As much as I love movies and TV, I don’t spend near the amount of time watching as I do playing around on the internet — I mean doing important work-related things on the internet. Admittedly most of the stuff out there is a wasteland of wanna-be comedians, modern-day muckrakers, and attention-starved posers with delusions of grandeur.

With all of that crap in the way, how is a perfectly sane person like me or you (well…most of you) supposed to find anything worth wasting our time on? Well I’ve found that the best stuff is stumbled upon purely by accident or recommended by a friend with awesome tastes. Now I’m passing on six recommendations for fantastic video series on the internet:

6. Multiple Shows on Cracked.com

Cracked.com is a site I ran across one particularly boring day when I was repeatedly tapping the Stumble button on my toolbar. I initially only checked out their hilarious (and often crude) articles, but soon found out that the site boasts some pretty great videos as well.  Hate By Numbers, the commentary done by staff member Gladstone wherein he counts off everything he hates about some new piece of pop culture,  is my favorite. I love his dead-pan delivery and sarcasm spread thicker than a tranny’s make-up. You can catch all the archived episodes, as well as the almost equally great Agents of Cracked (the fictional *I hope* account of life in the Cracked offices) and Micheal Swaim’s funny-for-all-the-wrong-reasons solo stuff.

5. Thew’s Awesome Transformer Reviews

Sporting one of those overly confident names that sounds like it was thought up by a 10-year old, TATR actually lives up to its promises of awesomeness. I had my misgivings when Kaleb first recommended this to me. On a scale of Transformers fandom I fall into the Casual Fan realm, having enjoyed them most as a child and owning nothing related to the series now. Kaleb on the other hand  is somewhere along the Religious Fanatic end of the spectrum, and I deeply suspect he’s building his own Transformers cult out in the Midwest (like Midwesterners are wont to do). It should then speak to this guy’s mad charm and appeal that he can get someone like me to devour every one of his videos as they come out. He has a great mix of wit, never ending geeky references,  an uncanny Strong Bad impersonation and, in his own words, “ludicrous facial hair”.  What more could you want? Over 2,000 subscribers say “Nothing, that’s what!”

4. The Receptionist

I have Netflix to thank for this one, in a roundabout way. Some of you may remember my recommendation of what is easily my cult find of the decade, Lo, which I found out about through a Netflix recommendation. Seeing as how fantastic that movie was I then went on a quest to check out the director’s other films. That then led to friending him (like Googling, but theoretically more personal and ridiculous-sounding) on Facebook, which led to finding out that he’s been doing a quirky Youtube video series for a couple of years now. These things are easily the most creative and entertaining videos I’ve seen in a long time.  The plot (there’s a plot?) goes like this: Travis Betz is a receptionist at some boring, nondescript company. When he’s got nothing better to do during the work day (which seems to be all of the time) he takes construction paper and creates little worlds and stories, usually involving hilarious songs.  You can’t not watch these.

3.  Pretty Much Anything on Homestarrunner.com

All the cool people on the internet know about Homestarrunner.com by now.  If you somehow don’t know about it, then don’t tell anybody. The internet is made of people who love to ridicule those who haven’t spent 80% of their lives looking at every single website and video as soon as it comes out. Just take my advice and head on over there now for a healthy and hilarious offbeat dose of Strong Bad (and, by association, Teen Girl Squad), Coach Z, Homestar Runner and the rest of the gang. Your day will not be made complete until you do.

2. Zero Punctuation

Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s ruthless video game review series is easily one of the most hilarious and insightful looks into games that you will find anywhere. The videos are an assualt on the senses, with Yahtzee’s blazing fast commentary accompanied by animated imps and representations of the video game characters and reviewer himself acting out what he’s saying. It might take a bit more concentration that the average person is used to spending on a review, but I promise you it won’t disappoint. Warning: The easily offended need not enter.

1. The Guild

Ah, The Guild. All this other stuff on the list is awesome sauce (why is everyone saying that now?), but The Guild is by far my favorite. The show is the brainchild of the immensely talented and gorgeous former-WOW-addict Felicia Day.  The Guild is about the lives of a group who originally only connected through their MMORPG’s guild, but get pushed into interacting with each other in real-life and eventually grow as a team and become (slightly) less socially backward. RPG fans are gonna find enough in-jokes and self-mockery to keep them up all night guffawing, but even the rest of us geeks can appreciate the amazing ingenuity and wit of this show. Be sure to check out their first and second music video and Youtube channel.

Honorable Mention:

Another video series I can’t imagine not being subscribed to belongs to MRFH’s own Kaleb. The only reason he doesn’t make it on this list is because I figured that’s akin to Mutant Nepotism or something. Topics run from Transformers (and 70’s cop films, apparently) to voice actors (a couple of videos actually got the attention and comments of Vic Mignogna!) and random stuff he’s got around his house ( A nose-shaped shampoo dispenser?)   There’s something for everyone!

Go, and be secure in the knowledge that your internet browsing just got slightly spectacular.