Check out the new Halloween episode of my series The Guys in 3A, in which Dave and I carve pumpkins:

Also, make sure to check out Better Than The Machine’s scary Halloween sketch Raw Pumpkin Peril!, in which someone’s head explodes in a bloody mess and is replaced by a pumpkin. Hint: that someone is me.

This sketch was supposed to be on CW’s Online Nation, which was canceled. No worries, though: at 500 views, it has already received more hits than the number of people who watched that show.

Have a spooky Halloween!

–The Late Reid Levin.

Check out our new video “The First Date,” which highlights two things. One: it is often times best to keep your mouth shut. Two: Better Than The Machiners should not date.

I’ve been doing a lot of editing lately, so Paul took up the reigns on this bad boy. I’m happy with how it turned out. This was a good writing effort between the four of us (!), which always makes me happy. The biggest bastard of the process was the sun, who started to set half-way during our filming. So the sun sets earlier now and we should start filming before 5:00 PM? I guess we didn’t get the memo.

Paul and I forced Carlos to be in this video even though he got his hair cut (what he considered) a little too short. I didn’t want to be in it because I shaved my beard for Halloween and am going around mustachioed at the moment, and that should not be caught on film. Paul, on the other hand, just thought it would be funny to show off Carlos’s new doo. I don’t think it looks bad, CC.

We now have 40 videos on our YouTube channel, which sort of blows my mind. I’m planning a little video celebration once we hit 50. You can hold me to that!

Tonight only: for the first and last time, we’re doing an improv show at the People’s Improv Theater. It’s part of their new “Sketchprov” Festival, which basically means sketch groups making fools out of themselves by attempting improv. Should be fun!

Make sure to check betterthanthemachine.net next week for a brand new video!

–Reid.

In this week’s installment of The Guys in 3A, Dave and I form a band… and a weird mental link. The music at the end of the episode was played by Chris Zalewski, Joe Grassia, and me–who actually did form a band a few years ago*. Thanks for letting me use it, guys.

Check out MUSIC here:

–Reid.

*But not a strange mental link.**

**I mean we formed a mental link, it just wasn’t strange.

We made Carlos get naked in Times Square, while wearing a fake mustache and an FDNY cap. All this while the Naked Cowboy’s PR man (yes, the Naked Cowboy has a PR man) was taunting Carlos about being a little girl. I could go on and on about how this is crueler than you might initially think (which is already probably pretty cruel), but I’ll let your imagination do the rest.

In New York City, there are ads everywhere that inform the citizenry that “if you see something, [you should] say something”. This campaign is designed to thwart terrorism through the work of vigilant New Yorkers, many of whom, unfortunately, are not very bright.

Better Than The Machine’s new video is the story of one such hero: Mr. Bobby Fitzsimmons. Bobby is determined to single-handedly fight terrorism in NYC, or at least to make himself feel important. This is by far our New Yorkiest video ever. Check out “See Something, Say Something” here:

In slightly sadder news, Paul and I sat down to watch the CW’s Online Nation tonight and discovered that it was canceled and no one told us. Needless to say, it seems the remaining episodes we were supposed to be in will not be airing. We haven’t heard this directly, but the Internet seems to confirm it. Ultimately, this is not altogether surprising.

Keep your eyes peeled for suspicious activities or packages and, as always, make sure to check betterthanthemachine.net next week for a brand new video!

–Reid.

While staving off real life crises of identity, Dave and I decided to do an episode of The Guys in 3A where we manage to deal with similar problems within three minutes using Internet quizzes.

There is a five minute cut of this episode in the depths of Final Cut that just might appear on our Season 1 DVD box set if our Internet fanbase is vocal enough about it to NBC Universal. It features two entire montages with a re-mixed version of the theme song (played by underground sensation Toyty-Toyd and Boyd). Guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

–Reid.

Better Than The Machine normally releases holiday videos too late to be featured anywhere, so this month we decided to get a jump start on Halloween!

Check out our new Halloween video Raw Pumpkin Peril! It’s a cautionary tale about why not to eat raw pumpkins. Take it to heart (or to head, as the case may be).

The responsibility of writing a holiday video once again fell to me. The editing also fell to me, and I gotta say, there’s nothing like animating your own head exploding to make you feel mortal.

Make sure to check betterthanthemachine.net next week for a brand new video!

–Reid.

In today’s episode of The Guys in 3A, Dave and I apologize for the unapologetic. People and institutions like George W. Bush, the New York Mets, and people who spit gum on the ground won’t know what hit ‘em!

–Reid.

Tonight, a girl on the street recognized Matt and Carlos as having been on the television yesterday. She seemed quite enthused.

Paul and I tried to explain to her that we, too, had been on TV yesterday, but she didn’t care.

–Reid.

Check out our new Better Than The Machine video: Cuddle Time! We prove the old dictum that “friends who cuddle together stay together”. Also, impressively, we all managed to fit into Paul’s bed for this one, and he still sleeps in a child-sized cot. Check it out:

Also, we were on TV again tonight! Not one, but two of our sketches were featured on tonight’s episode of The CW’s Online Nation.

First up was our award-winning Cingular parody “Another Dropped Call” (presented on Online Nation as “Dropped Out” by Reid & Carlos from New York):

Next up was everyone’s favorite sketch featuring my Grandmother, “A Kidnapper Has Your Daughter!” (presented on Online Nation as “Wrong Number” by Reid from New York):

In the edit on television, they blurred out the 212 in the phone number Matt holds up, which I thought was funny because we used a 555 number. If you were one of the 12 people who saw this on television, now you know which fake phone number to prank call.

More of our sketches will be featured on future episodes of Online Nation. We’ll let you know when they’ll air soon, so make sure to stay tuned to betterthanthemachine.net for more details!

And of course, make sure to check betterthanthemachine.net next week for a brand new video!

–Reid.

I’m worn out from people accusing Better Than The Machine of making fun of Britney Spears in an inappropriate manner. We made fun of something she chose to do in public. We didn’t make fun of her personal life, which is very good fodder for a lot of comics.

As a group, we tend to be far more interested in the dumb things famous people do and say in public and the public’s strange obsession with them than we are with making fun of what goes on in their private lives.

Despite this, people have gone so far as to accuse us of pushing Britney Spears to the brink of suicide. This is beyond ridiculous for so many reasons that I finally just decided to make a video response that is even beyonder beyond ridiculous. It breaks with my policy of never, ever feeding the Internet trolls who comment on our videos, but what the hell.

This is sort of a preview of the next episode of The Guys in 3A, and it’s sort of a BTTM video response, but it’s mostly just me venting. Thanks to Dave for shooting it.

–Reid.