April 24, 2013

It took Israeli animator/illustrator Leigh Lahav less than 24 hours to become a viral sensation with a custom-made video she prepared for her husband, Oren Mendezitsky. TV Bday PALOOZA features 12 opening credits of popular US television shows, personalized for Mendezitsky.

YouTube comments were quick to come, with many in awe of Lahav’s time-consuming dedication in producing what she terms “a compilation of re-created TV show intros/opening themes centered around my hubby Oren’s life, for his birthday.”

MSN picked up the story, as did Disney’s Babble and the Daily Mail Online.

The TV shows included in the three-minute video include Mad Men, Frasier, Arrested Development and The Office, among others.

While there’s no doubt the world now knows Lahav truly loves her husband, hopeful fans left her a few proposals in the comments box should she change her mind.

Of course, this was not the first time an Israeli-made personalized animation went viral. It would seem we’re a creative and innovative bunch in the field of drawn videos.

In March, Israeli artist and filmmaker Messe Kopp published an art video titled Forward and got the online community buzzing.

It’s an unbelievable video that shows him walking in “reverse” through the streets of downtown Jerusalem. Amazingly, the two-and-a-half minute clip – which has topped four million views — was reportedly shot in one take.

Then there was the stop-motion sensation 9 months in 1000 pictures, which brought in more than two million hits since airing in November 2012. In this case, it was husband Tomer Grencel, an internet entrepreneur and photographer, who decided to document his wife Osher’s pregnancy by snapping some 1,000 photos during her nine months of pregnancy.

The Israeli couple assumed it would make a great keepsake. But friends and family who saw the video clip encouraged them to upload it to YouTube – and it went viral immediately.

Just before that, artist Eran Amir’s Black & White (In Color) went viral with his short film that transforms a room of gray into a portrait with vibrant colors. He has a side video that shows viewers how he did it.

Black & White (In Color) was actually Amir’s second video to hit over a million viewers. His first video, 500 People in 100 Seconds, showed “500 people holding more than 1,500 (!!!) developed pictures all around Israel, creating a smooth music video within their hands.”

That clip was picked up by news organizations around the globe and had “viral” written all over it.

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