August 5-11, 2004

naked city

Land Grab

Jibjab.com has landed a Wharton grad and his brother in the political spotlight." width="180" border="0" height="180" /> JABBER JAWS: A song parody on Jibjab.com has landed a Wharton grad and his brother in the political spotlight.

Brothers with local ties make election-time waves with an Internet hit.

by Rebecca Bellville

You know that video floating around the Internet with right-wing nut job George W. Bush and liberal wiener John Kerry hurling insults at each other to the tune of Woody Guthrie's famous "This Land is Your Land"? (Bush: "You have more waffles than a house of pancakes/ You offer flip-flops, I offer tax breaks." Kerry: "You can't say nuclear, that really scares me/ Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy.")

Wouldn't you know that the video, which has gotten about 30 million hits since it went online July 9, kind of had its beginning right here in Philadelphia?

The video's creators, Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, grew up in Marlboro, N.J., and moved on to New York City, where Evan went to design school and Gregg started his career in investment banking. Gregg then went to Wharton for his master's degree in business administration. One day in 1998, Evan was hanging out at his brother's apartment in Philadelphia when Gregg showed him an online Shockwave video of a dancing piece of poo, the work of Ren & Stimpy Show creator John Kricfalusi. "We thought, 'Wow, this could be the future,'" Evan recalls. In 1999, the same year Gregg graduated from Penn, the two started their animation company, JibJab Media, out of a Brooklyn garage. Evan says they picked the name because it was short, fun and didn't mean anything — perfect for the Internet. Gregg is the writer; Evan, already an independent animator, is the artist.

Fast-forward five years: The two have moved on to a warehouse in Santa Monica, Calif., and their video "This Land" (you can check it out at

www.jibjab.com) has landed them on CNN and Fox News, in the Los Angeles Times and a host of other media outlets. Evan says he and Gregg find it weird to have created something that has become a part of public life. They have little time to catch their breath and enjoy their 15 minutes of fame — which they really hope lasts longer than that.

What's really strange, Evan says, is that pretty much everyone who's seen "This Land" likes it. The popularity of their other videos ("Ahnold for Governor" was shown at this year's Sundance Film Festival) is more "hit and miss," he says.

"The fact that this is playing to 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds is the weirdest thing," Evan says. "It's a really humbling experience."

What probably makes the video so popular is that it equally mocks both Bush and Kerry. As one anonymous viewer posted on JibJab's Web site, "Sent the link to my Dad a freakin LIB and me a Right Wingnut and we talked politics for the 1st time in years while smiling!"

That means the brothers are closely guarding who gets their vote come November.

"The strongest reaction that we've gotten is that people from both sides of the fence can sit down and watch this thing together, so we would hate to have any bias," Evan says. "We will say that we'll go out and vote, but we'll never say for who."

The brothers have even managed to squeeze some donations out of "This Land" — about $1,000 thus far, or so they told Jay Leno recently.

"We're not going to lose money on this," Evan says, "but you don't make Internet cartoons to get rich."

While the Internet videos are what they really enjoy making, Gregg and Evan also make corporate advertisements to pay the bills, along with their "Nasty Santa" toy line and children's books such as Are You Grumpy, Santa?, released last year. Their blog refers to "a number of new business opportunities" since the success of "This Land," but Evan won't detail them.

"Right now we're sort of trying to wade our way through these calls and make the right next move," he says.

Not everyone is happy about "This Land," though. The Richmond Organization music publisher, which owns the copyright to Guthrie's song, wants the video to disappear from cyberspace.

"This puts a completely different spin on the song," Kathryn Ostien, TRO's director of copyright licensing, told CNN. "The damage to the song is huge."

TRO referred questions to its lawyer Paul Licalsi, who did not return calls for comment.

One of the brothers' lawyers, Ken Hertz, told CNN, "We consider it a case of political satire and parody and therefore entitled to the fair use exemption of the copyright act." Evan says that while they were issued an order to cease and desist, he and Gregg are reasonably sure that this exception applies to their video.

"Attorneys on both sides are talking, and I don't think anyone wants to go to court," he says.

It doesn't seem like JibJab meant any harm. Evan says they're both huge Guthrie fans and consider him the ultimate political songwriter. Their admiration prompted them to parody "This Land is Your Land."

"We thought," says Evan, "if Woody Guthrie was around, what would he be singing about?"