Digital comedy site CollegeHumor is thrilling fans with its newest project- a charity initiative called Malarious. In partnership with Malaria No More, the effort will raise money for the battle against the disease.
Malarious’s Cirque du Malaria is a series of vaudevillian comedy clips, featured at collegehumor.com/malarious. The videos include bits from famous celebrities, including David Arquette, Allison Williams and Tony Hale. CollegeHumor fans can flip through the selection for a minimum donation of $1.
Arquette, who is seen wearing a tux-style speedo, shared his appreciation for the Internet and the artistic freedom it provides.
“You don’t have to deal with the executive aspects of it, approvals and content restrictions. It allows for creativity, and it also allows you to do something in a shorter format that you can serialize,” Arquette said. It’s “kind of like a vaudeville model for the new age, where it’s two-minute pieces of content that essentially are people’s sweet spot for their attention span.”
Allison Williams also gushed about the project.
“The fan base that CollegeHumor has, and a lot of these actors have, lends itself to younger fans. When you’re young, other than volunteering, there are very few opportunities to reach out and be charitable, so when an organization says ‘You can literally give us a dollar, and you’ll be helping’ it’s a really user-friendly way to do something charitable,” she said.
President of original content at CollegeHumor Media Sam Reich agreed, saying: “This is a whole new model for the way that online charity campaigns can work.”