New star-studded Web video protests Proposition 8

[Newsjock]

Source: Associated Press

... The video was posted Wednesday on FunnyOrDie.com, the video site co-founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. The site has found a niche in getting professional talent to quickly create topical comedy videos.

... The video was conceived and written by Marc Shaiman, the Tony Award-winning composer of "Hairspray" and "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut." McKay, who had previously collaborated with Shaiman on the song-and-dance routine Ferrell, Black and Reilly did at the Oscars earlier this year, sent him an e-mail floating the idea of a video.

Shaiman had been involved in a more serious debate over Proposition 8.

After voters approved Proposition 8, which changed the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage, it was revealed that Scott Eckern, the artistic director of the California Musical Theater in Sacramento (the state's largest nonprofit musical theater company) had donated $1,000 to the "Yes on 8" campaign.

Shaiman's "Hairspray" had played at the theater and he said he would never allow anything he wrote to play there because of Eckern's donation. Others protested and Eckern resigned in November.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/12/03/entertainment/e162232S44.DTL&tsp=1