVD has been requested by Pepperdine University for their first year Spanish program, the LA county Office of Education for use by their Pre-K Dual Language Teachers, and countless Spanish teachers from around the country for use in the classroom. Mike has also been invited to perform at the Cervantes Center's Folklore Festival... Mind-blowing.

On top of it all, later this week Mike is going to speak at Rocky River High, a high school in a suburb of Cleveland. A spanish teacher invited him to come in and talk to her class. I imagine there will be a lot of laughing, and little to no learning whatsoever. Sounds like my entire college experience, actually.

Below: Andrew, Jaime, and Woody have a celebration jam for Spanish Mike's success! And, the answer is, yes, their band sounds just as AMAZING as it looks.

Everybody, This is Thad. Say "Hi, Thad!"

Our new series "Thad" finally dropped on Monday, albeit to mixed reviews, but that was fully anticipated. It's not for everyone; just cool people. Check it out and see if you're cool! Then, test your friends!

But, seriously, it's an acquired taste, although four episodes in, it seems like people are really beginning to appreciate it. It's not as "in your face" as "Elevator" or "Man in the Box", but we figured it'd be good for us to experiment with some different "flavors", if you will, of comedy (my fav is cherry vanilla, but "Thad" is also good on a waffle cone). Animation seemed like a great idea, considering how much we love all those Pixar movies. Apparently computer animation is a little pricey these days; we felt little yellow pads were more in our budgetary range. So we bought some of those, threw them at our animator Zack, and waited to see what would happen.

Luckily, we scored big time with getting Zack on board. He's a really funny and super-creative guy. I highly recommend checking out his website, www.zacksmovies.com, and taking a look at some of his other projects. I particularly enjoyed "Annihilation (the making of)".

So here are a few frequently asked questions Zack gets about the animation, answered by Zack himself! Enjoy!

THAD ANIMATION FAQ:

Is the show really animated flipbook-style, with actual post-it notes?

Yes. I mean no. I mean yes. I use a generic brand of sticky note, but yeah, it's done flipbook-style. I don't use extra animation software, or any such nuttiness.

Doesn't it take a long time to animate it that way?

Kinda. If the show looks all crusty, that's my excuse. Hopefully, *said crustiness adds a quaint charm to the show.

How do you record the flipbook animations to video?

I just put the flipbooks flat on a marked space on a desk, then point a camera down and record. Each episode is made with multiple flipbooks recorded separately, but edited together to play like one long flipbook.

Who are you? Does Greg/Mike Polk animate the show?

My name is Zack, and I have flipbook skillz. Mike lacks *said skillz.

*I do not apologize for my indulgent use of the word "said" as an adjective. Said said usage amuses me.

More questions about "Thad" or anything else Runaway Box? Leave them in the comments section! Or if you just wanna, like, say hello... Blogging gets lonely.

IDK, my BFF Brody?

Softball Legend Bloopers with Brody Stevens.

So I've been trying to get some bloopers together from Elevator for a while now and finally it has come to fruition. Let's face it... we're not getting these pure comedic gems down on the first try. Sometimes not even the 15th. This one wasn't so bad getting through, but this stuff was just sitting useless on the cutting room floor (not literally, somebody might slip) and so with the help of Woody I finally got it up for you (that's what she said**)! If you enjoy these, there will be more!

Brody was great to work with, by the way. He's a really funny energetic dude, and you can check out his website here. If you look in his videos section you'll see that he apparently is not much of a softball player, though.

So before you watch the bloopers you'll have to check out the original perfect version by clicking here: Elevator - Softball Legend.

Anyway, enjoy, and make sure you leave comments! Let me know what you think or what else we can do!



**That makes no sense.

Hahaha... Wait, what?

The RunAway Joke of the Day. If you don't get it, then you're probably brain dead!

The Joke of the Day has been airing for quite a while now so I thought some of you might be curious about the process. As you probably assumed, it is, in fact, much akin to rocket science. Here we go.

Let me preface this by giving props* to Chuck for coming up with the idea. It was as simple as this: let's tell a joke once a day, air it daily at a certain time, and see what happens. Originally, it wasn't our intent to only tell terrible, terrible jokes. But we did want to get lots of our friends from around the workplace to come and tell a joke on camera, and in case they didn't have anything good, we decided to fill a fishbowl with some easy two-liners.

Well, that sort of backfired and everybody was just too lazy to attempt an actual GOOD joke. Also, we realized that short-and-quick worked better on the internet than a long preamble leading up to a punchline.

These terrible jokes we were telling in and of themselves are not funny. So, to make up for that we do one of two things, or sometimes both:

1. Present the joke in some wacky manner, like reading it in languages nobody understands, and never interpreting it, OR...
2. After the punchline, we jump into some random, irrational action, like somebody running up with a Polaroid to snap a picture, or simply eating the joke.

These two strategies are more than sufficient to get even the grumpiest person to kind of half-chuckle, or perhaps open their mouths slightly, like a smile in its fetal stage. And if either of those things happen, we've more than met our mark of being "mildly amusing".

As for some other "behind-the-scenes" info, you should know that some of the stuff is improvised, some of the stuff is planned just before the joke is performed, and absolutely none of it is planned anywhere outside the window of a minute and a half before the camera rolls. It's quite the process.

Oh, and, in case you're wondering... Those arms coming from off-camera with the joke jar? Yeah, that's usually me. We try not to put my face in things if we don't have to.

*Yeah, I give props like it's 1998.

BELOW: Chuck tempts Danila with another stunningly bad Joke of the Day!

This Blog Contains Brief Nudity

So, I'm sitting at my desk the other day when Woody approaches me, "Elevator" script in hand. He asks me to read it and see if I'd be comfortable doing it. I thought maybe my character had a lot of lines or something, and Woody was asking me if I'd be able to do it.

Well, yes, my character in this particular script does have a lot of lines (which, by "Elevator" standards is, like, four), but that wasn't what Woody was referring to. The opening line of the script read:

"PAUL is in the elevator, NAKED as the day he was born."

Now, I make it a point in my life to be naked as little as possible. Anybody who's seen me naked can relate. But, somehow, I convinced myself that my being ass naked was for the good of the show. Never one to turn away when duty calls, I read the rest of the script, accepted the role of "Paul the Naked Guy", and began bracing myself for the cruel anonymous YouTube comments about my body.

Here's how "Elevator" shoots go. We film a batch, (about ten, give or take), usually on a Friday. We'll bring in whoever the script calls for that isn't around the office (Harold the Janitor or HR Judy, or whatever special guest we may want, etc.), and we'll just shoot one after the other. We'll take a minimum of 4 or 5 takes of each episode, unless one is so spot on that we feel comfortable with it; in that case, we'll film one more just to "be safe", and we move on. When it comes time to film an episode that you're not in, you typically go grab a snack or a water and just hang out until you get called to set. Maybe one or two people stick around to watch the shoot. However, when it was my turn to be naked, the house was packed. Seriously. Standing room only. There were food vendors in the crowd. I saw people doing "The Wave". I can't explain this phenomenon other than that people purely enjoy witnessing me being uncomfortable. I don't really know why. Hopefully this watchability translates well on screen, which is more than I can hope for my silver dollar sized nipples.

I can't tell you what happens in this particular episode (which will be uploaded this week)-- you'll have to watch for yourself. And when it comes time to comment... please be gentle.

Also, this post has a lot of parentheses.

Spanish Love Song

For all of you mono-linguists out there trying to court a spanish-speaking hottie, finally an answer! Just sing them runawaybox's "Spanish Love Song", and they'll fall right into your arms! And by "fall right into your arms", I do mean "slap you in the face".

If you haven’t seen Spanish Love Song yet, I’d like to call you an idiot, but I won’t in fear you’ll take offense and not come to our site anymore.

It’s been up for a while though. Mike Polk (Greg from “Man in the Box”) wrote and performed it, and we filmed here in Los Angeles when he was visiting. It’s been featured in our Music Box since the first day we had the site re-designed. If you’re not going to watch it to see a really white guy make an ass of himself (sorry, Mike) by passionately belting out lyrics such as “Mi gato es muy blanco”, then watch for the smokin’ hot object of Mike’s ojos, Rosa (I think that was her name, and I could double-check, but that would mean I’d have to get up, so…). Anyway, check it out, leave comments, and love us. I SAID LOVE US, DAMMIT!

One (elevator) Door Closes, and Another One Opens

Hey guys! Happy September! I know a lot of you have heard that “Elevator” will no longer be daily. Starting this month, it’ll be going back to the good ol’ fashioned once a week routine. I know it’s a bummer. Typically, when things go from happening daily to once a week, it’s never something to be happy about. Like eating, for instance. You’d die. Or, like, showering. If you showered once a week, everybody would hate you. Or if you were gettin’ some every day, and all of a sudden she’s like “Once a week until we get engaged” and now it’s zero times a week because you’re just not ready for that kind of commitment, okay, Andrea? You’re always pressuring me! Stop pressuring me!

Anyway, the good news is that “Man in the Box” will be daily ALL THIS MONTH. See? We’re taking care of you. For the next month, take comfort in the fact that while you’re at your crappy job you’ll practically be sitting next to the one person in the world who is more bitter and disgruntled than you are: Greg Bizjack. I imagine that wouldn’t be at all comfortable under normal circumstances. Actually, maybe it’s not in this case either. Whatever, your call. I’m just the messenger.

Testing All RunAway Box Fans' Literacy...

Aaaaaaaaaand we've done it. RunAwayBox.com has made the leap to the world of blogging! Assuming the majority of our fans know how to read, this may actually work out!

The RunAway Blog will be our way of keeping you updated on what's happening "BEHIND-THE-SCENES" here at runawaybox. I, Paul, will be heading up the blog, and I'm sure some other people will be dropping by occasionally to put in their two cents on what's going on. Want some hints on what's coming up next on "Elevator"? Check out the RunAway Blog. Want to be the first to know about new projects? Check out the RunAway Blog. Have questions, comments, ideas? Post to the RunAway Blog and get a quick response! Want to know what Woody ate for lunch, what kind of shoes Jaime is wearing, Joe's shampoo of preference*? Well, that's kind of creepy!

But, seriously, if you're interested in hearing some funny tidbits about what went on off-camera during a certain shoot, you'll find it here! It's like a commentary track on a DVD, except you have to read it! I know reading was just a passing fad of the 1990's, akin to the Reebok Pump and Tae-bo, but just pretend you're deaf and are reading subtitles that are accompanied by images. Or maybe you actually are deaf, in which case, I'm terribly sorry.

Basically, the RunAway Blog is the place to come for the inside scoop. So check back regularly, updates will be frequent!

UPDATE!

Remember our YouTube channel, ManintheBoxShow? Well, starting September 4th, you can forget it! (Sorry to sound all infomercial-ly). Anyway, we're moving to a brand new channel: youtube.com/runawaybox. This is the channel we've always wanted, but were too witless to do right the first time! Starting September 4th, you will only be able to find all new episodes of "Elevator", "Man in the Box", and "Dave Hill" at youtube.com/runawaybox! Want to relive the glorious past few months of RunAwayBox videos? Just look in our favorites on youtube.com/runawaybox. They're all there! Subscribe to the new channel and automatically receive the newest videos from runawaybox! Or as I like to say: SET IT... AND FORGET IT!

Somebody stop me.

*Suave for Men