Internet Nostalgia

Let’s Revisit Will Ferrell’s ‘The Landlord’

Remember when internet comedy was the future?

This is the next installment of our Internet Nostalgia series, which looks back at stories that captured the imagination and attention of the internet for a fleeting moment and then vanished as everyone moved on to something else. The world of the internet moves so quickly that things that happened five years ago might as well be black-and-white newsreel footage at this point. This series looks back at those phenomena and what they told us about the internet and ourselves. If you have a suggested topic, email me at williamfleitch@yahoo.com. Last week, we looked at The Subservient Chicken. Today: Will Ferrell’s “The Landlord.”

Date: April 2007

The story: It was a simple little video, only two and a half minutes long, and it appeared to be shot on a camcorder made in the mid-90s. It featured Will Ferrell and a friend nobody knew (it turned out to be future Oscar winner Adam McKay, Ferrell’s longtime collaborator) making eggs and talking (amusingly) about the news of the day. Then a knock at the door. It’s Ferrell’s landlord. She’s two years old. And she’s very angry.