Unlikely, save for one determined Atlanta fan with a taste for hip-hop cartoons. Superdeluxe's staff was laid off in May, but it took the Time Warner subsidiary seven months to move a small portion of its video library over to AdultSwim.com and shut the site down.

Turner isn't the only one finding it hard to get a laugh. Funny Or Die, which has never matched the popularity of "The Landlord," the bossy-baby clip from Will Ferrell, has morphed into a collection of cooking videos and videogame walkthroughs. Heavy.com is in management disarray, and is trying to make money on its advertising network rather than funny videos. eBaum's World, bought by the older brother of Google founder Larry Page, is entwined in a baroque financial disaster. And JibJab, famed for its political-satire musical numbers, seems to make more of its money through serving as an advertising agency for the likes of OfficeMax and Honda.

Why the serial failures? One could point to the struggling market for online advertising, or sponsors' unease with the racier fare preferred by the young male demographic they're hoping to reach.

But I think it has more to do with the nature of humor. Telling someone that they're about to hear a really funny joke just raises expectations. A website dedicated to laffs will find its viewers inevitably drifting away as the gags go flat. Sad as it is to say, people go to YouTube prepared to be bored — and then they're delighted to find something mildly amusing, becauses it's so unexpected. There's no business to be built around such idle surfing — but it's the very nature of how people get their laughs.

JibJab's is a broad take on pop culture, Wallstrip's a review of the stock market, and Richter Scales is a rip on the Web (and some say a ripoff of other people's work). All of them are funny enough, but do they qualify as parodies?

According to the dictionary, a parody is "a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule." I don't buy that any of these videos qualify. They imitate Billy Joel's original not for comic effect but for convenience. For their creators, thinking of an original form for a quickly paced musical review of the news proved just too hard.

Then again, there's another definition for parody: "a feeble or ridiculous imitation." If the videographers want to claim that meaning, I won't stand in their way. Here are the three Joel derivatives. Judge for yourself the title they deserve.

It's not an ad. It was the lead-in video to Michael Dell's Oracle (Open)World keynote address to 41,000 tech types who know it means to kick proprietary a__s. — JohnP@Dell

More after the jump.

Somebody's ass should have gotten kicked alright. John is correct, it's not an ad, it is a PSA to remind you that rich a-holes are not humorous, they are not your friends; and no amount of marketing, ponytails or lame videos can change that.

I also received an email from JibJab concerning the Dell ad.

Dear Valleywaggers - This is Gregg Spiridellis, co-founder JibJab. I can promise you we had absolutely nothing to do with this video. We typically try to be funny :-)

We didn't believe JibJab actually produced the ad for that very same reason, only noting the video used a style of animation JibJab is well known for. We apologize to any Valleywag readers if our headline implied JabJab had anything to do with that craptastic video.

Who Is This Dell 'Viral' Ad For? [Gizmodo]
Did Dell Hire JibJab to Handle Advertising? [Valleywag]