Michael Cera, Sarah Silverman, and friends found a new YouTube channel

Alice Jones' Arts Diary

Eric Wareheim, Sarah Silverman, Michael Cera, Tim Heidecker and Reggie Watts have launched a comedy Youtube channel (Getty Images)

Sarah Silverman has teamed up with Juno star Michael Cera, Reggie Watts, and Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim (aka Tim and Eric) for a new comedy venture – their own YouTube channel, JASH. The online video site, which launched at SXSW this week, is funded by Google but run by the comedians as “the first fully realised network to offer all its comedic partners complete creative autonomy”. Each will curate his or her own channel as well as the main site and will upload original content and anything they find funny. Silverman is working on a spoof French thriller while Cera is finishing a 25-minute short film. In their first group clip, the gang claims that JASH has deleted all YouTube videos in order to start the internet afresh, with “the kind of videos you want to see”. Silverman is shown chucking a baby into a cot and Cera pondering whether the internet is “a step down” for his career.

JASH (it stands for Just Attitude, So Hey; they wanted to call it Josh.com but that was already taken) will look to emulate the success of Will Ferrell's FunnyorDie.com and Jerry Seinfeld's recent online serial Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. But the site is overseen by Jimmy Kimmel Live!'s producers so the potential for crossover to old-fashioned TV is still high.

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A Scottish opening for the Black Swan choreographer

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