ze frank staring into the camera with a Coca-Cola can taped to his face, a product-placement gag

the show with zefrank

A 249-episode web series produced every weekday for a year (2006-2007).


The foundation for nearly every YouTube show that came after:

“A grand-scale viewer-participation experiment” –Los Angeles Times
“The best sustained comedy run in the history of the web” –Slate
“Innovated numerous elements that now define the genre” –The New York Times


Drove conversations about web video, copyright, monetization, and branding into The Economist, Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal from a bedroom in Brooklyn. Frightening them so much they often failed to link back.

Featuring cameos from John Hodgman, Jack McBrayer, Chelsea Peretti, Jack Black, and Paul Rudd — plus thousands of contributions from the audience.


2021 tweet by @whitneyarner marking The Show’s 15th anniversary: it shaped the internet more than you probably know

New York Times Magazine feature The Online Auteurs, opening with a full-page portrait of ze frank
The Online Auteurs – The New York Times Magazine

On Mar 22, 2007, at 12:35 PM, ze frank wrote:

jonah@buzzfeed –

please meet erik gavriluk.

erik has worked with me on the show for the past year and has created the extensive technology that underlies both the show and the many projects that have sprung out of it.

erik worked as a developer and designer for microsoft in its early days and also founded bombfactory – an audio company acquired by avid/digidesign a couple years back.

I have met few people with as broad and deep of an understanding of the working mechanics of the online world, as well as the social rules that guide it.