Before Peacock, before Disney+, before HBO Max, before Prime, before Hulu, before Netflix--at least the streaming service--there was YouTube. The streaming giant, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, was founded with the idea of making it easy for anyone to upload their videos to the internet. People also started uploading copyrighted material as well, and even though Hollywood fought against it for a long time, and still takes down plenty of material, the studios and networks have long embraced YouTube as an excellent promotional tool.
The success of YouTube probably helped lead to the rise of streaming in general, and also led YouTube and parent company Google to decide to get into the original programming business themselves. Despite the fact that Google threw tons of money at its own content, the result was a spectacular flop, with YouTube Originals producing exactly one hit breakout series, Cobra Kai, which promptly got picked up by Netflix. Among the various programming YouTube produced during the era of the late teens and early 20s before it threw in the towel was a one-off Christmas special starring comedian Ken Jeong.
Jeong, familiar to most people thanks to his roles in Community, The Hangover franchise, and The Masked Singer, is one of those comedians who probably works best in small doses. That might explain how Ken Jeong Cracks Christmas, which was a co-production of YouTube, BuzzFeed, and Sony, only has about 1.2 million views after 7 years. The other problem is that the special doesn't really do anything that you haven't seen on late night talk shows.
The premise is that Jeong visits places that are doing Christmassy things, interview the people running said thing, than participate in said thing himself. During the course of the half-hour special, he visits a Santa Claus training school, then a ballet company rehearsing The Nutcracker, and then the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles to become a caroler. While, oddly, he does not end up in a Santa outfit during the first segment (though he does don said apparel before the end), he does end up in a tutu, jumping all over the ballet's rehearsal hall and also shows up to a party to carol wearing Christmas Carol-esque clothing.
All of this is mildly cute, but not really all that informative or funny. Apparently realizing that Jeong in a tutu wouldn't be enough to hold viewers' interest, there are a number of special guests throughout the show. Jeong's Crazy Rich Asians co-star Harry Shum, Jr. shows up at the ballet (as Crazy Rich Asians had come out earlier in 2018, there are numerous references to Jeong being in the film), Angela Kinsey of The Office pops up during the caroling sequence, and Joel McHale, who spent six seasons (and maybe a movie) on Community with Jeong, pops up during the closing credits as part of the fourth segment, where he and Jeong had to wrap a tricycle at the Ronald McDonald House (this is likely part of a longer segment that got cut--why, I don't know, as the special runs only 22 minutes. Given that there isn't really a time restriction for the Internet, I'm guessing that Sony et al hoped to get this on commercial TV at some point).
The special is perfectly OK, but isn't any more than that, and yes, 22 minutes of Ken Jeong is a lot of Ken Jeong. The low viewership numbers probably explain why there hasn't been an entire series of Ken Jeong Cracks... speicals, and we're probably better off for it. Sorry, Ken, but Ken Jeong Cracks Christmas may help explain while YouTube was never really able to crack original programming.
Next time: A Canadian speical from a Canadian snowbird.
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