Reel Pop

Last night at the inaugural Webby Film and video awards, Rob Corddry walked on stage in a banana costume.

Odd choice that. Here's a professional funny man with a canceled television show -- television! -- hosting a 300-person theater of geeks who fawn over cute kittens, a fake 15-year-old girl, and a grown man in ninja garb. Of course the banana peal makes sense. This is comedy 101, ne pas? You can almost hear the slapstick soundtrack, the slip of the banana, in Corddry's head. The audience, perhaps oblivious they were being talked down to, howled at every one of his boffo, over-the-top, I'm-gonna-punch-you-in-the-balls jokes.

I mean, strange choice for a host, right? Web video artists, yearning for legitimacy, choose as their marquee draw a man who made his name in TV and film.

That's not all. Consider another Web video presentation, Broadband Enterprise's first annual online upfronts, held just two weeks prior at the Nokia Theater down the street. The theme that night: Television. The music: A 10-piece jazz band in pinstripes and fedoras. The presentations: Faux mid-century newsreels. The entertainment: A tap dancer.

What's going on here? Why the cloying regard for television's golden age? Why the retro style? You may be winking at TV, that dying medium, but you're also struggling to capture its gravitas. Oh online video. You can't decide if you want to beat TV or be TV.