I’m old enough to remember Ze Frank and the rest of the internet of that era. The Homestar Runner era. Mannnn I miss those days. The internet was infinitely cooler. Social media and Gen Z ruined it all :(
I played way too much of the Trogdor game, back in the day.
To the topic of this thread: I am aware of Ze Frank, my sister showed me a couple of his nature videos (the series is True Facts, if I recall correctly). The one about Hummingbirds was funny. I don't know anything else about Ze Frank, however.
Before he did those True Facts nature videos, he did "The Show". It was a short daily video that was done for 1 year. I feel like that's the heart of his work, his magnum opus.
The Earth Sandwich video above is a pretty good example of what it was like. He was wildly creative and spawned lots of community projects. I think it was all from his personal website (though the videos are on youtube now). I know I participated in at least one, but I can't recall what it was. A friend of mine put a costume on her vacuum cleaner as part of another. It was a lot of fun.
I suspect watching the videos now would not work as well since they were timely (often reacting to news of the day). Also, Internet culture was newer at the time and he was blazing new ground in many ways. I don't think he even tried to monetize any of it. Thinking about it now, it definitely evokes a "good old days of the Internet" feeling in me.
This came up yesterday with some friends. Yet again, amazed, that others my age have no clue who ZeFrank was.
I wish he'd go back to his old show/model. Yet as Bill called out it, definitely in the early days of the internet and may not work as well.
Still, I want to go back and re-watch his stuff. I believe a fair amount of it was lost though. I remember going back years ago to his site and only a handful still worked. Seems like many have made their way to YouTube though.
Edit - ok maybe I'm wrong. Just looked at his YT, seems like there are a ton of episodes out there. Man, hearing "speed racers" takes me back. Ahhh the good ol days of the internet.
