Jewish Arabia

It is the year 2020. Yossi and Itamar head to the Palestinian town of Taybeh, to ask its citizens about a future Arab-Jewish State. As a new unified citizenry, the identity of the "other" must be re-established with new scapegoats and enemies, those that everyone can hate together.

via Street Boners and TV Carnage

The Evil Jewish Robot

Google Alerts alerted me to Paul Fricke's Jewish Robot Comics at Blue Moon Studios. Nicely illustrated! Though not quite as lovable as Shabot.

Matzah Time

Time has posted an article online, So You Think You Know Matzo?, mentioning the "20 Things To Do With Matzah" video I made with Michelle Citrin. And, this Passover, our video has received over 1,000,000 views on YouTube!

Matzah Boy

Meet Billy, son of Simon. Simon edited our "20 Things To Do With Matzah" music video, as well as Rosh Hashanah Girl and Pass The Candle. This is a photo from Simon's blog, of Billy's first Passover party at preschool here in Brooklyn. According to Simon, Billy prefers to strip and eat the chocolate off the matzah, leaving behind the flat, unleavened bread. At least we know what he can do with all that leftover matzah!

See more photos, and help Simon solve the mystery of the frogs.

Passover Videos

JTA, one of the sponsors of the Pass The Candle music video I made with Michelle Citrin for Hanukkah, was busy this week with articles and blog posts about Jewish videos for Passover. Author Amy Klein took an in depth look at the reasons behind the Jewish YouTube craze in her article, Let my people post Passover videos, where she interviewed Michelle about our Matzah Song, and followed up with a Top 10 list, 10 YouTube videos for Passover, (which I'm surprised failed to mention my Shabot 6000 "Seda' Club"), placing our "20 Things To Do With Matzah" at the #1 spot. And as a bonus, a JTA blog post, Two more Passover videos, by Ami Eden, gives a shout out to Bitter Herb.

Thanks for all the attention, JTA!

Bitter Herb

Meet Bitter Herb, the star of my new Passover cartoon for Taglit-Birthright Israel. His name pretty much says it all -- please try to laugh with this standup comic, not at him.

Starring Meir Taub as Bitter Herb
Illustration, animation and music by me (William Levin)

Share it with your friends!

20 Things To Do With Outtakes

This Passover marks the first anniversary of Michelle Citrin's and my video, "20 Things To Do With Matzah". To celebrate, Michelle compiled this blooper reel of our experience while making the video. There are some really funny moments in it, and as well as few embarrassing ones I forgot about. Thanks, Michelle! And thanks, Jesse Epstein, for your camerawork!

Also see the original video, "20 Things To Do With Matzah", edited by Simon Weaver.

Happy Passover!

Round Two with David Pogue

Two years ago I worked with New York Times technology columnist David Pogue to produce the animation for his Video Recorder Deathmatch, a battle between TiVo and generic DVR. And last week we followed up with a new epic battle, the Kindle 2 e-Reader vs. ... a Book! The video aired on CNBC last week, and can also be seen on JetBlue flights. You can also watch it on the NYTimes.com video website, and download a hi-res version from iTunes.

Concept, script, voiceover and video by David Pogue
Illustration, animation, and sound design by Macboy.com (me)
Edited by Ben Thompson at CNBC.

Swearing In, Faithfully

A little cartoon I made to celebrate Barack Obama's inauguration, and the flubbed oath courtesy of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Animation, voices and music by William Levin (me)

Yesterday's Robots

Check out A Review of the Best Robots of 2008 and the accompanying videos, including this captivating video of the Nao Robot above. The Jewish Robot was snubbed again, but better luck in 2009.