February 1, 2010

Plugged!: Infomania

Current is a pretty awesome TV station, not only because of their great shows, but also because they give episodes away FOR FREE on iTunes.

Now, I'm gonna cover a few of them through the months, but be assured: they're all quite funny/entertaining/informative.

One of the funniest Current shows on offer in the Podcast directory will definitely have to be Infomania.

A mix of The Daily Show and The Soup, Infomania is a "news" show in the sense that there is an anchor, and there are several "reporters" that go on duty each week to tell a message or comment on a story. Well actually, Infomania is more of a brief digest of the latest news and happenings on the media, and they compile and re-edit those clips to hilarious effect.

Hosted by Conor Knighton, the show offers a consistent blend of grassroots humor and intelligent sarcasm that gets me pumped for the next episode. Its regulars include an ensemble of 5 people: Brett Erlich who covers random topics that people like to post on YouTube in Viral Video Film School, Ben Hoffman who either covers the latest tech (aka, 3D porn) in the Tech Report, sarcastically comments on a certain topic (say, the Conan-Leno war) with the Infomania Editorial, interviews (and exposes the stupidity, in some cases) of web celebs through Interview with a Cewebrity or he just plain covers news and events like the Cougar festival, Sarah Haskins who comments on commercials geared towards women in Target Women, Sergio Cili who does a roundup of the Top 5 music (in a certain outlet, usually iTunes) in Sergio's White Hot Top 5, and Bryan Safi who covers random topics that concern gay people in That's Gay. Aside from that, Conor himself does a segment called We've Got You Covered which pretty much covers newly released magazines, and presents a bizarre magazine submitted by viewers ("How the *&^# is this a Magazine?") each week.

I can't think of anything really negative to say about the show, probably except for the relatively large 200MB file size that supplements the 20-something minutes of fun to be had. Actually, the more pressing issue is that Current does not allow people to resume downloads even after you stop them, so if you're pressed for time and you want to download infoMania, it's either leave the computer running or download it when you get home. Still, you can also watch this show on YouTube, Hulu, Facebook, or even the Current.com site. The site promises it won't geofilter your ass out.

Still, it's worth the 0 dollars you paid for the content, which is consistently good. I can't imagine how many people are at work with this show, since it includes so many clips from so many commercials and reality shows and news headlines, hell, even magazines too.

But to end this post, I'll just give you one example of the usual trends that get caught in this show's eyes: celebrity hypocrisy and irony. (Also includes: the reason why Martha was jailed, the first umpteenth 'referendum', and more)

Oh, Heidi Pratt, you annoy me so.


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