It's Back! Couchathon 2, March 2010!

It’s BACK! Because what the world needs is less suffering. And more comedy. And more comedic suffering. The Internet’s premiere “locking comedians in a room” telethon will return in March for another go round! Bigger! Better! More guests!  Less rational thought! More college basketball references! Worse! Exactly the same number of Imponderables! Less capes! More music! Less horrible bandwidth problems! More charity!

Basically it’s going to be everything you loved about Couchathon 1 - but a minimum of 16 months more futuristic. So stay tuned here for more details as we lead up to the big show.

Most importantly - don’t feel that you have to wait until March to get that Couchathon spirit going! Celebrate the holidays by totally sticking the pain to us already - Donations via the ChipIn widget below will “start the clock” on the 2010 Couchathon and add time to how long our intrepid ass-tranauts will be stuck on a couch, entertaining you live. And as a special holiday bonus - the fine folks at Rocket Ace Moving Pictures will even cover the Paypal fees out of their own pocket so 100% of your donations will go to Sick Kids and Child’s Play. What are you waiting for? The best worst idea ever is BACK!

As the Couchathon has been in the news this week we’re seeing an uptick in traffic to the site so I thought a breif introduction might be in order.

1. What Was the Couchathon?

The Couchathon was a live web telethon that started on November 26, 2008. The Canadian Comedy Award winning sketch group The Imponderables agreed to sit on a couch without sleep for as long as people kept donating money to two notable Children’s charities - Sick Kids Foundation and Child’s Play. The cruel taskmasters at Rocket Ace Moving Pictures agreed to broadcast them live on the Internet. Then a veritable who’s-who of Toronto comic and musical talent came by over the course of the next 30 hours to entertain the Imps (and the home viewers). Part Jerry Lewis Telethon, part theatre of cruelty… it was truly a one-of-a-kind event.

2. How Much Did the Couchathon Raise?

Late donations (as well as some very generous sponsor contributions) continued to come in well past the end of the Couchathon broadcast (and throughout December and January). The final tally was in excess of $10,000.

3. Will the Couchathon Be Back in 2009?

There is a lot of interest in bringing back a bigger and better Couchathon in 2009. Our biggest hurdle at the moment is finding an appropriate venue. While NOW magazine was a tremendous host in 2008, their facilities will likely be going through major renovations. If you represent a venue with public accessibility and reasonable passerby-traffic that would be interested in hosting a madcap around-the-clock telethon for a very worthy cause we would love to hear from to you.

If you have any other questions about the Couchathon or would like to be notified when there is more information about a 2009 edition of the webithon, just drop us a note!

Through the looking glass!

The Rocket Ace Moving Pictures gang threw a couple of “behind the scenes” photos from the Couchathon up on to the RAMP Flickr photo-stream, so if you ever wanted to know what Couchathon “mission control”, or the “Christmas snowflakes” actually look like… now’s your chance!

One of my favourite surprises from this years ‘thon was around 1am, when singer-songwriter David Celia showed up, out of the blue, to keep us going with an eerily venue-appropriate song.

In case you missed it the first time around, Jon had accepted a bet to speak only French for most of this hour.

In the fog of “the day after” I’m left with nothing but warm feelings, and cool memories - here’s just a few as the only materials at hand with which we can say “thank you”:

Hour 1 - This is for everyone in #the-couchathon who wondered how we got fixated on Punky Brewster for several hours. It also contains good advice for those disposing of old refridgerators.

Doesn’t everyone look so clean and fresh?

Hour 3 - Dave drew a lot of flack when he revealed that on Halloween he made chicken curry, watched The Birds and wore “his cape”. That was funny enough, then Taylor brought his cape in.

Hour 6 - Dave Bidini (sorry about the chyron typo, Dave), Cecilia, and Lorenzo came by to read stories, give tips on staying awake, and sing this rousing version of the Johnny Cash classic “Nasty Dan”. Also, Jon revealed he had hid an accordion behind the couch. Dave is still wearing his cape for some reason.

Hour 14 - Pat Thornton came by to sing a rare live version of The Owl and The Man theme song, but one specific to the Couchathon. Pat then forgot he had to work the next days and decided to join us until 3:30am. Sucker.

Hour 15 - We had a contest where the next person to donate could pick a sketch to be performed live. They inexplicably picked “The Toaster Sketch”. We didn’t have a toaster, so enjoy the majesty of… “The Kettle Sketch”.

Hour 19 - Just when things were seeming their darkest (both figuratively and literally) around 3am, we were saved by our own audience! Gord, Martin, and Laura who each had independently gotten addicted to our IRC channel decided to come rescue us. Even though they had never met each other they hopped onto streetcars, taxis, and dark alleys to come to aid, turning the Couchathon into a late-night house party. Quickly dubbed “The Graveyard Shift”, they rocked our tiny webcast hard. While the Dylan song “I Shall Be Released”, was only one of the songs we jammed to (and was one of the most poorly captured video-wise) it’s a very nice sample of what those crazy, puppet-filled hours were like.

Hi Everybody,

I think everyone is feeling a little better after about 17 hours of sleep. Although pretty much the last thing in the world we feel like doing at Couchathon HQ is firing up ye-olde computers again - we’re going to try and get some “Best” of Couchathon videos up here in the next couple of hours.

Thanks to everyone who helpted to make The Couchathon such a resounding success. In a little over 29 hours we managed to raise over $5,500 for Child’s Play and Sick Kids Foundation - and hopefully help to get both of their holiday drives off to good starts.

We can’t begin to tell you how appreciative we all are for every individual donor, guest, chat participant, sponsor and viewer. Hopefully, we came close to our goal of delivering a completely unique spectacle in exchange for your support — it certainly was a a brand new experience for every one of us involved with the production of the ‘thon.

We’ll be updating odds and ends (as well as our exact final totals) on the website in the coming week - - but first sleep… and lots of it!

Have a great weekend everyone, and thanks again,

- The Couchathon Team

Hey during the couchathon we’ve made some great crafts - and you can buy them on eBay - NOW!
All proceeds to (surprise) THE COUCHATHON!

The Imps made some cool jewelry with HGTV and FLORO jewelry designer Emmanuel Belliveau - you can buy them on eBay (all proceeds to the Couchathon)!

The Imps made some (questionable) Christmas ornaments with HGTV’s Andrika Lawren - you can buy them on eBay (all proceeds to the Couchathon)!

No matter what you thought of the Couchathon you had to be blown away by our incredible first day. Not only are we well on our way to meeting our 24-hour goal - we’ve raised over $2700 at the time of this writing (5am).

We had a great spate of special guests here on the couch. Mark Forward brought some awful cookies, Dave Bedini and his kids read stories and played songs, Adam Growe played Cash Cab with his own money, Andrika Lawren did an amazing arts and crafts hour, Nikki Payne delivered one of the all time great profane rants, Jon Dore was mildly put out, Andre Arruda came to chill out, Trevor Boris and Debrah DiGiovanni participated in all kinds of midnight shennanigans, and then Pat Thornton just stayed on the couch for another three hours.

Just when it looked like the cavalcade of all-star talent had dried up - our own chat room came to the rescue with a 4am visit from three of our most hardcore followers to lead a rousing sing-along that was significantly more competent than our own attempt.

Now we’re heading into a brand new day all charged up - who knows what tomorrow holds?

Well it was only a matter of time before I screwed something up. If you used one of our ChipIn donation buttons on your blog or website prior to about 11pm tonight (Wednesday) you’re going to have to replace the code. The new codes are on our links page - just click “copy” on either widget to get the embed codes.

My apologies, I made one little typo and accidentally closed the other widget off forever. Clearly it’s bedtime. Did I mention that the couchathon is less than TEN HOURS AWAY?!

Commence freaking out.