Jake and Amir

History

Jake and Amir was one of CollegeHumor's longest-running series. The series began with Hurwitz and Blumenfeld making short comedic videos on their own; though both of them were CollegeHumor employees, the videos were just a hobby, posted on Vimeo. As they grew more popular, CollegeHumor began incorporating them into its website as an original feature, collaborating with the pair to create further episodes. Jake explains that Jake and Amir was never intended to be a series, "We actually had no idea we were creating a series at the time we were doing it. I just thought Amir was so funny, and I had this crappy camera. We just made these videos and our friends started passing them around. It kind of grew from there."

Production

The duo can create episodes of the show no matter where they are. Dan Frommer of Business Insider explains how "a trip to Florida became a four-part miniseries...broken-arm casts become props..girlfriends become actresses...[and] after an hour-plus presentation to the NY Videoblogging Meetup, they used the crowd as extras to shoot a scene for a future episode". The early episodes of the show were filmed on essentially no budget, with just a cheap camera without a tripod (no tripods are still used when "field shooting").

While both actors have problems laughing on camera, Jake finds it harder to keep a straight face, as displayed in the numerous outtakes videos posted onto their YouTube channel.

Concept

According to The Brandeis Hoot, "the show essentially involves either Amir annoying Jake in various ways or Jake messing with Amir". The series generally takes place at Jake and Amir's desks, though occasional episodes will move to other parts of the office or even a different location altogether. Some episodes have a common theme or MacGuffin that the episode revolves around (i.e. buying a guitar, explaining the economic crisis), while others are more stream-of-consciousness, with events moving unpredictably in random directions.

Jake is typically portrayed as the "straight man", generally acting as the rational, normal one of the pair. More recently, Jake has sometimes been portrayed as insecure, self-centered and ignorant, especially when girls or fashion are involved. It is also implied that Jake actually craves Amir's attention, and has become increasingly more annoying to the rest of his coworkers.

Amir, by contrast, is usually portrayed as the "funny man". Amir is obsessed with Jake, and often says or does annoying things to try to spend time with him. Amir is also obsessed with fast food chain McDonald's, and especially with their Chicken McNuggets. He is unhealthy, doesn't do any work, and lacks common sense and a basic education. He can also be very aggressive or physically abusive towards his co-workers, who generally hate him. He has various friends and relatives who are mentioned in the series (most commonly his cousin Leron and 'friend' Mickey), although they rarely appear. Mickey did make an appearance in "Finale part 5", played by actor Ed Helms.

In later episodes, co-worker Brian "Murph" Murphy has become a major character, as has his fiancée Emily Axford. Murph has terrorized Jake on several occasions, bullying him very physically for no known reason, while Emily is attracted to Jake, further enraging the anger-prone Murph, most notably in the episode "Table Read" and the "Dinner Date" series of episodes.

The show has featured many of their other co-workers such as Pat Cassels, Sarah Schneider, Jeff "Rosie" Rosenberg, Jeff Rubin, Dan Gurewitch, Rick Van Veen, Will Stephen, Paul Greenburg, Dave Rosenberg and Streeter Seidell. Several non-CollegeHumor employees have featured as guest stars to the series such as: Ben Schwartz playing a variety of roles such as Private Eye, Office Painter, Dating Coach, Couples Therapist, HR guy, the Mountain Hiker, Interrogator, Milkman, Real Estate Agent, and Movie Usher. In more recent episodes featuring Ben Schwartz, Jake has suffered physical and sexual abuse. Hoodie Allen, Amir's Rap Teacher has appeared in episodes "Rap Teacher (parts 1,2+3)". A running theme of these episodes is the raps Amir and Hoodie write involve aardvark semen, yet when Jake tries to come up with his own they are generally terrible. Rick Fox has also featured as both Amir's bookie, betting on past events causing Amir to lose significant amounts of money. It is discovered in episode "Rick Fox" that Rick is in fact consciously scamming. An odd running gag of these episodes is the vast amount of eggs that Rick appears to be stealing/hiding, yet when Jake questions this both Rick and Amir ridicule him and suggest he has an egg fetish. Thomas Middleditch has also recurred as Doobs, Amir's childhood frenemy. A running joke is that Amir mockingly uses the name "Doobs" as an insult for his last name Dubliner, ignoring the fact that his first name is Penis. With each appearance, Doobs changes his name to increasingly ridiculous and embarrassing names which Amir mocks with similarly harmless nicknames such as "Huds" or "Smitty". Another recurring joke is their incredible similarity despite their mutual hatred for each other. Takeru Kobayashi also appears briefly in an episode of his namesake as Amir feeds him hot-dogs. Three of The Gregory Brothers appeared in an episode, and released an accompanying song featuring Amir on their own YouTube channel. In January 2014, CollegeHumor's production staff (including Jake and Amir) moved to Los Angeles. Jake and Amir did a 7 part mini-series recapping their trip in an RV and continued to make videos at their new office every week.

Running jokes

The characters have several catchphrases (although they have recently become less common as the creators felt that the jokes were becoming less funny). Blumenfeld has said that their senses of humor have changed since they made earlier episodes. Both characters have attempted freestyle rapping, including in several episodes featuring Hoodie Allen.

Occasionally, Amir films a mini-series called "Ace and Jocelyn" in which he pretends that he and Jake are "astronaut accountants from outer space." Jake would frequently get annoyed by Amir often taking it too far (going as far as poisoning Jake's food with Visine for the sake of the episode). There are nine episodes of Amir's "Ace and Jocelyn" series.

Many of their catchphrases can be found on T-shirts that are sold on Busted Tees, which is run by the same company as CollegeHumor.

Fired (30-minute special)

On October 11, 2011, the release of the series' first paid episode was announced. The half-hour episode, titled Jake and Amir: Fired, deals with Amir being fired by a fictional new CEO of CollegeHumor - Alan Avery (Matt Walton) - due to the discovery of Amir's numerous shenanigans during his fictional time at CollegeHumor. Jake sees this as an opportunity to finally rid himself of Amir and start a new life. However, after discovering Amir at a new low and unable to find work, Jake feels bad and decides to help Amir get his old job back. To do so, Jake and Amir shoot a new episode of the farcical show "Ace and Jocelyn" involving Amir throwing plates (flying saucers) in a diner, tattooing a 'treasure map' onto his back, interrupting a funeral, raiding an elementary school and launching a live turkey concealed in a cage off a bridge and into traffic. The filming of the episode leaves Jake and Amir broken men yet it fails to impress Alan or earn Amir his job back at CollegeHumor. The episode is described by Alan as "garbage" and his application is denied. However Alan is revealed to be an embezzler, so the duo blackmails Alan into re-employing Amir. The episode closes with Amir back to his old ways, once again pestering Jake to become his best friend.

The episode generated considerable attention in online media due to the unusual and pioneering nature of selling an episode of a web series, though a more conventional DVD version was also sold alongside the digitally streamed one. The episode was the first CollegeHumor long-form release to rely solely on its own crew for production.

TV adaptation

On December 18, 2013, it was announced that the web series would be adapted into a TV series, to air on TBS. Ed Helms would serve as executive producer, alongside Hurwitz, Blumenfeld, Ricky Van Veen, Sam Reich, Mike Lisbe, Nate Reger, and Mike Falbo. Lisbe and Reger would have also served as showrunners for the series.

On January 28, 2015, during an episode of their podcast, Hurwitz and Blumenfeld announced that they had written a pilot for the series, but that TBS had yet to green light the pilot to be filmed. The two launched a social media campaign, entitled #GreenLightJakeAndAmir., in order to help convince TBS to respond. Helms, musician Moby, frequent collaborators Ben Schwartz, Hoodie Allen, and Rick Fox, and thousands of fans joined the campaign. Although TBS did not order a pilot, sister channel truTV expressed interest in the series.

On May 13, 2015, Amir Blumenfeld posted on his Twitter account, @jakeandamir, at 1:55 p.m. Pacific Time Zone, that truTV has ordered the pilot of the Jake and Amir TV show.

The pilot was filmed in August 2015, and on September 28, 2015, Blumenfeld and Hurwitz announced that they should hear whether or not it is picked up by the end of October.

On December 20, 2015, it was announced that truTV did not pick up the pilot.

However, on March 10, 2016, it was announced that the pair had produced a web television series that serves as a spiritual successor to Jake and Amir. It is entitled Lonely and Horny, and premiered on April 8, 2016 on Vimeo.

Reception

Over the course of its run as a web series, the show has received general acclaim as its style and viewership has both evolved and expanded. Jake and Amir won a Webby Award for Best Comedy: Long Running Form or Series in 2010, with Amir Blumenfeld also capturing the Best Individual Performance award that year.

The series has developed a fanbase, with over 270,000 people liking the series' Facebook page, and many more watching the videos on CollegeHumor, YouTube and Vimeo.

On the TV show Jeopardy!, in February 2014, "Jake and Amir" (along with another College Humor series) was the answer to a question—"What is College Humor?" being the question answered. Many people would consider this as "making it" as far as recognition on mainstream television.