Now, why Jib Jab? Well, quite honestly I had just recently heard about Jib Jab (yeah, what can I tell ya). Anyway, I hadn’t realized they were the same guys who did that Kerry/Bush singing cartoon that was seen by 80 million people (you know their big dancing heads on those tiny animated bodies) or that they were the same guys who had hired John Landis of Animal House fame to direct the comedy jail videos that Leno just promoted.

So when I was introduced to the site via a friend of mine, Laurie Caso, I figured it had to be good. You see Laurie used to be involved with comedy development at CBS putting shows on like WKRP in Cincinnati and Alice. He was also the executive producer for the long running award winning soap "As the World Turns" for many years. Now he is working as Vice President of Program Development at Redpost Production Studio, a division of National Audio Video’s studio.

When we met with the good folks at Jib Jab, we tossed around a few ideas and came up with me putting my fast talking rendition of "Twas Night Before Christmas" on the site to see how people would react. I also had the MasterCard spoof that my son, Spencer and I had done which was on my website already, but thought what the heck, can’t hurt to stick it up so more people could view it.

So the next day (why waste time) I went to Laurie’s studio, and recorded the "Night Before Christmas". It took all of one minute. Since I was there and it took longer to drive in than to do the recording, I figured why not also record my first audio book. Yup, I now have a motivational audio book, a timeless classic called, "The Science of Getting Rich" on tape. (It will be available the end of January). The book of course took a little longer to tape. Hey, I’m a fast talker, not a miracle worker.

With the fast talking tale recorded and formatted for the web, the Jib Jab people said they wanted to wait till December 12th to release it, the day after the Jib Jab brothers were mentioned on Leno. I thought that was a wonderful time…can’t hurt having a plug from the Late Night king himself.

What transpired next was totally unexpected. On December 12th, Laurie and I received an email from their webmaster telling us the two pieces were now live. He sent us the link. It was sent at exactly 10:30 pm. Anxiously, I looked at the link and saw there were already 212 hits. Wow that was quick. How the heck did people find it so quickly, what --- were operators standing by?

At midnight I decided to send an email out to my mailing list. I also told my son, Spencer to send it to his friends as well. Laurie sent it to his list, and his son sent it to his friends as well. I figured in the morning they’d all see it, and then they’d start checking it out.

By 1 a.m. when I went to bed there were 619 hits. Four hundred people looked at it in one hour. I pictured some Asian person looking at it saying, "Oh this lady talk too fast."

The next morning I got up and before even working out, I turned on my computer and checked. There were 1,500 hits and it was only 9 a.m. Apparently a lot of people don’t sleep.

By 10 a.m. it was up to 1,600. Wow, word of mouth spreads fast. I was now addicted to watching the results. It was like watching a horse race.

By noon, I had to leave for a comedy gig at a casino - The Turning Stone in Verona, New York. It was a four-hour drive from my house, so I’d have no Internet access and I didn’t think working at my laptop as I drove would be a good option.

At 12:30 my cell phone rang. It was my son. Turns out he was just as addicted to the results as I was.
"Mom we’re up to 2,600 hits!"
"Wow, how do they find one little video out of thousands? They can’t all be my friends. Or maybe so! " Whatever it was, it was awesome.

As I was about to hang up, my competitive spirit kicked in. "Hey Spence, do me a favor. Check which video in my section has the most hits." A moment later I hear, "6,000 hits for this one video that had been up for a month".
"6,000. That’s my goal then. If I get 6,000 hits in one day, I’ll be happy."

I called Laurie to tell him that the video was getting a bunch of hits. I figured he was working on some other project. As soon as I called his office, the secretary Eddy said, "Fran your website has 3,500 hits!" Wow, I guess they were as addicted as I was.

All day long, the phone calls flew back and forth. People kept spreading the link. I felt like I was talking to a bookie…"Place $100 on fast talker in the box. Put $50 on the kid in the MasterCard."

By 6:30 we were up to 6,000 hits! YES! My goal was reached. I was now a happy Internet camper.

When I went down to the casino showroom to perform, my blood was pumping. I wanted to stay by the phone. How high could it go in 24 hours? It was like waiting for a baby to be delivered. Is it a boy? A girl? Does it have ten toes? What’s the final deal?

After my show, I ran up to my room and called Laurie at home. His wife, Pat answered. "Fran, congratulations…you’re fantastic. The numbers keeping going up."

Spencer, then called while I was on the phone with Laurie, with call butt in. ‘Mom, your video moved to the home page! Your video is now number three."
"Three! Wow. Who am I up against?"
"Charlie Brown, and a Budweiser commercial with horses."
"Man, that’s stiff competition, animals and cartoons are hard to beat".
"Tell Laurie mom."
"I will. Thanks for keeping me informed."

I clicked to speak to Laurie. He told me he got an email from the webmaster while I was onstage earlier. It read:

At 07:29 PM 12/12/06 -0800:
Fran:
Your recording is now on the homepage of JibJab. Depending on when you read this, it might not be there anymore, as those 'Popular Jokes' slots are controlled by a mathematical algorithm of how many people are watching and sharing a video. But attached is a screengrab of that video on the homepage.

This was awesome. They were watching the numbers also at Jib Jab. Very cool. Laurie and I were thrilled. Apparently making it to the home page in such a short time was a big thing. I was hoping when I got home tomorrow it would still be up so I could see it. Where were the Nielson ratings when you need them? Actually this was much better than that. As my good friend John Basedow (who has a new reality show on the web which I play a part in) pointed out, "The Internet is the best monitoring source for advertisers to see who’s watching your program. The numbers are real unlike traditional TV reporting figures that are based on "guess-timates" from the one in several thousand people who has a ratings box". Yes, these were actual numbers of people watching! How cool is that!

I hung up the phone and decided I should head to bed.
The phone thought otherwise. "Mom, you’re number two. Call Laurie and tell him!"
I looked at the clock…it was 11 p.m. What the heck, he was probably still up anyway. "Laurie, I promise this is the last time I’m going to call but I wanted to tell you that –"
"Fran, We made it to number one!."
"What? Two seconds ago I was at number two! Damn that was quick. Can’t believe I beat out Charlie Brown…wow---sorry Charlie."

We now had over 10,000 hits in less than 24 hours. Not bad for a little fast-talking. I was jumping up and down like a kid, you would have thought I won the lottery.

I drove home the next day, dashed into my house and the video was still on the home page. It had reached 12, 474 hits with 22 links.
The MasterCard commercial had come in with 6,148 hits.

I looked at my emails, I had over 400 emails!

Not only that, radio stations were calling and setting up interviews for me to do it live on their show. The numbers speak for themselves. If this is what can happen with a one-minute video, imagine when I start submitting regular pieces. I love it!

Of course, I don’t know where this will all lead, but one thing is for sure, the power of the Internet is awesome and I’m sure enjoying the ride.

If you would like to hear the video for yourself, click here, or find it here on jibjab.com.

Thanks to all my friends for viewing it and passing on the word!