The
Funny 115 - version 2.0
The
Afterword
A countdown like the Funny
115
might look like it is only a one person project (and lord knows it sure
felt
like it some nights). But there is no way I could have pulled
it off
without the help of some special people.
First
off, I would like to thank Cindi Betts, Darryl Liguori, and Troy
Maynard. Cindi, Darryl, and Troy are the three people who
provided me with copies of all the Survivor episodes from seasons 12-20
on DVD. So if I ever needed a particular screencap, all I had
to do was just
pop in my DVD into my computer and grab the exact picture or the exact
frame
capture I was looking for. As you can imagine, this ability
was
invaluable on a project like the Funny 115, where so much of the humor
was based on the screencaps. So a
very special thanks
for Cindi, Darryl, and Troy. There is no way I could have
pulled
off this project without the three of you.
Another
person I would like to thank is my friend Juhani from Survivor Sucks.
Juhani (who goes by the username Salarakas) was the guy who
put
together all the moving images (animated gifs) that are sprinkled
throughout the Funny 115. Did you like the gif of Jason Siska
nodding and smiling over and over like a goober? Or of Lisi
falling flat on her face?
Did you like the montage of the Fall of the Four Horsemen and
all
the looks on everyone's faces? Well Salarakas made all of
those
gifs
for me. All I had to do was send him a request saying what I
was
looking for and when I needed it by, and he would email me whatever
animated
gif I was looking for a few days before the entry was ready.
And
believe me,
some of those gifs were absolutely crucial to the success of the
writeup. So a big special thanks to Juhani for all the gifs,
and
for volunteering to be my gif guy before I had even started planning
out the countdown. Thanks again man, you were one in a
million.
And you were right. Animated gifs were the one
thing that
would have made the Version 1.0 countdown a lot better.
Some of Juhani's best work
Another group of people I would like to thank
are my friends from the POS (Previously on Survivor...) group over on
Facebook.
Not everyone out there is aware of POS, but if you are
looking
for a group of the wittiest, smartest, most smart alecky Survivor fans
on the internet, now you know where to go. I can't tell you how many
joke ideas I got for the Funny 115 simply from hanging around POS and
bouncing one liners off of some of the funniest people I know.
In
fact (shh don't tell anyone this) the Funny 115 probably would have
been done about three months ago if I didn't always get distracted by
some
random bizarre discussion over in POS After Dark. So
anyway, thank you
to the POS group for always inspiring me to write funnier material.
I can't name all of you because there are obviously so many
of
you, but in particular thank you to Big Mike Allbright, David Healy,
Joe Coombs, Justin Lesniewski, Lana Halperin, Chuck Meibeyer, Karl
Marquez, Zack Rovinsky, Denis Eyman, Logan Saunders, Jay
Fischer,
Kodi Ross, Adam Patterson, Jack Mourouzis, Shiun Eshidia, Shannon
Jeffreys, Angie McNeil, Ryan Lisman, Carl Hagemann, and Kacie
McCarthy. And of course anyone I forgot.
Hell, I'll
even thank Jim Early and Shannon Nobles too. You know, for
old
time sake.
Thank
you to my faithful readers who who have always offered me support and
feedback and friendship throughout the years. Obviously I
can't
name everyone here either, but a few names that stand out because they
have always been there for me are George Hanns, Brett Bower, Matt
Carter, Tomoe Tamauchi, Brian Michael Scully, Mark Polishuk, and Todd Gaines.
Thank
you to Rob and Nicole Cesternino for having me on their podcast to
publicize the Funny 115 back in February. Thank you to John
Norton, Paul Asleson, and the guys at The Tribe for having me on their
podcast as well. And thank you to all the Survivors (yes even
you
Randy) for being readers of the Funny 115 and for giving me such great
testimonial quotes.
Thank
you to Survivor Sucks for being the funniest f'ing
website in Survivor history, and for providing me with so much feedback
and so many ideas for material throughout the years. It might
be
trendy for people to crap on Sucks these days, and to say it is a shell
of what it used to be. But the Funny 115 would not exist if
Survivor
Sucks didn't exist first. It is and always will be
the #1
Survivor comedy site. In the words of the immortal Chris
Daugherty, "and that's a fact!"
Side note: Want
some examples of great Funny 115 ideas that people from Sucks have
given me over the past year? Well here are
three good examples.
And finally, I will finish by thanking my ever-patient and my
ever-supportive wife, Diana. Yes,
Diana, I am finally done with the Funny 115. Yes, it is
finally over.
And yes, now I will finally go out and rake the
leaves
in the front yard. Um, yeah. Sorry for the delay in
that. :)
****
Before
I sign off for good, I should probably answer a question that many
people over the past few weeks have been asking me. A lot of
people have been asking me, "Okay Mario, so now version 2.0 is done.
So
when do you think you will start on version 3.0? And what
entries
do you think you will write about on the third one?"
My
answer to that is simple. Jeez you jackals, give me a few
years
off! I won't even be thinking about version 3.0
until the
year 2016.
So anyway, there you go. There's my answer. If you
want there to be a Version 3.0, ask me again in about three
or four years. I won't even be thinking about it until then.
Although if you want to continue reading my stuff in
the meantime, might I suggest
going over to my archives
page and checking out my Experiences
with Survivor
essay? A lot of people don't realize that I do a lot of
writing
about Survivor other than the Funny 115 (or that, a few years
ago, I was at one point the most widely read Survivor writer
in the
entire world.) When all is said and done, I expect
that
my Experiences essay will probably be the single best thing I have ever
written.
It will probably wind up being better than the Funny 115.
So if you are looking for a Survivor fix between then and
now, and you like my writing, go
check out my Experiences essay. If you want to know what it
was
like to be a Survivor writer back in the show's heyday, if you want to
get all the dirt, you will get a kick out of
it. I am definitely planning to have a lot of
insider gossip in there.
Or, alternately, if you are sick of my writing, check out my friend
Justin Lesniewski's Survivor blog called The Midside.
You might not have heard about Justin yet, but he is
easily
the most in-depth and intelligent
Survivor analyst out there right now. He is so good at
analyzing
the themes
of each Survivor season that it is frightening. Stop by and
say
hi, and check out his stuff. And tell him I sent you.
****
So
I guess that's it. I started the research for Version 2.0
back in
May of 2010, and now, 19 months later, in December of 2011, it is
finally over. The project
is complete. I have milked my own milk. I have
nothing left
to suck.
Before I sign off, let me leave you with two little pieces of advice.
First
off, remember kids, you can be anything you want to be in life.
All your dreams can be realities. So go out and
learn to
climb trees. Learn to swim. Learn to hold your
breath.
Learn to catch fish. Remember that anything can be
accomplished in life once you learn how to skateboard.
Secondly,
and finally, remember that if you donate to my Funny 115 web hosting
costs, the Baby Jesus is going to smile on you. I
hate to always be pimping this out, since the Funny 115 is a free
website and it always will be. But this is one massive
website.
It probably contains more than 15,000 pictures, more than 200
animated gifs, and when all is said and done there are probably about
10,000 individual pages of written text. Basically what I am
saying is that I got absolutely reamed by two different web hosts this
summer because my bandwidth usage was too huge, and if there is any
chance that this site will still exist on the internet in two years
(when my domain expires) it will probably only be because of donations.
So if you would like to send me a dollar or two to help with
the
web hosting costs (the link is below), if enough people did that, it
really would help.
Again, this is certainly not mandatory. But again,
it
really would
help.
Well I guess that's it.
Sayonara for now, and I'll catch you on the flip side.
Thank
you for reading the countdown. I hope you enjoyed it.
Hey, I just wrote the Funny 115. What did you do?
Not that. Peace.
-Mario Lanza 12/20/11
The Dragon Slayer and me. Iron sharpens iron.
Chad Crittenden doing his homage to the Funny 115
Cochran
(a Funny 115 fan) and me doing Dragon Slayer poses. As
I throw in an added bonus of Erinn smiling evilly. I
figure
this was a perfect picture to end it on.
P.S. Coach and the Dancing Amandas say Merry Christmas!
P.P.S. Okay, you twisted my arm. Stephen Fishbach and the
Funny 115 All-Stars say Happy
Hanukkah too.
If you would like to make
a Paypal donation towards Funny 115 web hosting costs, here is the link: